Investing in the UK and EMEA

“We operate with the notion that we are a truly global school. The world is the context for everything that we do. We want to have the best faculty from across the world, and we want their work to have global impact. We want to attract the best students from across the globe, and we want them to be leaders around the world.”

So said Dean Madhav Rajan, as he welcomed an audience of Chicago Booth faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends to the Leading in London Grand Opening Celebration of the school’s new campus in London.

Located near St. Paul’s Cathedral in the heart of London’s business community, the stunning new campus space serves as a hub to build on Booth’s commitment to facilitate world-class business education, leadership insights, and partnerships in London and throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). “Our aspiration is that this campus will be a destination for thought-provoking programming and a robust exchange of ideas, as well as a center for alumni, business leaders, and friends from across the region,” Rajan said.

As the only US business school with campuses on three continents, Booth has a global footprint, attracting a high percentage of international students not only to the Executive MBA Program campuses in London, Chicago, and Hong Kong, but also to the US-based Full-Time and Part-Time MBA Programs. Booth’s 55,000-plus alumni live and work in more than 120 countries around the world.

Booth’s physical presence in the EMEA region dates back to 1994, when the school established a campus in Barcelona. The Europe campus moved to London in 2005, to Woolgate Exchange, in the district known as the City of London, before relocating to the new City of London space in Barts Square in 2020. The new campus underscores the importance of Booth’s presence in London and facilitates enhanced opportunities for the school to expand its impact across the region. It’s home to Booth’s Executive MBA Program London and Executive Education courses, and it provides a state-of-the-art location for events and education within one of the world’s leading centers of banking, finance, and tech.

Like Booth’s Chicago and Hong Kong campuses, the London campus features a vibrant selection of contemporary art—on loan from the collection of Katie and Felix Robyns, ’85—that focuses on the work of emerging artists and artists from the African diaspora and reflects Booth’s investment in young minds and fresh perspectives.

The Role of Business Schools in Social Impact

The topic of community engagement raises questions about whether business schools should be involved in social impact at all. As Kroszner put it, “Some people would say, ‘Well, business school is about business and making money. Why are you thinking about civic engagement?’”

Grossman countered that most MBA students and alumni are eager to make a difference on the issues that are close to their hearts. At Booth, the Rustandy Center offers hands-on learning opportunities, supports innovative courses, and pursues research—all with the goal of developing people and practices with the potential to solve the world’s biggest challenges. Grossman also noted that fields such as impact investing are relatively new. “How do you unpack that and understand something that is now part of finance that previously did not exist?” she said. “It was niche 10 years ago and certainly wasn’t part of mainstream conversation 20 years ago.”

As Booth and other business schools pivot to include an impact point of view, Kroszner said, the world is taking notice. “The Financial Times, for example, recently put out a responsible business report,” he said. The report included a section on awards, celebrating the institutions, researchers, and alumni helping to change the way the world does business.

Sendhil Mullainathan, the Roman Family University Professor of Computation and Behavioral Science, won a Financial Times Responsible Business Education Award in the best business school academic research category for his work studying how imperfect data can lead to unintended bias in artificial-intelligence applications. George Boghos, ’18, won it in the alumni change maker category for Autism in Motion Clinics, which provides applied behavior analysis therapy to children in underserved areas. AIM Clinics won first place in the Rustandy Center’s John Edwardson ’72 Social New Venture Challenge in 2018, and Boghos received additional support through the center’s Tarrson Social Venture Fellowship.

“I was thrilled that Chicago Booth was the only business school that won in two categories,” Kroszner said.

Many other Booth faculty and alumni are deeply engaged in impactful work on a variety of topics as well. For example, Pradeep K. Chintagunta, the Joseph T. and Bernice S. Lewis Distinguished Service Professor of Marketing, has demonstrated the benefits of coaching on micro-entrepreneurs in Rwanda and Uganda.