Almost five years ago, I was invited to apply for the deanship at Manchester Business School. The principal reason for my interest was the international orientation of the school and indeed, the global nature of the entire UK higher education sector, especially compared with the US universities in which I had worked.
At MBS 35 per cent of the undergraduate students are from outside the UK, and the post-graduate programmes have students from more than 80 countries at any time. Similarly, the faculty is drawn from the best and brightest from dozens of countries.
The consequence of this openness redounds to the benefit not only of the students who are provided the best possible preparation for their global business careers, but also for the UK, which has attracted exceptional talent, and for the Manchester region, which has reaped the economic development rewards of a new, large export industry - higher education.