2025 Innovator Award Announcement

The Graduate Business Curriculum Roundtable (the Roundtable) is pleased to announce the winners for the 2025 Innovator Award.  Sponsored by Liaison BusinessCAS, the 2025 Innovator Award was highly competitive this year with a record number of submissions from a record number of countries.  The judges have chosen winners in each of the categories and the winners were announced at the Roundtable’s 2025 Curricular Innovation Symposium on Thursday, October 23, 2025.  The winners and finalists were as follows:
2025 Graduate Business Curriculum Roundtable Innovator Award Winners:
 
The Graduate Business Curriculum Roundtable Innovator Award was created in 2011 to promote educational initiatives that advance innovation in graduate management education and acknowledge the institutions that drive change in the field.  The Innovator Award raises awareness of ongoing continuous curricular and co-curricular improvements and educates employers, business school leaders, and faculty about innovative practices of best-in-class MBA and Specialized Masters programs.  In 2021, the Roundtable introduced the Fast Track Curriculum Innovation Award which was created in response to the COVID pandemic, where many graduate business programs put together creative solutions to delivering their programs and curriculum.   A list of past finalists and winners can be found here. 

The 2025 Innovator Award Winners were evaluated on the following criteria: Concept/Initiative, Execution, Outcomes and Presentation.  First round judges put forth up to five finalists in each category for the final round of judging and interviews. 

The 2025 Innovator Award Finalists were as follows:
 

• Centrum PUCP - AI-Powered Design Thinking Learning Experience for Creating Innovative Social-Impact Ventures. A Scalable Model for the Modern MBA
• Georgetown - JackBot, the AI Assistant for the MBA Program Office
• Porto Business School - Global Online MBA – A Human-Centric and AI-Empowered Transformation in Online Business Education
• UCLA - AI Learning Assistant for Project-based Experiential Learning

• American University - Sustainability Stole Initiative
• IMD - From Microcredentials to Mastery: IMD's two new highly flexible Executive Master programs
• Johns Hopkins University - Consulting in Action: A Scalable Model for Data-Analytics Experiential Learning in MS Programs
• Wake Forest University – From Classroom to Client: A Scaffolded Consulting Journey for Pre-Experience Graduate Students

• Dr. Lisa Abendroth – University of St. Thomas
• Woxsen University’s - Blueprint for the Future: AI, Experiential Learning, and Leadership
• INSEAD XR

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About:  Leadership in Graduate Business Education Curriculum Innovation Winner – University of Iowa Graduate and Professional Programs Team

The Roundtable is proud to announce our second winner of our Leadership in Graduate Business Education Curriculum Innovation.  The award was been created to recognize an individual or team for their sustained commitment and success in leading curricular innovations in business schools. 

The University of Iowa Graduate and Professional Programs (GPP) team has demonstrated exceptional innovation and agility, continuously evolving to meet market needs and deliver high-quality educational experiences. Their accomplishments include multiple innovations all at once---merging the online and professional MBA, massive scaling of online courses by utilizing a shared course model that maintained small class sizes, transitioning to 8-week course length, all of which highlight the flexibility, quality, and growth of the Iowa MBA.  They have also introduced new capstone options that allow students to apply their learning directly to their organizations and the integration of communication skill-building throughout the Iowa MBA, resulting in tangible workplace impacts. Additionally, the team has made significant strides in incorporating artificial intelligence into their curriculum, offering new courses and certificates focused on AI for both professional and full-time programs. 

“From merging our online and professional programs to adding AI courses to the curriculum, our team has demonstrated for more than five years that they can offer our students a relevant, flexible and affordable educational experience,” said Amy Kristof-Brown, dean of the Tippie College of Business. “Given the fast pace of change in business, they often must make multiple program changes at once and they always rise to the occasion.”
 

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About MBA Program Curricular Innovation Winner – IMD: Reimagining the MBA: AI-Generated Transversal Skills Reports

The commercial launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 had a profound impact on business and also on business education. To prepare students for our new AI-enhanced world, IMD redesigned their MBA program with a focus on ten human-centric transversal skills. As part of this transformation, they leveraged cutting-edge AI technologies to generate for students Transversal Skills Reports that deliver personalized feedback and suggestions on how to improve.

“We asked ourselves, ‘How can we best prepare our students for an AI-enhanced world?’, and our conclusion was to reinforce in the curriculum those attributes that make us intrinsically human: the ability to think strategically and to communicate effectively. The award serves to highlight the importance of reinforcing humanistic skills. Thank you for this recognition.” --Omar N. Toulan, Dean of the MBA and Hilti Chair, Professor of Strategy and International Management.
 

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About the Specialty Masters Program Curricular Innovation Winner - North Carolina State University: From Barrier to Bridge: Reimagining Graduate Accounting and Expanding Access

The Jenkins Master of Accounting Program at NC State University’s Poole College of Management provides a convenient, supportive pathway for non-accounting majors to succeed in a graduate accounting program through the ASAP program. Delivered fully online and self-paced with dedicated instructor support, the program helps students build confidence, fill knowledge gaps and transition smoothly into the MAC curriculum. Designed for working professionals and career changers, ASAP empowers students from a variety of backgrounds to begin their master’s studies fully prepared to excel.

“We are extremely proud of the ASAP Program and the well-deserved recognition it has received," said Poole College of Management Dean Frank Buckless. "The program exemplifies Poole College’s commitment to innovation in graduate education, opening doors for talented professionals from all backgrounds to build new careers and strengthen the future of the accounting profession. This award is a testament to the dedication of our faculty and staff who continually find new ways to make high-quality education more accessible and impactful.”
 

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The Graduate Business Curriculum Roundtable and Liaison BusinessCAS congratulate all the winners and finalists and look forward to hosting webinars in early 2026 featuring their curricular innovations. 

About Liaison BusinessCAS
The first and only Centralized Application Service (CAS™) for graduate management education (GME) programs, BusinessCAS™ brings graduate management admissions offices an improved way to recruit, enroll and admit best-fit students while saving money and better allocating staff resources each admissions cycle. Liaison offers the global platform for driving applicant volume while providing an optimized applicant experience at no cost to participating programs, allowing you to focus on building better business classes. Learn more at businesscas.org.

About the Graduate Business Curriculum Roundtable:
The Graduate Business Curriculum Roundtable is a collaborative, nonprofit organization that facilitates the exchange of information and resources on graduate management education curricular innovation. More than 140 business schools from across the world are members of the Roundtable, which was founded in 1995.  For more information, visit www.gbcroundtable.org.

Visit https://www.gbcroundtable.org/innovatoraward for more information on the Innovator Awards, its history and winners.
Contact: Jeff Bieganek, Executive Director – jeff@gbcroundtable.org/844-784-6227 ext. 3