The traditional MBA is being challenged by a rapidly changing world of work. For business leaders, technical and financial expertise remain essential, but they are no longer enough. Today’s organisations operate in an environment shaped by climate change, social pressures, technological disruption, ethical complexity and heightened expectations around corporate governance.
For Dr Jenika Gobind, Programme Director of the MBA at Wits Business School (WBS), this presents an opportunity to rethink what an MBA should deliver.
“The traditional MBA is no longer relevant,” she says. “We have to ask ourselves how we reimagine a future-fit MBA where ethics, sustainability and governance take centre stage.”
That thinking has informed the new WBS MBA curriculum, in which environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations are not treated as a standalone topic but woven throughout the learning experience. The intention is to equip graduates not only with the knowledge to make better business decisions, but with the judgement and leadership capabilities to understand the broader consequences of those decisions.
Why invest in an MBA?
The value of an MBA has always extended beyond the acquisition of technical business knowledge. At WBS, the qualification is increasingly viewed as a transformational experience — one that changes how students think, lead and operate.
The new curriculum retains the strong foundations of finance, economics and other core business disciplines. What has changed is the introduction of what Gobind describes as a “golden thread” running throughout the qualification: sustainability, ethics and governance.
“We haven’t discounted those [traditional subjects],” she explains. “What we have done is that parallel to these very important modules is one golden thread, and that is sustainability, ethics and governance.”
This is particularly important in an African context. ESG considerations are global imperatives, but the challenges and opportunities they create can look very different across markets. WBS therefore seeks to give students a broad perspective — understanding what is happening in South Africa and across the continent while maintaining a global outlook.
The goal is practical: graduates should be able to apply these competencies to the decisions they make in the workplace while they are studying, rather than waiting until after graduation to put their learning into practice.
Redefining leadership
The future of business will require leaders who understand that organisations are ultimately made up of people. As a result, leadership development is a significant component of the new curriculum, which includes modules such as Strategic Talent Management, Strategic Leadership Management, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance and the “Leadership Quest”.
The Leadership Quest, in particular, encourages students to reflect deeply on who they are, how they lead and how they manage others. Students are challenged to take the tools and insights gained in the classroom and apply them to their own professional contexts.
But leadership development does not happen in a single module.
“Not only the Leadership Quest but all our modules challenge you to lead, challenge you to relate, challenge you to rethink,” says Gobind. “How do you coach people? How do you guide people?”
This integrated approach recognises that leadership is not simply a theoretical discipline. It is something that needs to be practised, reflected upon and continually refined.
Feedback from students suggests that the impact can extend well beyond the classroom. Gobind says students increasingly describe the MBA as “life-changing”, with some reporting that they are returning to their organisations and challenging their executive teams to rethink how they operate.
“We are seeing this beautiful sort of transition from the individual to the leader,” she says.
Ethics, sustainability and governance as business imperatives
The emphasis on ESG is not an additional layer placed on top of an MBA. It is embedded in the architecture of the qualification.
Each module in the new MBA speaks to sustainability, ethics and governance, with academics developing content specifically with these principles in mind. The student learning platform also uses badges to identify the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) addressed by particular modules, helping students recognise the broader impact and relevance of what they are learning.
The approach extends beyond the classroom. During global study tours, WBS works with partner universities to ensure that students have opportunities to engage with organisations that are actively addressing ESG issues.
The intention is to create graduates with a broader perspective — business leaders who can consider financial performance alongside ethical, social, environmental and governance implications.
For Gobind, this is fundamental to creating a genuinely future-fit MBA.
Preparing leaders for Africa — and the world
A global outlook does not mean losing sight of local realities. For a South African business school, the opportunity lies in developing leaders who can navigate the complexities of African markets while understanding the global forces shaping business.
WBS aims to do this by bringing together academic knowledge, practical experience and exposure to diverse perspectives. Faculty members include experienced “pracademics” who bring years of professional and business experience into the classroom, while students benefit from thought-leader engagements, masterclasses, global study opportunities and, critically, the networks developed through the MBA experience.
For Gobind, networking is not a peripheral benefit of the qualification. It is central to it.
“The richness of the networking, the richness of the in-person debates, those coffee sessions, those syndicate experiences, those lunchtime discussions — that’s where the MBA really thrives,” she says.
It is the unplanned conversations and encounters — the “serendipitous” moments — that can turn an academic experience into something much more powerful.
Embracing AI, not resisting it
No discussion about the future of business education can ignore AI. Rather than viewing AI as a threat to traditional learning, WBS is positioning it as a tool that future leaders need to understand and use responsibly.
Gobind compares AI to the calculator: a technology that can assist with complex tasks without replacing the need for human judgement.
Students are encouraged to experiment with tools such as ChatGPT and Claude, using them to explore questions and critically assess the outputs. In one example, students were asked to investigate the future of people and resource management in South Africa using AI. Their responses differed, creating an opportunity to debate what was accurate, what was questionable and where human judgement remained essential.
The message is clear: AI should not replicate or replace thinking. It should enhance it.
“We are encouraging our students to utilise AI in the workplace,” says Gobind. “This is the next-generation technology and we are embracing it.”
From the classroom to the real economy
Perhaps the most ambitious expression of WBS’s future-facing vision is Gobind’s idea for an SME clinic — effectively an “ICU” for small and medium-sized businesses.
The concept is simple but potentially far-reaching: SMEs could bring real business challenges to WBS, where MBA students would be required to develop practical solutions, drawing on the same problem-solving approach used in case competitions.
For businesses that cannot afford expensive consulting services, this could provide valuable access to new ideas and expertise. For students, it would offer an opportunity to work on genuine business dilemmas with real consequences.
“If we can start building one SME at a time, imagine how many individuals we will empower,” Gobind says. “Imagine the impact we will have on youth unemployment.”
It is a vision that captures the broader purpose of the future-fit MBA: creating value not only for individual graduates and their organisations, but for the wider economy and society.
Ultimately, the WBS MBA is being positioned as much more than a qualification. It is an opportunity to rethink how leaders approach business, people, technology and society.
In a world where the rules of business are changing rapidly, the future belongs to leaders who can combine commercial acumen with ethical judgement, sustainability thinking, technological fluency and the ability to lead people through uncertainty.
And that, perhaps, is why the MBA still matters. The question is no longer whether the MBA is relevant. It is whether the MBA itself is prepared for the future.
