The chapter is rethinking the role of the university as a producer and consumer of knowl¬edge in the contemporary twenty-first-century context. It questions especially the way current and future leaders are “trained” to acquire standardized skill sets through propri¬etary “off-the-shelf” executive education. To explore roads for enhancing innovation and legitimacy of businesses and the standing of their global leaders, we revisit developments that occurred in different university models over a millennium. The universitas, defined as a community of students and masters, has been a surprisingly adaptive model which we believe can be more effective than ever if reintroduced in executive education today. The resulting “world of learning” draws on traditional university core values of creating an open and inclusive world of learning that is made of an informed, interconnected and mobile community of learners that grows and produces value by collectively engaging with contemporary challenges.

Keywords: Executive education, future leaders, community of learners, contemporary challenges, bettering society.