48327 APRIL 2009 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Getting Universities to Adopt Corporate KHAWAR ANSARI Governance - Not as Easy as It Looks! is a member of IFC's Pakistan Corporate Governance Project, which is part of IFC Advisory The main goal of IFC's Corporate Governance Project in Pakistan is to Services in the Middle East and North Africa (AS MENA), establish sustainable capacity in the country so that, once the project formerly known as Private is over, institutions will be able to improve their corporate governance Enterprise Partnership for the Middle East and North Africa practices to international standards using locally available resources. (PEP-MENA). The project aims to achieve this goal by helping set up a stable and APPROVING MANAGER Martin Steindl, Program robust regulatory framework, establishing sustainable institutions to Manager, IFC Corporate train directors and improve board performance, training the media in Governance, AS MENA. selecting and reporting issues that communicate the local relevance of corporate governance, and encouraging business schools to incorporate corporate governance as a core subject in the MBA curriculum. This last point--helping universities embed personal attention. The first step was to corporate governance into the MBA embark upon a fact-finding mission to gauge curriculum--is the focus of this SmartLesson. the appetite of key stakeholders and This important milestone aims to inculcate determine their menu of requirements for a best practices at the grassroots level and build corporate governance course. To accomplish a resource pool of formally trained corporate this mission, the project team organized a governance expertise. The key steps in the half-day seminar with faculty members, the process are: head of the business school, and postgraduate · Getting buy-in from faculty and students students. The seminar gave us the opportunity at the start to assess the different stakeholders' levels of · Conducting a training of trainers (TOT) of interest in a corporate governance course. the business school faculty Based on the seminar, we concluded there · Strengthening our relationship with the was sufficient traction from faculty and key stakeholders at the university students alike to encourage us to sign an · Remaining connected with the students to agreement with the university to proceed reinforce the importance of corporate with the development of a corporate governance governance curriculum and the design and delivery of a TOT for the faculty. Inachievingthismilestone,wehadtonavigate some potentially tricky hurdles which 2) Make course corrections in a timely threatened the success of this entire initiative. manner. The SmartLesson below--lessons learned while implementing the first corporate After developing the corporate governance governance course, based on IFC's material, curriculum, designing the TOT was relatively taught by a university in Pakistan--show how straightforward. All we had to do, it seemed, the project team addressed these challenges. was to select the relevant material, adapt the content to the local context, and deliver the Lessons Learned training. Before the three-day training, we paid one last visit to the business school to 1) Get buy-in at the outset. confirm areas of focus of the training. All the pieces of the puzzle seemed to be clicking into We chose to start with a local university so place. that we could manage any hiccups with close IFC SMARTLESSONS -- APRIL 2009 1 The first part of the training was going as planned. The experience serving on boards, some within the country and audience appeared to be attentive. As the presentations some abroad. By recognizing their achievements, we were unfolded, however, we began to sense an uneasy silence. able to reinforce our key messages on good corporate Werealizedthatmanyintheaudiencewerenotresponding; governance practice. This marked a turning point, because they were looking into space! Then, as the presentations the audience started to engage and take ownership of the became more and more intricate, some members of the material we were presenting. As a result, the atmosphere audience started to become agitated. A couple of the calmed down and became more positive and conducive to faculty lecturers began to share their fears. They questioned learning. This change was reinforced in the positive whether the concept of corporate governance would fly in feedback from the post-training evaluations. Pakistan, and whether their students would show any interest in corporate governance. 3) Continue to build bridges with the key stakeholders after the event. These people carried the main responsibility for the success of the course, and it appeared they were sensing a shift in Becausewewantedtoensurethesuccessfulimplementation the burden of responsibility from IFC to them as they of our agreement with the university, our engagement with realized that the success of this initiative now rested on them did not stop at the end of the three-day training of their shoulders. Other faculty members joined in, for good trainers. After the training, we leveraged several other measure, with more general objections, most of which had opportunities to visit the faculty and follow up on their no grounding in principles of good corporate governance. promises to start teaching corporate governance to their It did not take long for the mood of the audience to shift MBA students. Unfortunately, the university seemed to be from polite attendance to antagonistic and at times dragging its feet in getting the corporate governance markedlyaggressive.Asthecourseworeon,theatmosphere course on the road. The head of finance, the original became intimidating and highly charged, and we became sponsor of the project within the university, had become concerned that this audience reaction would jeopardize the too busy to take this project across the finish line. entire training program. We knew we had to find a way to reassure and motivate this core group of faculty lecturers to We therefore homed in on his senior lecturer, who had move ahead with the original plan. been one of the most animated and energetic participants during the TOT. We worked closely with him, encouraging Urgent action was required to cool the temperature before him to champion the project and sign up students for the the situation became over-heated and slipped from our first corporate governance course. At first he was reluctant, control. We brought the three key opinion leaders center because he felt there would be very few takers. He claimed stage to focus everybody's attention. To harness their the students were not very familiar with the topic of experiences, we opened up a discussion on their corporate governance, and would not see career prospects achievements in corporate governance. They talked of their in this field. We saw this as an opportunity to present our IFC Pakistan Corporate Governance team, MBA students and their lecturer, and members of the Pakistan Institute of Corporate Governance participate in the videoconference. 2 IFC SMARTLESSONS -- APRIL 2009 business case for a corporate governance success were getting buy-in at the outset, elective course in the MBA program. Our building strong relationships with key premise was that corporate governance is an stakeholders, making course corrections in a emerging issue and, in light of the unfolding timely manner with back-up plans, and global financial tsunami, this issue was here to nurturingthestudentstobecomeambassadors stay. In addition, since very few people had any of good corporate governance practice at their kind of specialization in corporate governance, university. students with formal academic grounding in corporate governance would be in high demand. We also offered to present these arguments directly to prospective students. In the end, this was not necessary, because 30 students signed up for the corporate governance elective. 4) Reinforce the relationship with the end user. Once the students were on board, having signed up for their corporate governance elective course, we reinforced their good decision by inviting them to IFC for an orientation on the landscape of corporate governance in Pakistan. We wanted to nurture these students so that they would become ambassadors of good corporate governance practices at their university. We lined up a videoconference with the students, the Pakistan Institute of Corporate Governance, and IFC. We briefed the students on the objectives and achievements of the IFC Corporate Governance Project and the work of the institute in accrediting directors, increasing membership, and orienting companies on corporate governance. The ensuing discussion was highly interactive. It ranged from a review of local business leaders' opinions on corporate governance to the opportunities and barriers to the progress of good corporate governance practice in the country. The students were thoroughly engrossed, and we rewarded them with certificates of participation. This activity generated a buzz at the university and enhanced the prospects of getting a high DISCLAIMER enrollment for the second batch of students. IFC SmartLessons is an awards program to share lessons learned Afterword in development-oriented advisory services and investment operations. The findings, Engagementwiththestudentsissettocontinue, interpretations, and conclusions because IFC has offered to meet with the expressed in this paper are those students again toward the end of their course. of the author(s) and do not The response from the university has also been necessarily reflect the views of IFC positive, including an invitation for IFC to or its partner organizations, the Executive Directors of The World deliver orientation lectures during the next Bank or the governments they round of recruitment for the new batch of represent. IFC does not assume students. Also, since the initial course, other any responsibility for the collegeshaveaskedIFCtoprovideanorientation completeness or accuracy of the information contained in this on corporate governance and training of document. Please see the terms trainers, and have shown interest in using IFC and conditions at www.ifc.org/ materials for their intended corporate smartlessons or contact the governance courses. The key ingredients of our program at smartlessons@ifc.org. IFC SMARTLESSONS -- APRIL 2009 3