Peter Møllgaard

This transcript was generated automatically (YouTube auto-captions) and then edited for readability: names and obvious mis-hearings corrected, filler words removed, speaker labels added where the speaker is clear. Passages that could not be understood are marked [unclear]; short omitted passages are marked [...]. Timestamps are approximate. The recording is the authoritative version.

Konstantin Girst 00:00:01

Welcome back to a new episode of Campus To Capital. [...] It's so nice to have you here today. Welcome, Peter.

Peter Møllgaard 00:00:24

Thank you so much and thanks for having me. Yeah.

Host 00:00:26

Yeah. And I mean before we get really started, we thought it would be nice and in addition to the podcast would be nice for you to have a little souvenir. So we thought we bring you the what we call Campus To Capital tombstone.

Peter Møllgaard 00:00:42

Oh wow.

00:00:44

Not sure I want a tombstone right now. I am old but not that old. Thank you so much.

Host 00:00:49

Yeah. So

Peter Møllgaard 00:00:50

number 22. Is that it?

Host 00:00:51

It's number 22. Yeah.

Peter Møllgaard 00:00:52

Amazing.

00:00:53

It's a nice number as well.

Host 00:00:54

Exactly. Yeah. So maybe you find a nice place in your office or somewhere else.

Peter Møllgaard 00:00:58

Yeah, I think to put a picture of yourself in your office is funny, isn't it?

Host 00:01:04

Storage unit is also okay.

Peter Møllgaard 00:01:06

But thank you so much. Highly valued. I'll see where I can put it.

Host 00:01:10

Okay, great.

00:01:12

Thanks. I like the title Campus To Capital which we were just talking about.

00:01:17

Of course, capital could mean money, but it could also mean capital city.

00:01:22

Exactly. Cognitive capital. There's so many

00:01:26

many interpretations nicely.

Host 00:01:29

Thanks. So yeah, before we get really started, could you maybe explain to our listeners what your job is and maybe also, yeah, how your career started initially?

Peter Møllgaard 00:01:40

Wow. As I said, I'm old. I'm 62. So my career spanned at least four decades now. [...] But also it's a rather large employer. So we have 1,500 employees plus a couple of thousand part-time employees. So it's a really big just sort of job in that sense. Lots of things to keep track of and of course there are many good people helping me with that. So it is about the overall academic performance of Copenhagen Business School but also the operations. So it's really my responsibility to make sure that this fine institution runs for the next 5 years at least. It will be probably more than that but let's see. So that's my job and how I got started, that's a long story but back when I was in high school and I finished high school and probably you don't even, it's a previous millennium. I finished high school in 1982. So then I went to university and I became

00:03:10

an economist. I did that because I wanted to be able to affect the society that we live in. So I have an ambition also with my current job to affect institutions, markets, organizations with academic knowledge and I think that was sort of my, that's been governing me through my career. Then I first became an economist here in Copenhagen at the University of Copenhagen, a competitor, and after that I did a PhD in Italy in Florence at the European University Institute and I specialized there in energy markets which has also shaped my career a little bit at least in the sense that energy markets seems to be ever important and also it got me interested in many things that I then be, so then I became an assistant professor and actually at the University of Aarhus in another part of Denmark and then I came back to CBS in 1996 as an associate professor and at that time my research interest was exactly energy markets, regulation, competition policy, how can we both develop new markets and also

00:04:40

also make sure that they work well. And to make that more, that sounds maybe a little bit meta, but to be very precise, it was around that time that Denmark became predominantly or to an increasing degree reliable on renewable energy. And so today we of course have one of the biggest parts of energy consumption covered by renewable energy in the world at least for countries that don't have neither nuclear power nor hydropower. So that's quite an achievement but that kind of stuff I thought was really interesting. So I think to understand how you could develop new markets with new technologies was really interesting and we did that at the time and I think around 2000 we got electricity markets into Denmark and it's funny to think that before that we actually didn't have markets for that but had different ways of governing that and I was an associate professor at the time, then I became a full professor and I became head of the account [unclear] department here at CBS. I was that for a decade from 2005 to 2015. Then I became the dean of research also here at CBS for a three-year period. Then I left for

00:06:10

Maastricht University School of Business and Economics. Became a dean in the Netherlands. Through COVID and it was a very interesting time I was there. My family moved there and my daughter didn't thrive there. So we decided to move back and so we moved back four years ago or so. And my daughter went to a different high school and she thrives today and I'm very happy with that. And then this position became available almost two years ago and I thought I'd give it a shot and lo and behold here I am as president of CBS. So that's one part of the story and of course there are many other parts of it but that's how it started.

Konstantin Girst 00:07:11

Well and here we are, right. So and I mean you just mentioned that there is obviously a lot of macroeconomic things going on in the world right now and that you have a certain responsibility to potentially influence them as the president of this university. But I also think that there's loads of things going on right now internally at universities maybe than even ever before. [...] So I think we see the ongoing struggle maybe, or not struggle but the ongoing pressure and challenges to receive funding for certain research activities

00:07:49

and then also I think next to that also with AI I think there is a big question mark/revolutionary education right now and then maybe in Denmark not that much but in very traditional education markets such as the US and the UK you also currently see a big worry regarding employability of very recent undergrads and graduates. So there's so much to consider being a president of university that someone would maybe not immediately think of. So with all of these things in mind at the same time, do you have a certain leadership style that allows you to navigate this ship CBS as its captain?

Peter Møllgaard 00:08:31

Yeah, I think I do. I think first of all, you mentioned before we started the recording that you're fond of speaking. I think what is hugely valuable in today's society is that you actually listen maybe more than you speak and so that's part of my style is to listen very carefully to different signals that come from students or from stakeholders in general, employees could be, but also political stakeholders. I listen very carefully to information about how AI would transform society in general but also universities in particular. And we have our own AI strategy for that. And so when we made that AI strategy, that was also under the influence of the stakeholders, right, so students, employees and our board of directors but also, you know, international experts that govern this, or I don't think you govern AI actually, I think it governs itself or we need to find out what to do with it, but I really think that what I take pride in is listening to as many stakeholders as possible before I make decisions and often they affect decisions in that way.

Host 00:09:59

Very interesting and maybe I could add to that, maybe AI is governing us already.

Peter Møllgaard 00:10:06

Yeah,

Host 00:10:06

we don't know.

00:10:08

Yeah, but

Peter Møllgaard 00:10:09

it is influencing us. It is influencing. I could talk a lot about AI. So if you want to go that direction, I'm very happy to. But I'll let you guys decide where we go.

Host 00:10:17

I think we have it on the agenda, but maybe a little bit further in.

Peter Møllgaard 00:10:20

Absolutely.

Julius Ambrosius 00:10:21

And I mean yeah, Konstantin said you're leading a large educational institution in Denmark and we've seen it in the last couple of months, Denmark is also affected by the global fragmentation and protectionism. So you as being an economist but also in that leadership role with, you know, certain responsibilities, how do you interpret that broader trend of, you know, fragmentation and protectionism?

Peter Møllgaard

Wow, that's a huge question. But so let me start and then you can stop me and direct me if you want.

00:11:02

But one of the things that we take note of is of course we're living in a polycrisis. That's also what you described, right? And what does that mean? We have a geopolitical uncertainty and security crisis very clearly these days. Yeah.

00:11:18

We have climate crisis, nature crisis, biodiversity crisis. We have in Europe a technology gap vis-a-vis China and the US. We have misinformation and disinformation. And each of those might be enough in itself, but they also combine to this polycrisis. Last year, or was it a year before, we called that the spiral of evil risks and I think that's a good way of looking at it. So we do have a lot of uncertainties and a lot of crisis and you could think of that as stopping you from taking decisions but actually I think you should do the opposite. [...] And I think that you should think of that as a set of possibilities. We have a completely new, I listened to Financial Times Martin Wolf the other day

00:12:48

a couple of weeks back and he said well in one sentence the current world order isn't, there is no world order, we need to understand that and then as responsible agents, as responsible leaders we need to find our way to work with that. So that's, and of course I'm old, you're young. So you guys have to find solutions in this mess and I think that is what we should do and that's what we should aim to give you. That's one reason why we have the Nordic Nine. So the nine capabilities for a positive future, that is because they really are about navigating or balancing trade-offs, paradoxes, dilemmas and finding ways through that and so for me Nordic Nine are important because it's our attempt to instill you with the possibility to act and lead with wisdom.

00:14:04

I don't know if I answer your question, but

Host 00:14:06

sort of

Peter Møllgaard 00:14:07

so now it's on you.

Host 00:14:09

But I think as us being no native Nordics, we're both from Germany. We already, at least I can speak for myself, I already tried to implement at least some of the Nordic Nine in my daily habits.

Peter Møllgaard 00:14:23

Which one is your favorite then?

Host

I think the one on my card, it's about social responsibilities.

Peter Møllgaard 00:14:29

Yeah.

Host 00:14:30

Yeah. I think it's the fifth one.

Peter Møllgaard 00:14:32

Okay. I don't remember the numbers either. The important thing is the context and that you think about it. So it's well done.

00:14:40

do you have a favorite

Host 00:14:41

to be honest? I don't know them off the top of my head. But I think the general idea of doing well, being honest, being in touch with other people, staying connected, being responsible, taking leadership, taking initiative, I think it's a nice way of summing up of what young people should aspire to be. And I also think, I mean it's a clear part of CBS's identity. [...] Then we sometimes have banners hanging around here. [...] And speaking about this strategic identity and also within a global context as we talked about the global geopolitical crisis that we have right now, I think it's super important to more than ever be a global citizen, to stay in touch, be international, stay connected

00:15:45

and then within this environment of global business education we just saw also from the Financial Times the MBA rankings where I think CBS placed as 86 if I'm correct.

Peter Møllgaard 00:15:58

In the world. Yes.

Host

[...] But within those rankings when people maybe look at what universities they should pick and what to consider, obviously it's important to receive very good education. But where do you see the key differentiator or what's your personal favorite aspect of, this is the reason why CBS is unique and this is why maybe someone should go and choose to go to CBS instead of other leading universities?

Peter Møllgaard 00:16:29

So Nordic Nine, we are close to that. I think that is one reason but I think if you compare us with other business schools in the world, in particular in the US but probably also in Asia, we are much broader than the archetypical American business school. So we have of course, we do have marketing and finance and organization and strategy and all the classical operations management that you would expect of a business school but we also have the wider social sciences and humanities that allow us to put business in a context and I think that is something that sets us apart from most business schools in the world. There are some that are like-minded and we have good collaboration with those like-minded, an example just south of Germany, and WU, Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, is similar in

Host 00:17:31

pretty good pronunciation by the way

Peter Møllgaard 00:17:33

[unclear] But of course that is one of the things we should work on, on speaking many languages, but I think that kind of institutions that we [unclear] is, that's what sets us apart really. So that's one differentiator. We also, we are very big university so as I said, last year's number, I don't know the current year's number, we need to find that out in a month or so

00:18:12

but 21,18 [unclear] students here. That's actually quite many for a business school and that also allows us to be broad. [...]

Host

[...] And I think I mean regarding that it's not just at the MBA level what you just described but it's also at the undergraduate level that there is such a great variety of

Peter Møllgaard 00:18:35

yeah our offering is much wider than

Host 00:18:37

I mean compared to WU in Vienna as well they only offer three undergraduate courses where I think here it's 12 or 13 English taught bachelor programs that all offer a different angle on the world of business.

Peter Møllgaard

And even our largest undergraduate is in Danish, right? And there's also a very magnificent [unclear] education. So I really think we have very much going for us in terms of both the breadth and the depth of what we do.

Host 00:19:08

I absolutely agree and you just touched upon collaboration and I mean CBS is triple crown accredited. So you have this large network of collaborative universities.

Peter Møllgaard 00:19:21

Yes.

Host 00:19:21

[...] [...]

Peter Møllgaard 00:19:35

I think we have, to be precise, 292, yeah almost 300, about 292 last I was counting, exchange agreements with business schools across the world. Right.

Host 00:19:46

Which is an incredible offering. Yeah.

00:19:49

[...]

Peter Møllgaard 00:19:49

And just to talk about geopolitics, I think for the first time ever, the US is no longer the most sought after destination. So Australia is

Host 00:20:02

that's what I was about to ask actually. [...]

Peter Møllgaard 00:20:06

[...]

Host 00:20:07

[...]

Peter Møllgaard 00:20:08

Oh, that's excellent.

Host 00:20:10

[...] But it's certainly an interesting time to go to the US.

00:20:17

Yeah. But how do you then balance something like that? Because I mean it's super important to have collaboration overseas. I think you just did a sort of a deal with Stanford and Harvard if I'm correct. So is it difficult for you to manage that partnership? I mean considering the geopolitical tension between Denmark and the US.

Peter Møllgaard

It's not gotten easier certainly, right? And so the way I maneuver in that, and I think that's, so we had in December, as part of the Danish presidency of the European Union, a conference here at CBS on science diplomacy. And I think one of the things that, the biggest message there is that scientists need to keep in touch even if governments disagree. So maybe that is the way we should handle this. Having said that, I'm also part of the board of directors of one of the accreditation bodies, AACSB. So the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business which is

00:21:47

placed in Tampa, Florida which is one of the reddest states in the US

00:21:54

and so we are too big a board, but a rather large board, 25 or so in the board from all over the world and when Trump took power a year and some months ago, again the immediate reaction of the executive at AACSB was to change the wording of DEI in the guiding principles for the accreditation and then we were I think 30 or so Nordic business schools who told them wait a second, I mean just because you have a new guy as president of the US

00:22:45

doesn't mean that we should change our guiding principles as an association which is worldwide. Yeah.

00:22:50

So we're having some really solid discussions in the board on whether it's permissible to just change your standards in a sense because of that and so we had this statement, we also made a statement as CBS saying that well first of all we still value academic freedom and we still value diversity, equity and inclusion. And that is something that we're going to stand for even if other parts of the world does not agree

00:23:28

and so of course that could hinder some, if, so what we have heard of, we haven't experienced it much ourselves but other universities in Europe have experienced that US collaboration partners said well you can't have that wording in your application, then we can't, or in your statutes, then we can't collaborate with you and if that happens I think we just say well so be it, if you decide you don't want to collaborate with us because we

00:24:03

we are insisting on DEI then, you know

00:24:09

go along without, set priorities, yeah we have a set of values, we stand by those and we don't change the values

Peter Møllgaard 00:24:17

just because of that. You are probably too old to know the expression by the Marx Brothers. Groucho Marx, you don't know, or you probably never heard of the Marx Brothers. No, of course not. But Groucho has a statement in which he says well these are my principles, if you don't like them I have others, and that's not who we are, right, we have some principles, we stand by those principles

00:24:46

and so I think that's where we are in terms of, we do science diplomacy, we also stand by our values and that's of course a balance and that's where Nordic Nine come in because you can easily see dilemmas sometimes, right? How much should we push? And I just think that what I've recently learned, I've become a huge fan of Mark Carney, I don't know, the Canadian prime minister who came out at Davos saying, you know, we are maybe middle-sized countries, we are even a small-sized country in Denmark, but we have some values. We stand by them and we defend them. That's his, he did it much more eloquently and I recommend to everybody listening to his 15-minute Davos speech, made me a huge fan of the Canadian prime minister.

Host

In late 2025 you also had the former German vice chancellor Robert Habeck here at CBS giving a talk, actually we also had him on the podcast so that was a double dipper from him

Peter Møllgaard 00:26:03

and I've had him both in my office just on a one to one but also we had a round table discussing how we could collaborate on geopolitics and with his background

Host 00:26:14

yeah and in the face of [unclear] and globalization, do you see this as an increasing necessity or opportunity to contribute to certain debates on policies and general society and also to give these discussions a stage at CBS as well?

Peter Møllgaard 00:26:36

So I'm not sure I understand the question, so maybe you should rephrase, ask me again.

Host

Well, having had Habeck here in late 2025, doing something like this, it kind of goes beyond the classroom setting of discussing what's taught in your programs and rather inviting students to engage and discuss more broader and more contemporary themes.

Peter Møllgaard 00:27:00

Absolutely. I think we should engage as much as possible and as much as our energy allows us to in those kind. I'm particularly a fan of the Nordic Nine nights. I'm not sure if you're aware, but CBS students have those nights where we

00:27:14

where we, I'm talking as if I was part of it. Actually, I'm not. I'm just supporting it. So we take a Nordic Nine, I keep saying we, I think that's probably good, but I have nothing to do with it except from giving more support. So take a Nordic Nine principle and then discuss it in a context and I think that's fantastic that you can have both students but also external stakeholders talk here. We have a lot of different occasions. I think also there was the municipal elections, right, that also entered the building and so I really think that we should engage with society both at the local level but also at the global level and I think CBS is well put to go all the way from Frederiksberg to basically the planet and how we can orchestrate for that. So I think we have an audience or a set of stakeholders that allow us to scale up and down in terms of geography.

Host 00:28:36

Absolutely. So now we would actually like to jump into AI.

00:28:42

So

Peter Møllgaard 00:28:43

it's one of my pet topics.

Host 00:28:45

Okay. Let's see. I mean there's a growing narrative that MINT studies, so anything mathematics related, are growing in relevance because of AI. And people say okay, humanities and business degrees are getting obsolete because of AI.

00:29:06

I already see you shaking your head. But what in your opinion is becoming the primary driver of economic innovation and why are business degrees still relevant in today's world?

Peter Møllgaard 00:29:22

Oh, more relevant than ever. First of all, I think MINT is maybe partly German. Abbreviations would be exactly

00:29:34

would be the, so science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

00:29:39

And of course those are hugely important.

00:29:42

When I speak, especially if I speak with engineers, I say that technologies are less than half of the solution. And I truly believe that. I think what we should do is, I very often see also in public policy that STEM or technologies are favored and also supported by money, subsidized, and often I think we should actually start with the end in mind. So find out what is the need for this. What problem are we trying to solve? And who should find out what problem are we trying to solve? That should be social sciences and humanities, I submit, and especially of course business school students or graduates. You know, to find out saying okay, there's a need in the market or there's a need in society. There's a challenge to be solved. How do we best do that and of course technology could be part of the solution but only part, very often that would in itself require a change of behavior but it could also be that the solution was not a new technology but a change of behavior or change of societal structure. So I really think to be more open-minded in where we find solutions we need to start with

00:31:12

societal needs and that is best understood by us at Copenhagen Business School or if you widen it a little bit to social sciences and humanities and so I think we should work with that and then I say okay, derived from that maybe we need a new technology. That would be great to have a new technology for windmills, I mentioned those, was part of that change of technology around the millennium that now is hugely important on a global level. Solar panels would be another example. But of course, what we need to understand is how society reacts to that and how markets evolve and I think that is really the stuff that we're made of. And of course today if you think about tariffs or other things that come up, of course you need to understand what tariffs could do to society and that's not technology, that's of course something that has to do with markets and institutions and we need to be those who actually

00:32:22

translate that and find business solutions in that space.

Host

When we challenge kind of the business versus STEM education, I think, I mean not I think, I know, in today's world that we increasingly see STEM educated students and business educated students competing for the same jobs, not because I think there's a great overlap in teaching but maybe because STEM students are interested in benefits such as the compensation within business jobs and then as you mentioned the AI strategy of CBS earlier, maybe with the idea in mind on how to retain a competitive edge in this market for business students, where do you think it is important for a business school to not leverage AI for something and then maybe where it is important to double down with AI on something for future best practices?

Peter Møllgaard 00:33:13

That's, the first part of your question is more difficult than the second. I think we should double down on everything pretty much, right? And that's okay. So I think that is also in a sense the nature of our AI strategy, that we embrace the technology. So yeah, let me think about where we shouldn't employ it. I really have to think hard about that. What our AI strategy does is basically to say we have three levels of AI knowledge. First of all, we should understand at CBS how AI affects society and that goes for the labor markets which we discussed but also, well, since AI affects almost any processes in society. [...] So I think that's one. The other one is that, and that's maybe where we need to think about if there are

00:34:43

areas where we shouldn't use AI, but I would very much like to put it positively and say we need to understand how you can learn with AI and that's not by giving you easy solutions to problems, but that is by changing the way you learn. And that's one of the things that we are trying to do right now. And just to be very boring, what we try to do now is to make sure that we have a constructive alignment between the learning goals in courses, the pedagogics and the assessment, exams. And unless we get that right, you guys don't learn with AI, and you learn either despite of AI or you don't learn if you just go to the easy solution, right? I have a term paper, I can do that in three minutes now, it used to take me 3 weeks,

00:35:45

you don't learn by doing it in 3 minutes. So we need to somehow adjust for that. And the third area in which we should use AI is basically in our own operations, in research. [...] We shouldn't spend so much time on doing our PowerPoints as we used to. Maybe even spend it giving you guys feedback, and of course in our own operations and we're doing all of that as well. So it's really something that we're doing quite a lot of. And so, if I understood your question correctly, maybe you shouldn't use AI in the here's-an-easy-solution kind of way, but use it to learn.

Host 00:36:35

Yeah, for sure. [...] And also when it comes to tech and AI and education, we also talked to Kim Rants, who's a CBS alumni who founded Alice.tech, which I'm sure that you're familiar with. [...] So I think it's something very important to keep in mind and to balance as well.

Peter Møllgaard 00:37:14

Absolutely.

Host 00:37:15

Yeah. I mean let's face it, there is misuse as well. I mean

Peter Møllgaard 00:37:18

of course

Host 00:37:19

[...]

Peter Møllgaard 00:37:22

I'm sure you guys don't but people do it. Yeah.

00:37:25

No, and of course we understand that as well, right? And of course,

Host 00:37:31

but I mean academic integrity really clashes with this innovation. [...] [...] But did you as a university ever think about collaborating with, I don't know, ChatGPT, OpenAI or Anthropic or any other big tech firm to give students permanent access to those tools? Because if you change the exam format then, I mean, the misuse will be less and the

Peter Møllgaard 00:38:24

Yes, we are actually, we have started a collaboration with OpenAI and so right now we, so this comes in stages and it's also according to our AI strategy because we can't do everything in one go. But we have supplied all scientific personnel at CBS with a professional version of ChatGPT. All administrative personnel work with Copilot and of course scientific personnel who have special needs or special wishes, because for example they research AI, they can get access to more than those two. We are thinking, because it's quite expensive right now and that's why we're also collaborating with OpenAI, that the next step will probably be to grant access to students who write their master thesis, give them access to OpenAI for free.

Host 00:39:24

Mhm.

Peter Møllgaard 00:39:24

And then down the road we want to roll it out. But we need to find out how we can get, you know, university licenses at a reasonable cost, otherwise we'll very quickly exhaust our budget. So there's a plan and I think we should all, my guess is that in a couple of years we'll all have something very integrated into our work life and also students at CBS and also a professional version that we supply students with but it is quite costly right now and we're spending multiple million Danish kroner on that right now. I think the cost will come down and we'll find a way to get an enterprise version that we can use with students as well but we need a little bit more time to do that. So I really think it's going to be integrated in our lives and your lives as well very soon.

Host

I mean to look at the other side of things

Peter Møllgaard 00:40:27

[...]

Host 00:40:32

[...]

Peter Møllgaard 00:40:35

[...]

Host 00:40:39

to look at the other side of things now, I mean talking about the human and not the machine, as education is changing, also the skills that we need as humans or the skills that are more important are changing as well. [...]

Peter Møllgaard 00:41:13

Very good question. I think so many things one could answer here but one of the things, you mentioned the word excel, but one thing you don't need is Excel. I think because that will be more or less done by you, or you will have a different way, you'll have a dialogue with your Excel sheet rather than, yeah. Exactly. So I think personally, but I think the jury is still out here, unless you're very techy, you should use the occasion to become more human. And there's a book title there for you if you want to read. There's a book called More Human about, if you are working with AI, what should you ask AI to do for you, which would take up a lot of time. Find out where does AI, your avatar, have? I'm sure you have an avatar each at least. Where would your avatar actually work faster for you? And where would you then have the time to think about the deeper questions, the right prompts, the stuff that AI cannot do for you, which is a lot of thinking across the interdisciplinary, the

00:42:44

the intuitive, the critical thinking. I think that would be where I think you, I know that's not a set of skills but maybe more, I don't know, somewhere between a set of values and a state of mind that you need to work. Does that make sense? You're nodding, but I'm not sure I'm making sense.

Host 00:43:12

It does. I mean, we see it with, I mean, agentic AI. I mean, the headlines the last couple of weeks were agentic AI and Moltbook, Clawdbot, whatever you call it. Yeah, definitely. I think we have pretty exciting, but maybe also scary times ahead. Yeah.

Peter Møllgaard 00:43:29

I wouldn't worry if I were you, but I also would invest in understanding how this works.

00:43:37

And how you can differentiate. [...] But you also need to differentiate with respect to your avatar or what an AI agent can do. Of course,

00:44:01

doing a financial statement analysis for example, right?

00:44:07

That has to be different. So it will be AI supported. Of course, you need to understand the basics, but you also need to understand the tools. And then you need to use your critical mind to say okay, what did I learn? How sure am I, first off, that what AI told me is correct and secondly how can I make sense of this and how can I differentiate myself when it comes to taking it to the next level and by that I mean, you know, identifying what the real issues are in this company that we're looking at. I mean I could probably spend another two hours on talking about

00:44:59

and of course then maybe I want to recommend something to you and maybe also the listeners. One of the podcasts that I've been listening to is something called Boss Class

00:45:09

from The Economist and there's a guy called Andrew Palmer and Andrew Palmer is first of all his, I think, but maybe he's also closer to my age than your age, very funny, this British humor and this last season of Boss Class takes exactly how does AI affect leadership? How does it affect the job market and things we need? How does it affect recruitment? So, I invite you to think about listening to Boss Class. It's actually fun and it's like four or five episodes. Really a lot of fun. Very well researched as well.

Host 00:45:49

You've heard it. We're definitely going to put it in the show notes and I will check it out as well. But maybe moving along to something else. We want to talk a bit about, yeah, the life of international students at CBS. [...]

Peter Møllgaard 00:46:15

the deep south

Host 00:46:16

[...] But there are certainly some students that move far from, I don't know, South America, Asia to CBS and spend, yeah, a couple of years here to study or even then stay in Denmark.

Peter Møllgaard 00:46:38

hopefully

Host 00:46:39

Yeah. But I mean we both agreed on before we did this podcast that there seems to be a growing gap between educated students from outside of Denmark and then actually job offerings for people that are non-Danish. We faced a problem of finding a job. Yeah,

00:46:58

but maybe that's very subjective, but what is CBS doing to tackle that problem? I mean today actually, I know you can't see this right now, but outside there are I don't know 41 booths of

Peter Møllgaard 00:47:12

a huge fuss

Host 00:47:14

exactly, of exciting companies that recruit at campus. So that's definitely one thing you do but yeah, what would you tell students from outside?

Peter Møllgaard

No. There are many things. First of all, I think that Denmark is, and maybe I should start by trying to sell Denmark a little bit and Copenhagen since we are Campus To Capital also in that sense. Copenhagen is the capital city and I think it is possible to have a very, it's a very livable city in my view. It is easy to live here also as an international worker in Copenhagen. What do we do? We of course we do career affairs as the one you mentioned but we also work with the Confederation of Danish Industries, the Chamber of Commerce to make sure that our graduates feel welcome in the Danish labor market and we do that through a number of different channels but actually those two that I mentioned are very favorable to having more international students. And then of course like in many other countries in Europe, in the world I believe, there are movements that push against having more international participation in the job market and that's something we need to take note of. We have elections in Denmark right now. So this may change as well

00:48:44

after the elections. But really we are lobbying to make sure that we can get more international students and that we can also provide a gateway into the labor market in Denmark. And I think actually companies are really keen to employ our graduates. We have one of the lowest, the Technical University of Denmark is a close competitor here.

00:49:09

But the two of us have very low unemployment rates for all students including international students. So there is a demand for you guys out there and I think we need to work on that, both the political level. We work with the organizations such as the Confederation of Danish Industries and I think that's what I can do as an institution or what CBS can do as an institution.

Host 00:49:43

I mean that's a good point. [...] [...] From the side of CBS, for example, I think when you look at the CV templates that CBS offers, I think they're not up to the standards that finance and consulting roles maybe require, that obviously loads of business students want to move into. [...] So I wanted to ask, is that something that you plan on changing into the future or do you rather see importance in remaining centered and focused on the Danish labor markets?

Peter Møllgaard

We have always taken pride in placement also internationally. So I think that continues to be important. It's clear also that if I ignore the Danish labor market as a

00:51:13

Danish university president then I also don't do my job. So I think it's a typical Nordic Nine dilemma, or it's not even a dilemma because there is in my view no contradiction. I think what we should do, if you want to stay, let me just say, then we should find a way to have you stay. If you want to leave, we should have

00:51:35

you placed in the best possible way and then of course I hope you come back or if you don't come back, you become an ambassador of Denmark and that typically happens to people who have the education from us. So actually I don't think there's a big contradiction. I took note of what you said about the career support we have for international students who want to go abroad. I'll go back and see if we can do something about that. That shouldn't be, that there would be substandard support for that. But really I need to of course cater to both parts, right?

Host 00:52:22

For sure. [...] [...] But at least it was still in relation with, so there seems to be a very nice

Peter Møllgaard 00:52:51

if you found CBS.com then maybe it should be CBS.dk.

00:52:57

So maybe you looked at Columbia Broadcasting Systems and I apologize immediately for what we didn't supply you there.

Host 00:53:06

Yeah. But I mean, reflecting on everything we just talked about, [...] I don't know what I missed but these were I would say the two main things we talked about today. What would it be?

Peter Møllgaard 00:53:40

I don't know, so you know I was also an international student and I went to Italy as I told you and

00:53:50

I think that, don't be too worried. I think you have, you know, the world and the future are open to you. So maybe the advice would be, other than embrace AI critically, it would be also to somehow go out, and it sounds like Nike, just do it, but actually don't be too worried about the first possibility. Find something that interests you and I know that you often think that if I don't get my immediate first priority job then everything is lost. It isn't. I mean there's so much time and you have time to make, maybe here is one, if you want one one-liner: if you fail, fail brilliantly and by that I mean, you know, go out and if it doesn't work out the first time then you learn from that and then you just move on and I think the best people in the world are those who have failed a number of times and still move forward and with that kind of

00:55:20

with that kind of approach you'll get very far and if you want everything perfect from the outset then I think you set for a less interesting career.

Host 00:55:36

Well, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, right?

00:55:39

But I think that's a very good piece of advice and I also think it's

Konstantin Girst 00:55:43

I mean I said this before we started recording, [...] So, thank you very much for taking the time, Peter. Really appreciate it.

Peter Møllgaard

It's been a pleasure, Konstantin. Yeah.

Konstantin Girst 00:56:12

Thank you very much.