Celebrating AIM and AI management
I have always said that the lightning pace of hi-tech innovation is both daunting and exciting. One educational institution that has, through the years, kept up with this blitzkrieg is the Asian Institute of Management (AIM). I join AIM, currently celebrating its 58th anniversary, in applauding its expansion from face-to-face to online classes, from graduate to undergraduate degrees, from business-as-usual to sustainability, from corporate governance to artificial intelligence (AI) responsibility.
THE AIM CELEBRATION IS INCOMPLETE, in my humble opinion, without honoring a business legend, management guru, philanthropist, and dear friend—the late Washington SyCip—whose vision, wisdom, and passion led to the founding of AIM.
Along with the Harvard Business School advisory group, prominent business leaders, and academicians, he helped organize AIM. And as its founding chairman, he foresaw the need for the institution to lead businesses to be more people-centric and nation-builders.
A visionary, a genius of a man—Wash, as he was fondly called—would not be surprised that the flagship college of AIM, the Washington SyCip Graduate School of Business, now offers seven graduate degrees, which include four distinctive programs.
Among them is the master’s in international business law (MIBL) degree that I proposed to AIM several years ago and that was successfully launched in 2024. It was inspired by an email from my grandson, Jose Miguel “Mig” Sandejas, who finished with honors two master’s degrees: an MBA (in entrepreneurship) at the highly rated Babson College near Boston and a Master of Science in Business Law at the Northwestern University in Chicago.
Mig’s email stated, in part: “I discovered that knowledge of the law rounded out my business thinking. Not only does the law tell you what you cannot do, but it tells you how far you can go.” In turn, AIM proudly explains that its MIBL program “will benefit those who do not intend to pursue a legal career but are interested in gaining a comprehensive understanding of the global business landscape.”
Remarkably, several MIBL students have been awarded the coveted “Fellowship Awards” of the Foundation for Liberty and Prosperity (FLP) in partnership with the Metro Pacific Investments Corp. In 2011, I founded FLP with Wash, among others. A firm believer like me in liberty and prosperity, he was the first trustee to donate P500,000 to the FLP.
THE LEGACY LIVES ON as the baton was passed to Dr. Jikyeong Kang, the first female president and dean of AIM. She was also the first from the Asia-Pacific to chair the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business—the most prestigious global business education alliance and accreditation body.
She has expanded academic offerings in AIM from three-degree programs to 15, and increased its student enrollment severalfold. These include the launching of the Philippines’ first transnational double-degree undergraduate program in partnership with the University of Houston.
Relevantly, AIM now offers a master’s degree in AI and data analytics: ready-to-learn data analysis, machine learning, and, of course, AI itself—skills that are relevant to face business challenges and drive smart decisions.
At this critical juncture, I have witnessed how Jikyeong manages transformation with remarkable energy, grit, elegance, and grace. Were she not a foreigner, she would have been included in my column last Jan. 26, as one of the exemplars of the empowered women in the private sector.
AIM HONORED MY LATE WIFE LENI—an AIM alumna and the first female professor for 37 years (and associate dean for a few years), who passed to the Eternal Kingdom on April 9, 2023—by naming a case room after her and by rededicating its chapel (which she helped build) as the “Chapel of the Immaculate Conception In Loving Memory of Professor Leni Panganiban.” Our University of Michigan-educated daughter, Ma. Theresa “Tet” P. Mañalac, continued the professorial stint of Leni after she retired in 2009.
As I have repeatedly stressed, I believe in the value of shared prosperity and in alleviating poverty under the rule of law for more equitable socioeconomic progress. This is why my interest in AIM remains active, even as the FLP addresses these endeavors in its other programs (legal scholarships, dissertation writing, professorial chairs, educational assistance for the poor, etc.) to promote the national weal and get the country out of its generational problems of poverty, corruption, and abuse of public office.
As organizations transform, so, too, do the leaders who navigate the future with integrity and creativity. I am more than glad to learn that AIM is determined to continue its mission “to lead, inspire, and transform.” In celebration of this year’s homecoming, AIM is conducting two alumni masterclasses: AI applications in business and generative AI fundamentals for the workplace.
In sum, I keep faith in the FLP’s core philosophy: People need both liberty and prosperity under the rule of law. With AIM’s collaboration, FLP is determined to generate more programs to bring that philosophy more meaningful and useful to the wider public.
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