Positive, Disruptive Change
Dean Susan Fournier on how change drives businesses (and this magazine) forward
Markets change. Technologies change. Competitors change. Consumers change. Cultures change. Changes—big and small—drive organizations forward. You’ll have noticed a change to this magazine—a new name: Questrom, the BU business school magazine. It’s a name we wear with pride.
Announcing this evolution prompts me to share some of the many ways we’re challenging the status quo and enacting change here at Questrom.
As any leader of a successful organization will tell you, the best way to orient toward needed change is to listen to the market to discover untapped wants and needs. By paying close attention to consumer problems in need of solving, organizations can leapfrog competition, redefine markets, and capture value for the organization and all of its stakeholders.
We don’t just teach about customer-driven change at Questrom, we practice what we preach.
In July, we acted upon the seemingly insatiable need for data-driven decision making in contemporary business and launched our MS in Business Analytics program to a class of 87 students. We revamped our Social Impact MBA and Health Sector MBA curricula to fit modern realities, preparing our students to create impactful change in their careers. We are introducing a robust FinTech certificate for our MS in Mathematical Finance students in response to the evolving nature of quant jobs on Wall Street. Positive, impactful, customer-driven change.
And, of course, there’s our big, market disrupting news: the BU Questrom Online MBA planned for fall 2020. We listened and learned that there was a segment of midlevel career advancers whose needs we weren’t addressing. With these global online learners in mind, we built an innovative MBA curriculum from the ground up, true to the MBA degree credential but reimagined in light of the audience and technologies at hand. Our integrated curriculum leverages insights from consumer and market research and from our Business Education Jams, a series of global dialogues with more than 3,000 executives and academics about the future of business education. Our $24,000 price tag fits the needs of our target audience and the design of our product while delivering on our mission of creating value for the world.
I hope you enjoy reading this issue of the new Questrom magazine and learning about how our students, alumni, and professors are making big—and informed—changes, from switching careers to saving the world.
Susan Fournier
Allen Questrom Professor and Dean
