Creating a new generation of business leaders

Business, Innovation and Sustainability

Have you ever considered what skills our children need after they leave school? Academic results will always remain important as they are the gateway to the world’s top universities. However, in our recent discussions with UK businesses in Shanghai and with BISS Puxi alumni, there are skills developed at BISS that they value even more.

One of the key areas being addressed by businesses in Shanghai is sustainability. The recent heatwave, drought, and flooding have sent a clear message that we must, as a society, address business, environmental and social issues. At BISS Puxi, we aim to provide the skills required to address these future challenges. So, what skills do the new generation of sustainability business leaders need?

Confidence and Character

Our BISS Puxi alumni are now well on their way to becoming future business leaders, innovators and sustainability advocates. To take on today’s challenges, they require confidence in communications, determination and resilience. So many of our alumni success stories are BISS Lions, musicians and performers. Our athletes share stories of how they grew physically, mentally and emotionally through sport and how those skills stay with them today. Our musicians and performing artists retain confidence and discipline engrained in hours of practice and performances throughout their time at the school.

Now, with over 250 different sports and after-school activities available on one campus, our current students are quietly building the confidence and character that will see them through university and beyond.

Sustainable Innovators and System Thinkers

Many of our students will become entrepreneurs and business people. In a recent Britcham Shanghai Business Summit on Environment, Social and Governance, companies including PwC, Unilever and Halma, committed to making ESG and sustainability central to their future business strategy not only in China, but globally. To achieve this, international businesses require problem solvers and innovators ready to create new strategies and business models that meet sustainability challenges and create new business opportunities for the future.

The competencies required to take on the complex challenges of sustainability have been outlined in a UNESCO report and include:

UNESCO Key Competencies for Sustainability

• Systems thinking – Analysing complex systems and recognising how multiple stakeholder relationships impact decision-making within a system.
• Anticipatory competency – Assessing future opportunities and risks and managing change.
• Normative competency – Values-based decision-making in challenging and ambiguous circumstances.
• Strategic competency – Developing and executing change through innovative strategies.
• Collaboration competency – Adopting empathetic leadership skills to listen, understand, influence and facilitate collaborative problem solving.
• Critical Thinking competency – Questioning norms and reflecting on one’s own values and perceptions to positively affect change.
• Self-awareness competency – Continually evaluating our own role in business, society and the environment.
• Problem-solving competency – Integrating different problem-solving strategies and frameworks to create viable solutions to real-world problems.

Source: UNESCO (2017) Education for Sustainable Development Goals: Learning Objectives for achieving SDGs

Is it too much to ask students to manage such complexity? It is not, if it is managed by professional teachers in a safe environment where dialogue and a positive approach to learning help students develop these essential future skills. Nord Anglia’s collaboration with UNICEF allows BISS Puxi students to participate in challenges based upon the Sustainable Development Goals. Through our bespoke Global Campus portal, they debate and share ideas with other students in a safe online environment from our 80 schools around the world.

Sustainability is a global issue, and collaboration on Global Campus gives our students new perspectives from students in over 30 different countries worldwide.

Real World Problems Solvers

UNESCO’s key competencies for sustainability really come to life in our two STEAM centres and our progressive Business Studies department at BISS Puxi. Through our collaboration with MIT and our whole school approach to STEAM, BISS Puxi students develop a design thinking mindset. From Early Years through Primary, Secondary and IB, our students develop the creativity and innovative mindset required to solve real-world problems.

This innovator’s mindset transcends from the STEAM centres into our Business Studies classroom where our progressive teaching approach brings business to life for students interested in developing a career as an entrepreneur or business professional.

They say that you can’t predict the future, but a world-class education can prepare you. At BISS Puxi, we prepare students for that future. We do this by building character and resilience, developing an innovator’s mindset, collaborating globally on real-world issues, and through progressive teachers and teaching that bring subjects to life for students.

Global businesses and business leaders are putting sustainability into the heart of their strategy. I have every confidence that BISSS Puxi students and alumni will be excellently placed to make a positive contribution not only to their own future, but to everybody elses.

Simon Stewart - Bio

Simon has lived and worked in China since 2005 and has a passion for business, marketing and talent development. He has worked as a business advisor and corporate trainer for international companies helping them succeed in the China market. He has also served as a Professor of Practice at universities, teaching business, sustainability and innovation to international students.

Simon has a BA (Hons) in European Studies and French, a Master’s in Marketing and has recently completed his PGCEi focusing on Sustainability for Education within Business Studies. Simon has worked as the Director of Admissions and Marketing at BISS Puxi for over four years. He enjoys understanding what is different about every child and exploring new opportunities with them at BISS.

Simon is married with one child. His weekends are usually filled with books, bike rides and ice cream with his family.