It’s Advantage Executive MBA At 75

The Executive MBA, launched 75 years ago by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business as a part-time program for busy professionals, has over the decades, spread across the world with no less than 126 institutes offering various versions. How does it measure up against the various other management programs in the current scenario?

The first and foremost advantage of the EMBA is the flexibility it offers. You don’t have to quit the job and enrol for a full-time program of one or two years that would be more expensive by way of fees and the time spent away from work.

The classes are held after office hours twice or thrice a week. With increasing use of online methods of fact-based learning, the EMBA participant is able to devote more time in the classroom for debates, discussions and networking with fellow students.

EMBA also draws prospective entrepreneurs with technological, engineering and science educational backgrounds. The management perspective inculcated by the program helps them scale up their businesses.

An increasing number of women are also on the lookout for flexible programs, says the Financial Times quoting Tomorrow’s MBA, an annual survey of prospective MBA students by CarringtonCrisp. The survey found that 46% of women prefer such courses, in comparison with 40% of men. They also showed more interest than men in blended courses with on campus and online elements.

Interestingly, while the demand for the online MBA programs remained flat in the past two years, the EMBA has registered growth or remained stable for 65% of the schools, according to a report by the Graduate Admission Management Council (GMAT).

EMBA also draws prospective entrepreneurs with technological, engineering and science educational backgrounds. The management perspective inculcated by the program helps them scale up their businesses.

For instance, Jeremy Kroll enrolled in the Trium Global MBA program, run jointly by HEC Paris, London  School of Economics and NYU Stern. In around 17 months, he completed the program that included six onsite modules in multiple global locations. He had spent only 10 weeks out of office during the entire duration of studies.

He says he joined the program in 2006 at the age of 36 after his family risk consulting firm was bought by another company. The part-time nature of the program helped him continue to work. He was able to visit several firms during the program and learn from professors at different schools that led him to set up his own business, K2 Intelligence, an investigative consultancy.

At Oxford Saïd Business School which launched the EMBA in 2004, the cohort has become more diverse with a fair share of young entrepreneurs and older executives. Some Hollywood producers and hedge fund managers had also enrolled for EMBA in recent years, FT quoted Kathy Harvey, associate dean for MBA and executive degrees, as saying.

The diversity enriches the learning experience for students because of the different perspectives it brings to classroom discussions, she adds.