In 2016, the Executive Education Center of Antai College Economics • Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University officially became a member of the UNICON after a comprehensive survey and evaluation of the UNICON Membership Committee (including academic advantages, development potential, and customer evaluation). UNICON (The International University Consortium for Executive Education) is a cooperative organization dedicated to executive education training and development, which is comprised of the world's leading business schools. Founded in 1972, UNICON currently entails nearly 120 top business schools, including a number of world’s noted business schools such as Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan School of Management, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford Business School, University of Chicago Booth School of Business, INSEAD, London Business School and IMD. With members located in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Oceania and Africa, it represents the most influential organization in the field of executive education. UNICON has strict requirements on membership. Applicants can only join as junior members. Two years of in-depth observation and comprehensive assessment are required before they can become full members.

From April 23 to 26, 2019, a delegation led by Tian Xinmin, Deputy Dean of Antai College Economics • Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University attended the UNICON Directors' Meeting for the fourth time. The meeting was held at the SKOLKOVO School of Management in Moscow, Russia. The whole meeting is divided into three parts: first, the introduction of local economy, culture and politics; second, the study of leadership development; third, discussion of the problems faced by current executive education and how to develop in the future. Heads of executive education of major business schools have conducted intense and in-depth discussions on the current puzzlements, difficulties and solutions during executive education and training. Through a few days of study and discussion, members of various countries have learned from the top business schools in the same industry to promote development. They have jointly predicted the future development trends in the hope of creating opportunities for cooperation and exchange.

SKOLKOVO School of Management allowed participants to experience the charm of top business school from meeting arrangements, experience classes, discussion sessions, etc. And it was highly praised by all participants. Deputy Dean Tian Xinmin repeatedly discussed the “Belt and Road” international cooperation projects with the representatives of the Chinese projects of SKOLKOVO School of Management. Dean Tian believes that we must seize good momentum of the “Belt and Road” international cooperation, promote complementary development of the business projects and create more bilateral opportunities for exchanges and win-win scenarios.

This exchange made students deeply feel that the problems faced by global business schools are similar, the most important of which is that business schools should learn how to better serve the practice. During the meeting, Dean Tian also shared with us that Antai College took the industry research as the starting point and explored the future development model of “cross-cutting, knowing and doing”. As the vanguard most close to the market and the industry development, the executive education will push forward industry research and development, integrate practice resource, provide frontier research data and serve as the value bridge for the new model innovation of the business school and corporate development.