“We want to be catalysts for inclusion" - Joy Jones, CEO of GMAC
Joy Jones celebrated the first 6 months in her new role as CEO of the General Management Admissions Council (GMAC), with the introduction of a more efficient and flexible version of the GMAT. The standardized test that for over 65 years has been the benchmark exam for applicants to business school is evolving - shorter, more focused and more insightful, the GMAT™ Focus Edition will be available in the last quarter of 2023.
While Joy’s tenure has already marked itself as a new era for GMAC, her position as CEO is a new chapter in a personal story that underlines the importance of education in her life, going back to her childhood and parents.
Growing up in small college town in northern Californian, Joy saw first-hand the pathway to opportunity an education could create. “My parents were very involved with the student community, so we often had students who would come over for dinner, who didn't have parents or support systems. So we became the support system. I got to see up close exactly how much education can create new pathways.”
But Joy didn’t jump straight into business education herself, initially studying Mathematics and Applied Sciences at UCLA before pursuing an MBA from Stanford GSB. “I had interned as an undergrad at Procter and Gamble, and there were a group of interns working in a workspace alongside me and they had Excel, and PowerPoint and all these tools of technology that were really still new to people. They were MBA interns,” she highlights.
The admiration grew to application. “I wanted to go to Stanford for my MBA because I liked what I saw them doing. I wanted to understand where and how decisions were being made, and who was making them.” For Joy, graduate management education gave her a breadth of perspective to be able to look through different prisms.
She got to see the world, both in the MBA classroom and in her subsequent career. Coming out of Stanford she began a successful consulting career with EY and CAP Gemini, before taking on a senior leadership role at Associated Press. “I got to engage with leaders in businesses and understand the complexity of decision making and considerations. And I felt prepared to engage on the complexity of different disciplines and how they intersect, and where trade-offs need to be made and how you prioritise.”
Joy Jones features as one of the 10 most influential women in Graduate Management Education
Business school was also impactful through the networking opportunities. “I built a network of relationships with people who had different academic and professional experiences from around the world at a time when I had not previously experienced a lot of international students. And those networks have continued to this day.”
The connections she made at Stanford with people from all walks (and thoughts) of life left Joy with not a only a large network, but a diverse one.
Now as CEO of GMAC, a global, mission-driven association of leading graduate business schools she emphasizes that diversity is an area where the organization can continue to build success. “We want to be catalysts for that inclusion. We want to make sure that we're engaging people – so everyone can see that business schools are not narrowly tracking into a small set of industries anymore, that it actually prepares you and creates opportunity for a variety of career interests,” Joy says.
“The growth opportunity for us is really in reaching a broader pipeline of people with different academic and professional backgrounds as well as different aspirations through business too,”
When discussing diversity in business education, often it’s not someone’s ethnicity or nationality preventing them from attending business school. “It's that socioeconomic factor that may prevent someone who's really talented from applying to a business school. We communicate and help increase the financial means for people to participate in general management education, because we understand it’s not an inexpensive investment,” Joy continues.
To address this issue, they have introduced a new GMAT Talent and Opportunity Scholarship that targets a diverse background of candidates, with the support of Fortuna Admissions. “In our first year, we identified a dozen candidates who benefit from a scholarship and also have access to our GMAT products, prep solutions, and our business fundamental solutions.”
“It's important for business schools to create an environment where everyone feels welcome, where everyone feels included, where everyone feels like they can contribute and be part of the conversation,” she says. This can be done, she highlights, through providing access to support and resources for students from these diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, such as mentorship programs, networking opportunities, and financial aid.
“We have to tell more personalised stories that connect with different segments and audiences to make sure that they see themselves on this journey, and the opportunity to have the kind of impact coming out of business education that they would like to have. I think we'll all be better for it.”
Key for her to making management education more inclusive is technology. “It can help us reach a broader audience and make our programs more accessible for people who may not have had access before,” she explains. “By leveraging technology, business schools can provide online learning opportunities and reach students in remote or underprivileged areas.”
"Critical thinking and judgement becomes even more important in an information overloaded and ... [+]
One area of technology that is drawing a lot attention is AI, and specifically generative AI Chatbots like ChatGPT which are impacting on academic performance across higher education, including successfully passing an MBA exam given by a Wharton professor. The threat they present to testing within business education is a challenge GMAC has faced. Joy, who was persuaded to begin her own business education journey by the tech she saw the MBA interns engage with, stresses that the challenges are vastly overshadowed by the opportunities they create.
“It's not dissimilar to the conversations you had when search engines first emerged – didn’t we say: well, if you could search everything up, why do you need to ever know anything?” she notes. “I would argue critical thinking and judgement becomes even more important in an information overloaded and AI-affected world.”
“I think there's a lot of potential for AI to help personalize learning, to give insights and feedback to students, but I don't think it will ever replace the value of human interaction and collaboration.” Joy Jones also points to the role AI can also play a crucial role in providing access to education for people in remote or underprivileged areas - a key tool in increasing diversity across all boundaries in management education.
The GMAC CEO nonetheless acknowledges that there are challenges in implementing AI in education. “As we've seen with many of the challenges around AI, there's a lot of concern around data privacy and security, and I think it's important for us to be transparent about how we're using data and what we're doing with it.”
Within this spirit of transparency, GMAC recently revealed the upcoming addition to the GMAT test, which since 1954 has been the standardized test of reference for business school applicants. The new GMAT Focus Edition is the result of prolonged conversations with business schools, applicants, and business experts to identify where and how a new version of the test might be beneficial.
“We never want to be accused of being complacent or comfortable – that’s why we created the GMAT Focus Edition,” says Joy. “One of the key aspects of the GMAT Focus Edition will be the performance insights delivered after a test is complete, at no additional cost. For students and applicants, the insights will highlight the areas of strength and improvement. For schools, this will help build a more diverse classroom with different kinds of thinkers that have different perspectives on business.”
It is designed to assess readiness in less time, making it a better experience for candidates. Joy emphasizes that the test is not a substitute for the full GMAT exam, but is “a complementary tool that can be used to supplement a test-taker's overall preparation strategy.” By reducing the content in a format that is one hour shorter than before, it is designed to reduce the amount of preparation necessary.
The motivation for this launch was GMAC’s analysis of what future generations that will be entering business schools are looking for in an MBA or in other forms of management education. “This is the result of prolonged conversations with business schools, applicants and business experts across industries, to help us answer: what are the relevant skills that we need to be highlighting even more?”
The GMAT Focus Edition is a more focused test-taking experience that hones in on the higher-order critical reasoning and data literacy skills that are more relevant and applicable in the business environment of tomorrow. For Joy Jones, “It is part of a continued commitment to promoting diversity and inclusion in business education; by providing a more efficient and personalised testing experience, the new shorter test can help more students access graduate management education.”
The new test will be available at the end of 2023, and will initially run in parallel with the current GMAT exam which will then be withdrawn next year.
Already making impact in her new leadership role, Joy Jones points to the positive reaction the new GMAT Focus edition has generated. “From the insights it will provide schools, to the reduced prep for students, extensive conversations have been sparked online.”
Tutors are already planning their new revision strategies, and admissions professionals are discussing what entrance changes this will require. “And some students…” Joy Jones remarks, “some students are just happy trigonometry’s been dropped from the new test.”
