LBS celebrates 20-year Global Business Consortium success
London Business School’s ground-breaking Global Business Consortium celebrates 20 years of sharing solutions
What can an airline learn from a manufacturer? This question brought 49 executives from six of the world’s best-known companies together at London Business School (LBS) yesterday. Each company is a member of the Global Business Consortium (GBC), a programme that enables business leaders to share their challenges and solutions so that each benefits from the experience and wisdom of the others.
Mary Greene, Client Director of the GBC, Executive Education, London Business School said: “The idea 20 years ago was to look for solutions to business problems in unlikely places. And that concept remains true today.
“The businesses come together to learn from one another. The companies have changed over the years, but the challenges they face continue.”
Panellist Robin Padgett, divisional senior vice president at dnata said: “The GBC has given me a different perspective. The lack of crossover with other industries enables an open and honest forum – where members can talk freely about both challenges and opportunities.”
The GBC gives an insider’s perspective on each consortium member company. Current members are Emirates, Oracle, Mars, Nokia, GEA and DP World.
Delegates at the 20th anniversary event agreed that the GBC will help their organisations tackle future challenges, such as disruptive technology, adapting management styles for new generations of talent and maintaining a competitive edge.
GBC was born in 1995. Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice in Organisational Behaviour, London Business School saw the possibilities of bringing together six executives from six companies to share their experiences and challenges. She developed the concept with the help of the late Professor Sumantra Ghoshal and today the GBC has grown into a programme that spans 20 days and up to six cities across the globe. Participants credit the GBC experience with having transformed their approach to leading and to solving business problems.
