NB: I am often asked this question. GIBS came about due to a series of fortunate coincidences. The University of Pretoria wanted to establish a new business school. I had spent 13 years at the Wits Business School, six of those as head of the school, and I’d decided I was ready for a change. I met the then-Vice-Chancellor, Professor Johan van Zyl, at a business function. We had a brief chat, and he invited me for a discussion. Over coffee he explained what he wanted to do and he asked me whether I would be interested in establishing a new business school aimed at providing high quality business education in South Africa.
I had prepared a few points for discussion that I thought would make the project both doable and successful. They included the idea of establishing the school in Sandton.
I then went on a three-month sabbatical as a visiting professor to the University of Washington and during that time I developed a document for formal submission to the University.
It was approved very quickly and there is no doubt that one of the key factors in our success at GIBS was the role the University played in quick decision making and supporting it in its early days.
It was a challenging assignment, but in a sense, I was ready to take on the task. I was fortunate to have headed up a major business school, had considerable exposure in the USA and had, at a young age, been a general manager responsible for the bottom line of a business.
I have always had an appetite for and a deep interest in business education.
The five years of lecturing at the University of Washington in Seattle, combined with my business experience, were, I suppose, a fortunate alignment with the goals of the University and Johan van Zyl’s ambitions.
CG: Apart from the University of Pretoria, you had to find other sources of funding?
NB: We were for fortunate enough to attract the interest of Sir Donald Gordon, who provided his full support to the start-up with funds from the Donald Gordon Foundation. In addition to the capital provided by the University, Gordon agreed to put his support behind the establishment of this new school that would be based in Sandton.
CG: How did you decide on the school’s initial direction?
NB: During the period in which the campus was built, I thought hard about its purpose. The preoccupation was to ensure that the quality of academic and executive programmes would be of practical use for executives in the front line of decision making.
While I believe that research is fundamentally important, the core role of a business school, its key task, is to ensure it contributes strategically and significantly to the quality of institutional leadership. This is particularly so in South Africa where so many challenges of inclusion and development, as well as competitiveness, are in play.
In 1999 I set about meeting architects and quantity surveyors and started the process of thinking through the structure of the buildings and the campus. Business schools have a particular set of requirements and having visited many, I had a good grasp of what they might be.
I had a very high level of freedom to give shape to the nature of the school and was joined by an excellent team to help us get going during the first 18 months.
CG: The school opened its doors on 1 January 2000?
NB: On time and within budget! The University was incredibly supportive, all decisions were taken independently or very quickly if they needed University support. They were extremely agile and constructive in allowing us to simply get on with it.
CG: At GIBS’ heart – the MBA?
NB: An MBA is core to any business school; the programme designed was based on benchmarking a number of the best business schools in the world and approaching the design to ensure that executives would find the content practical and useful within their organisations.
Professor Karl Hofmeyr and others joined me and quite quickly we built a potent team of people highly dedicated to the task. We were under enormous time pressure and worked extremely long hours. It was an exciting and fulfilling time and our ideas received a great deal of support, the school grew very quickly and beyond our expectations.
Soon after its start-up we set our five- and ten-year goals. Our first objective was for it to be considered a leading business school within five years and within ten to be recognised internationally. We were fortunate to be put into the Financial Times’ Top 100 Business Schools list within seven years. We were the youngest school out of the leading business schools in the world to be so ranked.
CG: Almost immediately, you started doing quite a few things differently.
NB: We had the freedom to be innovative and to use our assets fully. The school operated seven days a week. Lectures were held during the day and in the evenings to maximise the investment that had been put into the project.
Our first group of students were risk-takers, having to sign up before the campus was fully built. They were a great group, which set the tone for future cohorts. An example of the quality of the students in that first cohort of MBAs was Coen Jonker. He had been a general manager at the law firm Edward Nathan and over the years since his MBA he has had a very successful business career establishing Tyme Bank. That has been a phenomenal success and is now one of the few unicorns from the African continent.
CG: Who were some of the key players in the early years?
NB: A major part of our success was corporate education. I mentioned earlier Karl Hofmeyr. He led a team of hard-working individuals who reached out to companies and designed tailormade programmes incorporating the concept of action learning, which proved to be a competitive advantage for GIBS.
We served all sectors, including mining, manufacturing, financial services, retail, and professional services. We also ran programmes for government and civil society to ensure that we were meeting the mandate of being a school appropriate for an emerging economy going through major transformation.
Professor Gill Marcus joined us after she had been Governor of the Reserve Bank and played a key part in developing programmes for youth and women’s leadership.
We were able to attract a small number of full-time faculty who acted as the core of our academic programme but also a few adjunct faculty who were experts in their field and had the capacity to deliver practical quality content. Our students found their orientation to be of great value.
Given the global nature of business, we felt it vital to ensure that was the orientation of our students, so that they were exposed to other markets. So, from our very first year, we sent our MBAs on field trips all over the world.
At one point, we were visiting as many as 15 countries in Asia, Europe, and the USA, exposing the students to best practice. It also sharpened their understanding of the competitive challenges South Africa was facing and would face.
CG: A huge personal achievement – but then you also decided it was time to pass the baton…
NB: I felt very privileged to be given this mandate and the opportunity to lead the establishment of the institution.
But, after 15 years as head of the school and 17 years working on this project, I thought it was time, and the leadership mantle was passed to Professor Nicola Kleyn in 2015. More recently, Professor Morris Mthombeni became the Dean of the School.
It was difficult to move on from GIBS. It had been such a key part of my career, starting with a blank piece of paper and watching it grow to an institution of significance. But when the time came, I left with great gratitude for the opportunities that we had created for so many thousands of executives.
What is so important at GIBS is its value system, which remains one of providing excellent content in a consistent manner backed by a passionate commitment to business education.
I have remained on the faculty as an adjunct professor, teaching, as I did during all my time as Dean. Apart from the enjoyment of lecturing it ensured we stayed honest in front of our executives.
To paraphrase Alice in Wonderland: “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” We were fortunate to have a good sense as to where we should head and I was remarkably privileged to attract a great team of dedicated people to make sure not only that we headed in the right direction but that we had the organisation, culture, means, and the drive to take us forward.
CG: A final thought: how do you see the road ahead for GIBS?
NB: It is vital that GIBS continues to innovate. The world is changing rapidly, and we need to ensure that we have capable, ethical, and extremely hard-working leaders in our major institutions. Only in this way will we be able to fulfil South Africa’s expectations of what business needs to achieve to meet our vision of being a successful, democratic, and prosperous society.
