About Dean Jay Light

Jay Light is a graduate of Cornell University (Engineering Physics, 1963) and Harvard University (the joint Faculty of Arts and Sciences-Business School doctoral program in Decision & Control Theory, 1970). Light has been Chairman of the Finance area (1986-1988), Senior Associate Dean and Director of Faculty Planning (1988-1994), and Senior Associate Dean and Director of Planning and Development (1998-2005) at HBS. In this latter role he led the School's strategic planning efforts and helped shaped new educational and research program initiatives.

Light was Interim Dean of Harvard Business School from August 2005 through April 2006, when he was named Dean. He has overseen the close of Harvard Business School's successful $600 million capital campaign, supported new faculty initiatives in health care and science-based business, and completed the renovation and restoration of Baker Library, the world's preeminent collection of business books and archival materials. He also has led innovations in the School's core educational programs, including a team-based learning initiative in the MBA program and the launch of a new, modular leadership development program in executive education. He plays an active role in the University's planning for development of the property it owns in the Allston section of Boston, where HBS is located.

Light has taught thousands of students in the School's MBA and Doctoral programs, and in various executive programs for CFOs and investment managers. In the MBA program, he has taught Investment Management, Capital Markets, Entrepreneurial Finance, and Negotiating Ventures; his most recent assignment was the required first-year course in Finance, where he developed an integrative valuation and negotiation simulation used with all of the program's 900 students.

Jay Light, Dean of Harvard Business School

Xing Zong: Dean Light, it is my great honor to speak with you. As the dean of HBS, you are not only the dean of a distinguished business school, but also the leader in the whole business education world. You said that the biggest issue and opportunity for HBS is the globalization. So I will start my interview by asking the following question: how does HBS deal with globalization? Does globalization simply mean recruiting more students from different countries?

Light: Harvard Business School has a long history of engagement with business and academia around the world. Today, our alumni today live and work in more than 120 countries. A third of our 1800 MBA students and more than half of our 7,000 executive education participants each year come from outside the U.S., representing over 70 countries.

While our participant-centered learning model relies heavily on the diversity of the students in the classroom to provide global perspectives, we believe that preparing students to manage and lead in a globalized world requires more. Our efforts over the past decade have focused on establishing a network of regional research centers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and India that support our faculty's research and course development efforts. The benefits of this are two-fold: first, the centers help our faculty build relationships with leaders in industry, government, and academia worldwide and thus to develop a deep understanding of management issues and challenges where ever they arise. Additionally, the cases and research they create enrich our curriculum. At any one time, we have projects under way in about 40 countries.

We are exploring now the next phase of global activities, which may include focused international immersion programs for our MBA students, more executive education programs delivered locally around the world, and visiting scholar programs that bring leading researchers and teachers to HBS and that enable our faculty to embed themselves in a country and company for 3-6 months at a time.

Xing Zong: To current B-school education model critics, including many successful managers, business schools have become little more than exercises in ticket punching for would-be consultants, taught by faculty who are more interested in impressing their academic colleagues than in confronting real-world business problems. As the dean of HBS, whose mission has been to educate leaders who make a difference in the world, what do you think of this issue?

Light: One of the hallmarks of Harvard Business School is its strong focus on practice. At HBS, about 80% of our classes are taught via the case method. In each class, students work together to analyze a real business situation and come up with an action plan. The objective of this process, which is repeated between 500 and 800 times during their two years on campus, is not only to enable them to better understand how and when to use the analytical tools that all schools teach, but also to help them develop deeper skills in teamwork and problem solving as well as a foundation of judgment that lasts a lifetime. This is the approach that has allowed our alumni to go on to positions of leadership in a wide range of organizations, industries, and countries throughout the world.

Our faculty, too, remain deeply committed to the classroom. We expect them to be world-class scholars as well, of course, but a passion for teaching and the educational process is a requirement for all faculty at HBS. We recently launched the Christensen Center for Teaching and Learning to aid new faculty in developing the skills and techniques that will make them effective. Additionally, we have attracted a growing cohort of practitioners to the School as Professors of Management Practice. These are people who have led and managed organizations, and they bring a wealth of experience to the classroom.

Xing Zong: In HBS, students are assigned to a five or six-person Learning Team during orientation with whom they will work throughout their first year at HBS. Dean Light, why is peer learning so important?

Light: In learning teams, as in our classrooms, students draw on each other's unique backgrounds as they approach challenges together. In this manner, the rich diversity of our students��including the various areas of experience and the many countries they represent��become an integral part of the learning process. Not only is this a powerful approach to learning on campus, it also prepares them to listen, learn, and teach others as they progress through their subsequent careers. In today's increasingly complex and truly global economy, peer learning is more important than ever.

Xing Zong: The Stanford and Yale business schools recently announced major changes in their MBA curricula. Do you foresee any changes here at HBS?

Light: Many of the changes we see at other schools are aimed at introducing elements to their programs that have long been a part of ours, including flexibility and closeness to practice. One of the advantages of the structure of our program and our approach to learning is that it lends itself well to continuous innovation. Not only do we refine the focus of courses in our first-year required curriculum through the introduction of new and updated cases each year, for example, but we also update and change modules within the courses periodically as necessary. And in the all-elective second year curriculum, faculty have developed a changing array of nearly 100 courses that allows students to tailor their education to meet their particular interests and ambitions.

Xing Zong: Many find that business schools devoid of real concern for ethics. They believe that this lack of an ethical backbone is part of a continuum that starts with boarding schools and flows into the fortune 500 board rooms. In HBS, how does this issue being addressed?

Light: HBS introduced its first course in business ethics in 1915, and it has been taught here in a variety of forms since then. We believe that all leaders have a responsibility to address the broad impacts that an organization has on the world. In making a decision, a leader must often weigh the interests of employees, investors, vendors, customers, communities, the environment, the law, governments, and society as a whole, for example. Today, we have a unique course -required for all students- called "Leadership and Corporate Accountability" that helps students understand how to make difficult decisions where these factors must be balanced against one another. We also have a major research and educational effort at the school focused on what we call "Social Enterprise." It focuses on organizations and roles within all kinds of existing organizations that seek to create "social value" as opposed to only monetary value. Many of our students are finding jobs in the non-profit, public, and private sectors where they can make a difference by enhancing social value.

Xing Zong: HBS collaborated with Harvard Medical School to launch the joint 5 year MD/MBA program, and HBS plans to collaborate with Kennedy school of government to launch the joint program. Dean light, do you foresee this to be the future trend of the Business school education? i.e. traditional business school education gives way to more interdisciplinary business education.

Light: Just as real business challenges are not neatly divided into academic disciplines, so our work at business schools��in both teaching and research��must blend the insights and expertise of many different fields. If schools are to remain relevant to the practice of business, they must be able to transcend the limitations of a strict discipline-focused approach.

Xing Zong: Pioneered by HBS faculty in the 1920s, the case method began as a way of importing slices of business reality into the classroom in order to breathe life and instill greater meaning into the lessons of management education. My question is, in this fast changing world, where big business deal happen everyday. How often does HBS update its cases? What are the criteria to update a new case and get rid of an old case?

Light: Our faculty write about 80% of the cases used in business schools around the world, and they develop about 300 new cases each year based on business situations emerging in countries throughout the world each year. Most of our cases are expressly written, and taught, to convey generalizable lessons that go beyond the immediate situation, so many remain popular among business faculty at HBS and elsewhere for a number of years. In our own curriculum, about a third of the cases are new or updated each year, allowing us the flexibility to keep our students attuned to the latest significant changes in the marketplace.

Xing Zong: Let me keep pushing on this subject. How many HBS cases are from China? As China's economy keep growing at a staggering rate, do you think more Chinese companies' case will be written into the HBS case study?

Light: There is much to learn from China and about China as its economy develops, and the School is deeply involved in research and educational projects there. At present, Harvard Business School Publishing (HBSP), our publishing arm, offers more than 300 cases, articles, books, and other products addressing everything from economic challenges faced by China, to transformations of Chinese industries, to business situations facing individual companies such as The Haier Group, for example. These materials are not only used at Harvard Business School, but they are made available to schools worldwide through HBSP.

Additionally, more than 250 faculty in Asia (primarily from China) have participated in our new Program on the Case Method and Participant-Centered Learning (PCMPCL), which seeks to help faculty and the institutions at which they teach develop case method teaching, and case writing, skills. Ultimately we expect that the participants of these programs will develop cases about Chinese companies as well.

Xing Zong: In terms of the collaboration with China, I am sure this is a "two way street". What is the status quo about HBS' collaboration with top Chinese business school? How many Chinese MBA students are there in HBS and what is your impression about them?

Light: Over the past decade, we've worked closely with Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management, and with the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), in developing a delivering executive education programs such as the Senior Executive Program for China, Strategic Operations Management, and the Global CEO. Additionally, through PCMPCL, we are able to work with a far broader range of schools and universities, and to develop relationships with the faculty there. And, as mentioned, we hope our new visiting scholars program will be a way to strengthen faculty collaborations.

It's worth mentioning Harvard Business School Publishing's (HBSP's) work in China in this context. HBSP has launched a Chinese edition of its flagship publication, Harvard Business Review, and has established partnership to support the dissemination of case and course materials in China.

Our Chinese students share a remarkable passion for making a difference. This past year, they helped coordinate our first faculty-led "immersion" program to China, where more than 40 HBS students from many countries spent nearly 2 weeks visiting with leaders in industry and government, touring a plant, and learning about the country's rich heritage. The pilot was so successful that we hope to replicate it next year.

Xing Zong: As the world becomes flat, do you think Chinese companies can also go to HBS and recruit MBA students? What, in your opinion, is the particular challenge if a Chinese company wants to recruit HBS MBAs?

Light: China is emerging as a powerful force in the world economy, and as such it holds great promise and attraction for students. Our biggest obstacle for all overseas recruiters is a simple one: visas. But I would expect Chinese companies to hold significant appeal for our graduates �C and some do already. The Esquel Group, for example, which is led by an HBS alum (Margie Yang, MBA 1976), has factories in China and has employed other HBS graduates.

Xing Zong: Last question, you held a physics degree before you came to HBS. What do you think of your early year's scientific training? Do you think it benefit your b-school academic career?

Light: Very much so. Business itself is steadily becoming more and more science-based��in industries ranging from semiconductors to pharmaceuticals and even consumer products. At the same time, advances in business practice��ranging from finance to marketing��are arising increasingly from applying a more rigorous scientific approach to exploring and understanding the challenges and opportunities of business and management. As an academic institution, one of our key goals is to lay the groundwork for continuing innovation, and as part of that, we are recruiting promising young faculty for HBS from a broad range of fields that may shed new insight into the practice of business.

Xing Zong: Dean Light, thank you very much! You have made great contributions to HBS and I sincerely wish you and HBS great success in the future.

Light: Thank you!

About the author: Xing Zong, is a fourth year graduate student pursuing a Physics Ph.D. degree at Duke University. As a rocket scientist, his lifelong passion also lies in writing and interacting with people. He regularly conducts interviews of Presidents in U.S. top universities, Nobel Laureates, business school deans and leading academicians. As Xing said, "my biggest discovery after arriving in U.S. was that my first name 'Xing' had a nice interpretation of the on-road sign crossing. Indeed, I stand at the cross road of two different cultures and eager to connect Uncle Sam and Red Dragon."