Henley’s Foster-Pedley appointed to Alliance Board

Professor Jon Foster-Pedley has been appointed to the board of the Alliance of Management Development Associations in Rising Economies.

Inspired by the creation of the Star Alliance, the world’s largest global airline alliance; the Alliance of Management Development Associations was established in 2019 to augment and accelerate the growth of excellent management education in global markets that need it most.

The alliance is made up of seven organisations: the African Association of Business Schools (AABS), the National Association of Business Administration Undergraduate Programs (ANGRAD) in Brazil, the Baltic Management Development Association (BMDA) headquartered in Lithuania; the International Association for Management Development in dynamic countries (CEEMAN) based in Slovenia; the Latin American Council of Management Schools (CLADEA) based in Peru; and, Forum, the Association of Management Education based in Poland and the Russian Association of Business Education (RABE).

Foster-Pedley said he was delighted and greatly honoured by his appointment to the Alliance board. Belonging to the Alliance, he said, allowed member business schools the opportunity to tap into an amazing network which in a world of increasing polarity meant that business schools from regions outside the traditional ambit would get a voice in critical conversations.

“We have always prided ourselves at Henley Africa on being the business school that builds the people who build the businesses that build Africa. We are located in a country at the foot of the continent that has the highest Gini coefficient in the world. South Africa is the most unequal society on the globe and the best way of redressing that is through developing business.”

The problem, he said, was that the doctrine of many business schools outside of the industrialised north was to take those lessons and case studies and apply them to local conditions.

“We need to decolonise education, we need to realise that what might work in North America or Western Europe might not necessarily work in Africa, which is why we have been working so hard to develop our own pedagogies and best practices to create African solutions for African problems while drawing on the very best from across the world.”

Henley Africa was the first in Africa to be accredited by four different international bodies; AMBA in the UK, Europe’s EFMD, the AACSB in the US and AABS in Africa. Last year it also became the first business school in Africa to be admitted to CLADEA.

“We have gone out of our way to decolonise the education we present, by blending the best of both the Johannesburg campus and the global Henley network faculty all of whom can teach physically or virtually as the situation requires, while collaborating with partners in South Africa, across Africa and the world as the situation allows to find practical solutions to real life, real-time African problems that in many cases apply just as much to the rest of the world.”

Collaboration and innovation have been key pillars to the Henley Africa journey; in 2020, the business school won Africa’s first-ever EFMD Excellence in Practice Gold Award for Executive Development for a joint project with GIBS for Standard Bank, beating the international competition to do so. Since they have received another Silver Award, becoming the first business school in the southern hemisphere to win twice.

Foster-Pedley is keen to bring together international networks into developmental initiatives. As well as being elected chair of AABS, he chairs the British Business Chamber of Business in Southern Africa and is a member of CLADEA, the South American network of business schools. He was appointed a distinguished professor at Woxsen University in India.                                                         

“Belonging to the alliance is another step on our journey to continually evolve, internationalise and promote the capabilities and agenda of rising economies in the world,” he said.

• Henley Business School Africa is a leading global business school with two physical campuses in South Africa as well as campuses in Europe and Asia. It is the only business school in Africa to hold quadruple international accreditation. It is part of the University of Reading UK, originally an extension college of Oxford University, renowned for its leadership in climate science, finance, property management and executive education, and one of the most international universities in Britain. Henley has been ranked as having the number 1 business school alumni network in the world for the potential to network (Economist 2017); and is the number 1 African-accredited and -campused business school in the world for executive education (FT 2018, 2020,2022), as well as the number 1 MBA business school in South Africa as rated by corporate SA for the last five years (PMR 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022). Henley is committed to transformation and holds a Level 2 B-BBEE ranking. If you would like to find out how you could unlock your future with Henley Africa, go to www.henleysa.ac.za