There was intense interest from faculty, staff and students alike for a first visit to GIBS by newly appointed Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Pretoria University, Professor Tawana Kupe. Hosted and welcomed by GIBS Dean, Professor Nicola Kleyn, Professor Kupe toured the business school campus and then spoke to the GIBS team.
“This is a university and a business school that have all the right fundamentals and are performing very well… Quite a lot is expected of us. But life is not about sustaining what you have, it’s about taking you to the next level. And I’m challenging you to take it to the next level,” said Kupe,
“The University of Pretoria can do four things: transform lives; transform sectors, industry or business; transform a society which is a country; and transform a continent, which is Africa. And transform the world because, as a university, knowledge knows no boundaries. Knowledge has no passports so what we do here is something that colleagues from other business schools are able to learn from and transform their lives, their own societies, their own sectors and their own industries. This is why the University of Pretoria and its business school – GIBS – position themselves not just as South African institutions, but also African and global. That is very important,” Kupe stressed.
Looking ahead over a 10-year period, Kupe posed some tough questions: “How do we increase success? How do we increase access? And what are the cost implications? The vision of this business school, of being an African business school, has elements of what could be a good strategy going forward. Demand would not only be South African, but also continental and demand could easily be global in some of the emerging economies that could learn something from a leading South African business school.”
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