From Porto Business School, Ethical Leadership In The Age Of AI

Jose Esteves, dean of the Porto Business School. Courtesy photo

In Portugal, the dean of the country’s leading business school is especially well-equipped to lead the next generation of students into the AI Revolution.

“For many decades, digital wasn’t part of the MBA core, but now, bringing digital skills to MBAs is critical,” says Jose Esteves, dean of the Porto Business School at the University of Porto.

Esteves is a true pioneer of AI, having studied the topic for 30 years, going back to when it was purely theoretical.

DIGITAL SKILLS ARE A CRITICAL PART OF AN MBA

Jose Esteves: “Students need to understand that in two to three years, technical skills will be outdated. We need to focus on soft skills.” Courtesy photo

As a software engineer by trade, Esteves has long been at the forefront of digital innovation, serving as both CEO and chief innovation officer at various companies. He has also been a professor at neighboring Spain’s IE Business School.

Now, he’s driving a major shift in business education at Porto School of Business, where students are encouraged to discover the unknown.

“That’s a different mindset than the mindset we were taught when I was pursuing my MBA,” Esteves tells Poets&Quants.

While some business schools emphasize teaching the processes behind AI through digital information, Esteves says PBS teaches for digital transformation.

While they still teach students how to use AI as a tool, this next-level way of thinking is essential for keeping up with the way that AI is radically transforming work processes, Esteves says.

In fact, AI is affecting the business landscape so significantly that Porto finds it integral for all students to study it, which they do in their core course “AI For Business.”

As AI is rapidly transforming the business landscape, teaching ethical leadership is now more important than ever. “We need to get to another level of responsible management.”

Machines already have primarily function roles in some organizations, heading tasks like invoicing, travel planning, and word processing to name a few things, says Esteves.

“Students need to understand that in two to three years, technical skills will be outdated. We need to focus on soft skills, because it’s something that AI isn’t going to be an expert at or replace in humans.”

Deciding which roles are best suited for humans and which are better handled by machines is easier said than done, but navigating these challenges becomes easier when you have the kind of close-knit partnerships and strong community support that Porto does.

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