NBCC were pleased to interview Murielle Bolsius, Director of Customized Education at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM).
Rotterdam School of Management (RSM) is one of Europe’s top 10 research-based business schools. RSM provides ground-breaking research and education, furthering excellence in all management aspects and is based in the international port city of Rotterdam – a vital nexus of business, logistics and trade.
RSM’s primary focus is on developing business leaders with international careers who carry their innovative mindset into a sustainable future thanks to a first-class range of bachelor, master, MBA, PhD and executive programmes.
Can you tell us about Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) and Customised Education?
With over 50 years of experience, RSM is a top-tier full-service business school, ranked 14th in the FT European Business ranking 2022. RSM Customised Education is strong in co-creating learning solutions for companies (fortune 500) in and outside of the Netherlands.
What is special about RSM Customised Education?
Strong collaboration and co-creation with our customers are key to designing and delivering successful learning solutions. We constantly challenge our customers and ask them fundamental questions: why do you need a specific learning solution? How could this learning solution contribute to the development of your organizational capabilities? What needs to change after your employees have gone through this learning experience? We do not want to create just another learning solution. We want to discover with our customers where we can make an impact and what we need to do in partnership to achieve this. A thorough understanding of our customers, their strategy, what keeps them awake at night, and their current transformations is crucial for success.
What is RSM’s advocacy in terms of Customised Education?
The future of education is now. We have seen how fast we needed to adapt during the Covid crisis. A lot of our educational solutions still offer face-to-face. We have seen the benefits of technology and how we can use this to offer much more personalized and blended learning solutions. We combine evidence-based research with practical application. Developing skills you can immediately apply to your work environment is key to our learning solutions. We want to stimulate critical thinking, creativity and collaboration through conversation and application in our customers' context.
What is the RSM’s lifelong mission?
Being a force for positive change in the world. In all our learning solutions, we focus on how you can bring positive change and act as a change agent within your company. What it means to do this and how you can do this.
How would you like RSM Customised Education to impact today's generation?
We try to spark intrinsic motivation and bring knowledge and insights that our participants are the ones that can stimulate change within the organizations they work for. They can be this force for positive change in everything they do. We support them in owning their learning process and share tools they can use immediately. We always integrate the latest insights on important topics like sustainability, inclusion and diversity, leaving much room for personal development and growth. The world we live in is complex, and with education, you can continuously grow yourself, influence others and shape the organization you work for.
The International Day of Education is celebrated on 24 January 2023 under the theme "To invest in people, prioritise education". How will RSM prioritise education?
Education is at the core of everything we do, and we offer our employees all the opportunities to develop and grow themselves so that they can be that force for positive change within our school.
Why did you join NBCC?
RSM is an international top-ranked business school with many international customers with both activities in the Netherlands and the UK. We see the value of being part of such a great network to understand what is top of mind in business and learn from them. It is about engaging in meaningful dialogue and collaborating to bring our evidence-based research and years of experience with education to the network.
What are your plans for future growth that you can share with NBCC members?
We see more demand for Customised Education and have identified this as a clear growth area for our school. Within organisations, learning is increasingly a strategic capability, especially now, when organisations are keen on keeping their talents and attracting new ones. By collaborating with HR, L&D and the business, RSM plays a pivotal role in aligning learning with their business strategy – and embedding it into their organisation. We have the capabilities to be their strategic advisor and co-create learning solutions that drive true impact and deliver value for them and the participants. RSM has the brand, the vision, the skills and the organisational capability to make learning stick!
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