Mission and Values

AESE has been, for 45 years, a school designed to transform people and organizations. Founded by business leaders and academics with a bold and humanistic vision, AESE has established itself as a space where one thinks, debates and decides responsibly, at the service of a leadership with ethical principles, effective and transformative.

Our teaching model is based on a general management perspective, which requires a holistic view of the company and its impact on society. We combine science and practice with a matrix of guiding principles deeply rooted in the dignity of the human person, in the love of truth, justice and freedom. This humanist basis gives soul to our School.

Mission

Preparamos Líderes

AESE’s mission is to contribute to a more just and humane society, (trans)forming business and institutional leaders according to Christian and humanist guiding principles.

As a non-profit, public utility school, we foster service-based leadership based on integrity, professional excellence, and the ambition to make a positive and lasting impact. We believe that the development of organizations always begins with the development of people.

Vision

We aspire to be a school with meaningful and consistent transformation – a meeting point where leaders capable of responding to the great challenges of the present and the future are prepared with wisdom, courage and responsibility. We are committed to being a sustainable, innovative and people-centred school: prepared to think rigorously, act with ethical principles and contribute to the construction of a better future.

Message from the Dean of AESE

This was another remarkable year in AESE’s history.

We celebrated the 25th Anniversary of the AESE Executive MBA – a quarter of a century of preparing leaders with professional excellence, integrity, a global business vision and a generous spirit of service. Over these 25 years, we have recognized more than 900 leaders – coming from all sectors and with very different paths, but united by the same desire: to grow, transform and leave a positive mark. Each of them carries with them a piece of AESE’s history and contributes to the legacy that together we wanted and continue to want to build.

We also celebrated 44 years of history – almost half a century of forming the top management of companies in Portugal. We pioneered the use of the Case Method and continue to believe in the power of deep reflection, lively debate, and the confrontation of ideas as paths to true leadership. Today, more than ever, leading requires the courage to make decisions based on principles and with a long-term vision.

Since then, until today, AESE continues to be the result of this collective commitment, this constant mobilization of people and institutions that recognize the value of executive education, the deepening of knowledge and collaboration at the service of society.

At a time when everything seems to accelerate – technology, social challenges, ethical dilemmas, sustainability requirements – the role of AESE, the role of business schools continues to be critical and decisive, as a space where disciplines come together, where questions are asked, where paradigms are questioned, where reflection and debate are generated.

This was the year at AESE, impregnated with great dynamism and innovation. I highlight 4 initiatives from totally different scopes:

The initiative of the Chair of Artificial Intelligence. A multidisciplinary initiative, which aims to train business and social leaders so that they can understand and seize the opportunities of AI, but also anticipate and manage its challenges and risks.

The Sustainable Mobility Management Program. An innovative program for executives of companies in the Mobility sector that, like other sectoral programs ( PADIS celebrated its 20th anniversary this year), provides the basis for the formulation of strategies and decision-making in this specific domain.

The EDGE. A program for top managers that is an invitation to question the obvious, cross borders and make room for new perspectives that drive personal and organizational transformations.

The Family in Business Summit. An event that consolidates the School’s continued presence with family businesses.

And we are preparing to, at the beginning of the academic year of 25-26, inaugurate the AESE Campus in Porto. A space that will strengthen and multiply the impact of the school in the North.

The future is open. But we know what guides us: to train leaders who put people at the centre, who know how to build bridges, who take responsibility and who see in their professional role their way of serving society. AESE will continue to be that house where you grow inside and out. Where one studies, debates, transforms. Where the future is prepared.

To all who are part of this mission, my sincere: Thank you!

Maria de Fátima Carioca
Lisbon, September 19, 2025