Carnegie Mellon Tepper Dean Isabelle Bajeux-Besnainou is stepping down at the end of June after 11 years leading the business school and previously serving as dean at McGill’s Desautels Faculty of Management. In an exit interview, she linked her tenure to expanding experiential learning, capstone projects, and “collaborative AI” approaches aimed at simulating real-world decision environments. Bajeux-Besnainou said the school is preparing students for an MBA landscape shaped by AI, while also positioning business education toward financial literacy and retirement systems research. Her comments reflect a shift from purely institutional strategy toward research work tied to personal financial outcomes. For business schools, the leadership transition may affect how AI ethics, experiential curriculum design, and capstone partnerships are resourced and measured. The broader signal is that deans are treating AI adoption as both an instructional method and a competency requiring frameworks—rather than only a tooling change.