BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 27. SOCAR plans to launch programs at the IE Leadership and Innovation Center in three key areas, SOCAR Vice President Ziba Mustafayeva said at the opening ceremony of the IE Leadership and Innovation Center in Baku on Tuesday, Trend's correspondent reports from the event.
According to her, the areas include: developing leadership and management skills, transforming educational leadership in the age of artificial intelligence, and preparing business case studies highlighting Azerbaijan’s successful practices.
She said human capital development is one of SOCAR’s core values, making the opening of the new center particularly significant. According to Mustafayeva, the initiative is not simply about creating new educational programs, but primarily about establishing a long-term cooperation platform focused on developing human potential.
“Buildings can be constructed, technologies can be developed or implemented. However, people are at the center of all these processes. It is people who adapt to change and even shape it by setting new trends,” Mustafayeva said.
She emphasized that this approach is particularly important for SOCAR. As the energy sector continues to evolve, the pace of change is accelerating, making the adoption of new business models and forms of partnership increasingly necessary. As a national energy company, SOCAR has a responsibility that extends beyond its corporate operations to contributing to the country’s overall development.
The vice president noted that one of Azerbaijan’s achievements in education has been the export of its domestic educational expertise to international markets. With the support of the Ministry of Science and Education, an Azerbaijani educational program was exported for the first time to a university in neighboring Uzbekistan approximately two years ago, she said. This marked an important step in bringing Azerbaijan’s educational services to international markets.
Mustafayeva added that cooperation with IE University, alongside a partnership model involving the public and private sectors, government agencies and regulatory bodies, creates broader opportunities.
“The main advantage of cooperation is that each partner brings a different perspective, experience, and set of expectations to the process. Bringing these approaches together makes it possible to create greater value than individual institutions could achieve independently,” she said.
The SOCAR vice president also outlined the three main areas of the center’s activities:
The first is an Advanced Management Program to be implemented in cooperation with IE University. The program is intended not only for SOCAR’s management team but also for public-sector executives. Designed to meet modern leadership and management requirements, it will use a blended learning model combining traditional and digital teaching methods.
The second area is a program on educational leadership and transformation in the age of artificial intelligence, to be developed with the support of the Ministry of Science and Education. It will help education leaders shape future academic programs, integrate AI into the education system, and establish responsible governance mechanisms for this process.
The third area involves developing business case studies that showcase Azerbaijan’s achievements and best practices at both domestic and international levels. These materials are intended to be incorporated into the curricula of local and international universities and shared with the global academic community.