FT Mba Report

The interview
A corporate sleuth Are EMBAs worth finds a new direction the high price tag?
October 24 2011
Special report
Networking
FT business education
www.ft.com/businesseducation/emba
Make contacts who make a difference
Executive MBA ranking 2011
SEPTEMBER 2011
contents
03
Special reports editor Michael Skapinker Business education editor Della Bradshaw Editor Hugo Greenhalgh Lead editor Jerry Andrews Art director Sheila Jack Visual consultant Ed Robinson Production editor Siobahn Cassidy Picture editor Lindsay Cameron Commercial director, EMEA Dominic Good Head of business education Elli Papadaki Account manager Ade Fadare-Chard, Gemma Taylor Publishing systems manager Andrea Frias-Andrade Advertising production Daniel Lesar, Daniel Scanlon Illustration by Neil Webb
OPENINGS 4 from the editor
TOP 25
6 upfront
Carbon footprints, Olympic vets, happiness indices and the FTs top 25 executive MBA programmes
34 REPORT 34 projects
Ambitious course projects transform careers and entire companies
How the EMBA went from being the MBAs poor relation to a respected, in-demand luxury product
8 introduction
11 meet the dean
David Thomas brings a fresh approach to the McDonough school, Georgetown
38 networking
An EMBA is about building high-level contacts as well as coursework
12 on management
Exceptions to the rule, such as Apple, can change the whole game
42 travel
Classmates from different cultures offer a truly global perspective
on the cover
14 deans column
Grigor McClelland helped to change the face of British business education
45 high-tech teaching
Distance is relative in the world of video-conferencing technology
DELLA BRADSHAW is the FTs business education editor; VINCENT BEVINS is a freelance journalist; SIMON CAULKIN is a management writer; PHILIP DELVES BROUGHTON is a management author; EMMA JACOBS is assistant editor of FT Business Life; MICHAEL JACOBS is the FTs business education statistician; REBECCA KNIGHT is a freelance journalist; PETER MOIZER is dean of Leeds University Business School; CHRIS NUTTALL is the FTs technology correspondent; ADAM PALIN is the FTs business education researcher; EMMANUELLE SMITH is the FTs business education reporter; LOUISE VOGLER is an EMBA student; HAL WEITZMAN is the FTs Chicago and Midwest correspondent; IAN WYLIE is a freelance journalist
CONTRIBUTORS
FEATURE 16 interview
Jeremy Kroll started a successful corporate investigations business. So why did he need an executive MBA?
ENDINGS 49 books
The Innovators Manifesto by Michael Raynor
PHOTOS: PASCAL PERICH; JEREMY NICHOLL/EYEVINE; JONATHAN BROWNING
51 technology
A start-up event throws up some smart ideas and terrible pitches
54 hopes & fears
RANKINGS 24 introduction
Find interactive rankings online at www.ft.com/ rankings Michael Jacobs analyses the data from the FTs annual surveys of business schools and their alumni
Louise Vogler hopes an EMBA will help her bridge east and west
54
26 the ranking
The 100 top business schools in the FTs 2011 executive MBA ranking
54
30 methodology
Adam Palin explains how this years EMBA ranking was compiled
from the editor

04
della bradshaw
Promising students
Why are fewer people signing the MBA Oath and can it really make a difference?
oom and bust are the bread and butter of business schools. An economy that is heading into recession is good news for business schools, as it is likely to mean a rise in applications and fee income. Ironically, it is times when the economy is booming and companies are thriving that business schools really feel the pinch. This is when busy managers often eschew full-time degree programmes to concentrate instead on growing their businesses. But are the attitudes of business school professors and students towards the subject of ethics equally cyclical? When the credit crunch hit and Lehman Brothers, the investment bank, collapsed in 2008, unethical bankers were held up as responsible. And, as everybody thinks, all bankers have MBAs. So clearly, the odd false assumption aside, MBA students must be unethical. Business schools and MBA students reacted with pleas of innocence, nowhere more so than at Harvard Business School, where students went as far as developing the MBA Oath. On graduation, individuals pledged to serve the greater good and act with the utmost integrity. The movement caught the mood of the time, and similar schemes were established in business schools around the world. That rst year of the oath at Harvard, in 2009, more than 500 of the graduating class signed the document. The oath website now boasts more than 6,000 signatories and the instigators of the pledge even wrote a book about their experiences. But by 2010, the number of HBSs graduating class that signed the oath had dropped to about 300. This year, it fell again to just 220. So has the enthusiasm for clamorous declaration faded, or are people just using other means to channel their protestations? Was the oath ever anything more than a fad or a passing fashion? Personally, I have always had a problem with oaths such as this. I have long suspected that this was just my cynical British hack reaction. Every time I
f t. c o m / B U S i n e S S e d U c at i o n
thought about it I was reminded of one of my grandmothers favourite sayings: Never trust a man who says he is honest. My other major concern has always been that it is It is difficult for divisive. The oath has real implications for those who choose not to sign it. Does it mean, for example, that an individual to they are unethical? Or does it mean they, like me, simply make an ethical feel uneasy about such a process? difference if the When I mentioned the MBA Oath to a new colleague recently, her comment was perhaps the most instructive corporate of all. Well, she said, it doesnt really mean anything, culture is set does it? But what makes the oath so unworkable is that it is against such a primarily a declaration about the individual student. course of action I cannot help feeling that this is because it is US in origin, where the individual I tends to take precedence over the collective we. In fact, it is very difcult for an individual to make a real ethical difference in a company if the corporate culture is set against such a course of action. More particularly, it is impossible to do so if the remuneration structure and the promotion, hiring and ring of individuals is based on a series of premises that do not serve the greater good, but only the good of the organisation, its directors or shareholders. That is why, when I talked recently to Max Anderson, one of the authors of the MBA Oath, I was pleased to hear him say that one of their focuses now was on talking to corporations and trying to inculcate them with the ethos of the oath. Perhaps that will help. Let us hope so. But here is my question to business schools: if they are running programmes for the greater good, how do they justify charging such exorbitant prices for their executive MBA programmes? A decade ago, when Columbia and London Business School launched their EMBA Global course, it was billed as the rst $100,000 programme. At the time, there was outrage at the high cost. Yet schools now regularly charge $150,000 or more. Who is signing Is it ethical when such high prices are likely to preclude the participation of the pledge? those working for charities or nongovernmental organisations, for example? At the time of going This, of course, does not answer to press, 6,272 people my original question. Are ethical standfrom more than 250 ards scrutinised and promoted only in business schools times of malpractice when people get around the world had caught out? And will the MBA Oath make signed the MBA Oath. a comeback? If we hit a double-dip To read the pledge in recession, perhaps we will nd out sooner full go to mbaoath.org than we hoped. b
Photo: ed robinson; illustration: raymond biesinger
06
upfront
Why an EMBA boosts your air miles and carbon footprint
n the 18th century, embarking upon a cultural Grand Tour of Europe was an educational rite of passage. In the 21st century, top executive MBA programmes are increasingly providing a contemporary equivalent, with their students accruing a wealth of air miles and passport stamps. Of the top 10 EMBA programmes in 2011, seven involve teaching on more than one continent. The EMBA programme at Duke Universitys Fuqua School of Business, Zara Phillips based in the US, takes in six countries in Europe and Asia. is fighting for FT analysis suggests that the average student will travel a place in the approximately 41,500 miles for compulsory teaching on the Olympic squad top 10 EMBA programmes. This is equivalent to more than one-and-a-half times around the equator. While travel may well broaden the mind, ying also results in the emission of carbon dioxide a major contributor to climate change. Using UK government estimates of CO2 emissions per passenger mile own, the FT calculates that these students course-related travel generates about 11.8 tonnes of CO2 each, assuming economy class travel. If students elected for business class, this gure would be 24.2 tonnes each. The average total annual carbon footprint for individuals in industrialised nations is about 11 tonnes. The cost of the current, top-ranked If students from these 10 programmes were Kellogg-Hong Kong UST EMBA. The fee to offset their course-related emissions, at least for the next programme, starting next 17,000 trees could be planted about the total January, rises to $143,300 number in central Londons Royal Parks. Adam Palin
$176,440: average EMBA salary after three years (top 100 schools)
Steve Blank, the serial high-tech entrepreneur and conservationist, still finds time to teach on the Berkeley-Columbia EMBA programme. In his class, budding entrepreneurs learn how start-ups operate by building one An Olympic contender
The 2012 Olympic Games in 2012 has special significance for Cambridge University EMBA student and equine vet Julian Samuelson. It will be the job of his practice to look after the 200 horses that participate in the games in Greenwich Park in south London. Our veterinary training was marvellous but we didnt get any formal training in business, he says. Presumably crisis management and logistics will play a big part in his Judge Business School programme.
Top of the class
$124,500
Top for salary (Three years after graduation) Kellogg-Hong Kong UST Business School (average $419,416)
F T. C O M / B U S I N E S S E D U C AT I O N
The pursuit of happiness

ellbeing is increasingly on the agenda for policymakers, who now pore over happiness indices alongside traditional indicators. In business, too, the bottom line is no longer the only measure of success. Prosperity is more than return on equity and value to shareholders, says Simon Learmount, director of the executive MBA at Judge Business School in Cambridge. He says the Judge EMBA was devised with wellbeing in mind, and adds that people who successfully manage intensive study, career and family make better leaders. A happy, well-rounded executive is likely to be a better manager than a stressed one and more schools are taking note, whether by offering yoga classes, nutrition advice or personal coaching. At Columbia Business School in New York, Hitendra Wadhwa draws on cognitive behaviour therapy techniques. Ariane Ollier-Malaterre of Rouen Business School in France agrees that a wholeperson approach makes sense. Wellbeing is not just wishy-washy be nice to your employees, she says. Its important for society as a whole, for economic competition and for the company from the top down. Emmanuelle Smith
Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 11 13 14 15 16 17 17 19 20 21 22 23 23 25
School name
Kellogg/Hong Kong UST Business School Trium: HEC Paris/LSE/New York University: Stern Columbia/London Business School Insead University of Chicago: Booth Duke University: Fuqua University of Pennsylvania: Wharton IE Business School UCLA / NUS London Business School Ceibs Kellogg/York University: Schulich Iese Business School Chinese University of Hong Kong Washington University: Olin IMD Kellogg/WHU Otto Beisheim School Northwestern University: Kellogg National University of Singapore School of Business Arizona State University: Carey New York University: Stern UC Berkeley/Columbia Imperial College Business School Korea University Business School Columbia Business School
419,416 307,808 259,833 219,441 219,736 254,564 220,704 177,026 232,928 180,409 267,062 182,969 206,276 275,866 237,847 213,929 163,628 238,155 219,571 239,622 193,390 204,244 149,250 234,006 203,239
PHOTOS: DREAMSTIME; ALAMY; WIREIMAGE; GETTY
Salary igures adjusted for purchasing power parity (see methodology, p30)
Top for career progress (Seniority after three years and size of company) Nyenrode Business University, Netherlands
Top for international experience (Based on course elements overseas) Insead (France/ Singapore/UAE) Top for female students (Proportion: 51 per cent) Euromed Management (France/China)
See key (p26) and methodology (p30) for criteria
Top for aims achieved Trium: HEC Paris/LSE/ New York University: Stern school
Salary today (US$)
TOP 25
FT EXECUTIVE MBA 2011 The top 25 EMBA programmes
07
introduction
08
Aiming high
EMBA credibility and prices are soaring. By Della Bradshaw
ILLUSTRATION: NICK LOWNDES; PHOTO: ZUMA
t rst glance, Damian Blazy is not your typical participant on an Executive MBA programme an MBA for working managers. He works at the Pentagon as an energy security analyst, but not long ago he was on active duty as a ghter pilot. The proportion of Yet every third Executive MBA Friday and Saturday he graduates promoted attends classes at the within three years, Sloan school at MIT in according to an FT Boston. The rst reason survey of alumni he gives for studying a management degree will resonate with any engineer or accountant on his course. I need to translate between technical issues and writing policy. His second reason is learning to save energy. For Blazy this is a bigger problem than for most: the US military is the worlds largest user of petroleum and increasing the use of biofuels has dramatic consequences. A lack of energy can result in casualties, he says.
70%
The only active service member in his class of the Sloan EMBA, Blazy says the class is made up of folk who are quant comfortable [highly numerate] ... They want rigour, they want the cutting edge of data analytics. Quant comfort is undoubtedly one of the strengths of the Sloan school, part of science and engineering university MIT, and, as EMBA programmes continue to ourish, many schools are playing to their strengths. At Georgetown University in Washington DC, famous for teaching law and diplomacy, the McDonough business school has joined forces with the Walsh School of Foreign Service and
A large proportion of the reputation of the school comes from the EMBA because students come from such a high level in the company
DIPAK JAIN, DEAN OF INSEAD (LEFT)
the Spanish business school Esade to run an EMBA that addresses the sociopolitical implications of business. The programme is not for everyone, says Paul Almeida, senior associate dean for executive education at Mcdonough. But we dont want everyone. At $142,000, the 14-month Georgetown-Esade Global EMBA is clearly not for everyone, but it is well within the range of prices charged by other top schools. At Wharton, the fees are $167,160 for its programme in Philadelphia, and $173,940 for the one in San Francisco, while the MIT Sloan programme costs $132,000. At London Business School the London-based programme is a comparative steal at 53,900 ($83,800), while the EMBA-Global Americas and Europe costs $147,723.
PHOTOS: GETTY
09
introduction
10
The programme is not for everyone. But we dont want everyone

PAUL ALMEIDA, ASSOCIATE DEAN, MCDONOUGH
Developing At Chicago, the US programme leaders: Hong costs $148,000, while the London Kong UST and, programme weighs in at 80,000 below, ISB dean ($107,000). The Darden school at the Ajit Rangnekar University of Virginia has launched its global EMBA this year at $139,000. For top schools there appears to be little price sensitivity, but smaller institutions have had problems. The Grenoble Graduate School of Business, for example, shelved plans for a globe-trotting EMBA in January 2011 because it could not ll seats. But, as programme directors point out, programmes cost less than a traditional MBA when the opportunity cost is factored in EMBA students continue to work while studying. It is increasingly clear that the EMBA, once the Cinderella programme of the Funded by western business school world, employers is becoming a Two-thirds of alumni luxury product. surveyed by the FT This has always received some been the case in funding from an Asia, says Steve employer towards DeKrey, senior the cost of their associate dean Executive MBA. at Hong Kong A third had their University of Scifees fully paid; the ence and Techothers only partly. nology, whose joint EMBA
programme with the Kellogg school, near Chicago, is ranked number one again this year. The big development this year, says Prof DeKrey, is that the programme is able to attract students from further aeld Mumbai, Moscow and Turkey. The motivation is clearly the rise of Asia and a programme like ours
enables you to build a network as well as get a great education. Programmes in China are already the largest in the world, with Ceibs in Shanghai enrolling around 700 students a year and Cheung Kong, Chinas rst privately funded business school, teaching a further 660 with each Cheung Kong participant paying around $100,000 for an EMBA aimed at what dean Bing Xiang calls the top of the pyramid Chinas business elite. Targeting these high-level managers brings real benet to business schools, says Dipak Jain, dean of Insead. A large proportion of the reputation of the school comes from the EMBA because students come from such a high level in the company. Prof Jain intends to build up Inseads programmes in Fontainebleau and Abu Dhabi and launch a stream in Singapore next year. Then he intends to launch an EMBA programme in the US, probably with a partner, though he realises this will be difcult. Insead has proved the partnership EMBA model through its relationship with Tsinghua together they run the Tsinghua Insead EMBA in Beijing and Singapore. The potential for inuence in the Chinese market is not lost on Prof Jain and he is keen for the two schools to replicate the programme across different cities in China. Elsewhere in Asia, the Indian School of Business launched what is arguably Indias rst true EMBA programme last year and will graduate its rst class this month. While many US and European business schools see India as an appropriate destination for an overseas module on their programmes, ISB does not take its students to developed economies, says dean Ajit Rangnekar. We have one international component in Brazil or Moscow. B
PHOTOS: ALAMY; JAMES KEGLEY
View profiles of top deans at www.ft.com/ deans
11
Meet the dean

David Thomas thinks he can take Georgetown to the very top
ollow @ProfThomas on Twitter and on any given day you might read a restaurant review, a movie recommendation or a meditation. Recent ponderings from the dean of McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University in Washington DC have included: The only enduring success is that which fulfills a sense of purpose for being in the world and benefits others. And on another day: Each of us privileged to lead others should reflect on what we owe those who labour and justify us keeping our jobs. Few business schools can boast of a dean who meditates and tweets, but David Thomas was less keen to communicate with search consultants. I started getting a continuous stream of calls from a search consultant that started last November, but she didnt get me on the phone until February, says Thomas, who didnt immediately see an obvious fit with Georgetown. But having started in August, Thomas now articulates a good match: a thoroughbred academic in his first deanship; and a young school with pedigree, ready to push into the top tier. Educated at Yale and Columbia, before gaining professorships at Wharton and Harvard Business School, Kansas Cityborn Thomas got his Looking first taste of academic ahead: leadership in 1999 at McDonough Harvard, running the school dean first year MBA leaderDavid Thomas ship curriculum. One of my roles was mentoring new faculty and for the
Success is that which fulfills a sense of purpose ... and benefits others
first time I could see the multiplier effect the ability to impact not just students, but all the classes. Further stints as senior associate dean of faculty recruiting, then head of the HBS organisational behaviour unit yielded more insights into creating good teaching and learning environments. But, at 55, I was asking myself, how do I want to spend the next decade and where can I have the most impact? Thomas says. At a year younger than Thomas, McDonough is one of the youngest schools at the top end of rankings. It teaches undergraduate, MBA and two executive MBA degrees, including the GeorgetownEsade Global Executive MBA (GEMBA) in partnership with the Walsh School of Foreign Service and Esade Business School, which sends students to nine cities on four continents. Thomas replaced George Daly, whose accomplishments, aside from creating GEMBA, included recruiting more than 30 new faculty to raise the schools research profile. But Thomas admits there is still work to be done for McDonough to enter the top tier. Thanks to its schools of law and foreign service, Georgetown enjoys strong brand recognition. But, relatively speaking, compared with schools like Harvard and Wharton, McDonough is just a baby were still in the process of growing into our full potential. What will propel this school forward is its people and their commitment to making
McDonough is a baby ... still in the process of growing into our full potential
this a great place as opposed to it being a well-oiled machine. Thomas says he wants to develop McDonoughs strengths, such as its strong emphasis on undergraduate education. If you are intent as a business school to develop and educate leaders who are principled and have a global mindset and orientation to serve business and society you can more fully impact that project at the undergraduate level, he says. Likewise, he wants to accentuate the benefits of Georgetowns Jesuit roots and principles. Because of the Jesuit influence, it seems natural for us to be creating leaders who are responsible for what happens in society. His five-year to-do list includes developing a community of philanthropic leadership to support the school McDonough is a top 20 research university in terms of quality, but 61st for endowment and is working with Jesuit universities around the world to increase under-represented minorities on graduate programmes, A specialist in strategic human resource management and diversity some say Thomass research on the importance of diversity in IBMs turnround success shifted the conversation on the topic he says that trying to walk the talk is both humbling and gratifying. Its humbling because I see now why executives often dont do what they know to be the right thing. And gratifying because when I do live up to what my research tells me, I find Im able to create an inclusive environment that gives people a voice, without abdicating my leadership. Ian Wylie
on management
12
simon caulkin
Past columns: www.ft.com/ business education
Different strokes
For some of the worlds most successful companies, going against the flow has been the key
t is a curious fact that in industry after industry there is at least one company that appears to succeed not by doing the same thing better than everyone else but by playing a completely different game. Take Apple. The technology company is unique: this vertically integrated corporate dictatorship makes expensive, beautiful niche products that have revolutionised several industries (not counting retail, of which it is also now a most skilful exponent). Or Toyota, which despite recent slip-ups, it is still the most formidable car manufacturer. Probably not one in 100 people could name its chief executive, and its management processes are so grooved that appointing a new one causes as much ripple as changing a lightbulb. The Toyota Production System, a wonder of the industrial world rivalling the original assembly line as the most studied industrial phenomenon of all time, sets the carmaker apart from less successful competitors. John Lewiss model the department store is owned by its employees is unique, but its rivals would love the same rapport with their customers. Equally distinct from the norm is Whole Foods Market, an upmarket organics chain whose chief executive, John Mackey, is a libertarian capitalist, yet the company has a salary cap that limits compensation for everyone to 19 times the average wage of an employee. Semco, the extraordinarily successful Brazilian mini-conglomerate, has no corporate rule book and allows employees to set their own salaries. At WL Gore, the maker of Gore-Tex fabric, there are no formal management titles: leaders become leaders by attracting followers. Lonely Planet was founded by a couple of hippies which did not stop it from turning the guidebook industry on its ear. Yet it is as if companies such as these are invisible to conventional
management wisdom. They are Apples products and Toyotas processes explained away as exceptions that prove did alter perceptions of the world; but the rule or appropriated as examples all the exceptions share the belief that of radical differentiation (true, but that they do not need to accept the world as does not get us very far). Or others see it. they are simply ignored. The They all back purpose Exceptions with guiding principles. For result is that, far from being are not allowed to challenge the Lonely Planets founders, it paradigm of the day, they are exotic was to write guidebooks for co-opted into it. poor but obsessive traveloutliers, but lers such as themselves. For Such marginalisation is harder to sustain since 2008. the advance Ricardo Semmler of Semco The collapse of major nanand Bill Gore it was stripcial institutions was as much guard of a ping away management to a challenge to management free ordinary people to work new order as to economics, undercreatively. Jobs again: the cutting assumptions about Macintosh computer turned out so well, reward, recruitment, he said, because the people working risk, strategy and on it were musicians, artists, poets and governance. historians who also happened to be In this light, excellent computer scientists. perhaps the These businesses all temper purpose excep(or the founders personality) with a tions have visceral connection to the customer: something they are outside-in. Toyotas pull to tell us. production system, geared to If they are delivering a car to the customer in seen not as minimum time and with minimum exotic outlifuss, is the archetype here. Purpose ers, but the and principles are held together by advance guard measures that track the organisations of a new order, purpose, not the Citys or Wall Streets. the rst obvious Still not convinced? The biggest, quality that these indeed elephant-sized, exception to its companies share is a industry is an investment company that sense of purpose beyond obeys all the above requirements. It making money for denounces derivatives, eschews hedge shareholders. As Steve funds and invests only in real rms Jobs, Apples founder making real goods and services that it Big Apple who died earlier this understands. Its preferred holding time The introduction of month, famously is forever. It is, of course, Warren products such as the asked John Sculley, the Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway, which iPod, iPhone and iPad former president of since 1965 has provided shareholders under Steve Jobs leadPepsiCo who became with a compounded annual book-value ership turned Apple the chief executive of gain of 20.2 per cent, for a total increase into the worlds most Apple, in 1983: Do of 490,409 per cent. valuable technology you want to spend the Perhaps Management 2.0 does not company. He died on rest of your life selling need to be invented. It is already here, October 5 2011 at the sugared water or do just as science ction writer William age of 56. you want a chance to Gibson said of the future unevenly change the world? distributed. B
ILLUSTRATION: ANDREW BAKER; PHOTO: ED ROBINSON
deans column
14
PETER MOIZER
View pro les of top deans at www. .com/ deans
A moral force
Grigor McClellands drive and integrity have transformed British business education
uperlatives are scattered freely today. High praise is given for successes that soon diminish in stature and people are lionised for achievements that fail to stand the test of time. Grigor McClelland is the antithesis of this tendency. He is a remarkable man who, guided by a moral compass that has never wavered, has changed the landscape of British business education in the past 50 years. His life and accomplishments Grigor are such that they need no McClelland exaggeration. (above), and As founding director of the school he Manchester Business School founded (MBS), Prof McClelland laid the foundations from which the school grew into the renowned establishment it is today, and of which I am proud to be an alumnus. As founding editor of the Journal of Management Studies (JMS), he established a title that, 50 years later, remains among the best in the world. Andrew Likierman, now dean of the London Business School, knew him at Balliol College, Oxford, when Prof Likierman was an undergraduate and Prof McClelland a visiting fellow. At a time when most managers believed in the University of Life and few thought management could be taught or researched, Grigor was well ahead of his time, he recalls. He understood that academics and practitioners could usefully talk to each other and that the best management education would come from a combination of theory and practice. It came as little surprise when I learnt that Prof McClelland served as a Quaker relief worker in Germany
in the aftermath of the second world would be more effective bosses. Their war, helping the dispossessed and the companies would in turn generate more needy at a time when many in Europe wealth and jobs. shunned a nation whose actions had It was before he took up his posicaused so much bloodshed. tion at MBS, that Prof The experience had a proMcClelland created the McClelland found effect on him. JMS. In 1963, he believed believed that that a UK-based journal He always maintained that clear moral compass. of academic research his business Decades later, in 2003, he would contribute to the school had a effectiveness of managehanded back his CBE in protest against Britains responsibility ment as a profession, involvement in the war in as well as to social and to improve Iraq. Yet he is probably not economic welfare. He as well known in the UK as initially involved senior society he should be. members of the business Prof McClelland held the role of community, but soon turned the journal founding director of MBS from into a primarily academic publication 1965 to 1977. It is important to with an eye towards informing business remember that British manand management, either directly or agement was not in the best indirectly through management educaof health in the 1960s, and tion. It remains hugely inuential. that this was attributed Prof McClelland is now 89 years in part to the absence old and the JMS will celebrate its 50th of graduate business birthday in 2013. It has strong conschools. The Lonnections to Leeds University Business don and Manchester School, another leading academic instibusiness schools were tution. Joep Cornelissen, professor of created in response to corporate communication at Leeds and this problem. Under his a general editor of the JMS, has been direction, the seeds were involved with this years launch of the sown that would see MBS inaugural Grigor McClelland Award. develop into the signicant The award, which recognises the highplayer that it is today in busiest standards of academic excellence, ness, education and the wider went to Jean-Philippe Vergne from economy of the north-west of HEC Paris for research on reputational England, as well dynamics. It seems a tting tribute. as nationally and When he was asked earlier this year why he had worked so tirelessly to The columnist abroad. Prof McCleldevelop management education and Peter Moizer is dean land believed to make a difference to business and of Leeds University that his business society, Prof McClelland said simply Business School. school had a that he had been fortunate enough to He was a reporting responsibility to make a contribution. member of the Comimprove society. Superlatives are overused today, but petition Commission It would graduate I think some could be applied to Prof and is a fellow of the managers who, McClelland. He is hugely generous, talInstitute of Chartered armed with the ented and charitable. His achievements Accountants in knowledge and have not diminished with time, and his England and Wales. expertise they successes remain as impressive today as had acquired, they were half a century ago. B
interview
16
Risk and reward

Jeremy Kroll had already run a successful corporate investigations business when enrolling on an executive MBA opened up some new leads. By Rebecca Knight
If you can make it here: Jeremy Kroll in his Lexington Avenue office in Manhattan
Photo: PAsCAL PeRICh Photos: getty
ropped against the wall of Jeremy Krolls Lexington Avenue ofce in midtown Manhattan is a large portrait of Bernie Madoff, the disgraced nancier, looking sullen and shifty in a black baseball cap and sunglasses. the picture, upon closer inspection, is a digital mosaic made up of tiny, rectangular company logos, each one representing a corporate scandal of the past decade: enron, WorldCom, tyco, and Rite Aid, among others. At the bottom a tongue-in-cheek admonishment reads: enjoy your day. It could have been a lot worse. Kroll, the chief executive of K2 global Consulting, a risk consultancy, says the picture is a good reminder of why we are here: to try to solve problems, and to help people avoid getting in with the wrong partners. Kroll, 39, co-founded K2 in 2009 with his father, Jules Kroll, who is considered the pioneer of the modern corporate investigations industry. In 1972, after an unsuccessful bid to become a New york City councilman, Jules started his eponymous company, Kroll, with $500. he soon became legendary: he is, after all, the man who
uncovered the oil wealth of saddam hussein, the former president of Iraq, and tracked down the assets of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, the former presidential couple of the Philippines. he sold Kroll to Marsh & McLennan, the insurance giant, for nearly $2bn in 2004. their new company, which today has 40 employees and ofces in London, Madrid, New york, and Bahrain, provides anticorruption, due diligence and forensic accounting services. their aim is to become a premium one-stop shop to help businesses identify and manage risk using both the gumshoe investigative techniques that made the old company famous, and new digital information technologies. Volatility is the new norm, says Kroll. We are helping companies mine information and understand the threats they face as a result of the changing environment. K2 also does the due diligence for Kroll Bond Ratings, a fresh venture from the father-son team. Launched earlier this year, the company is a new entrant to the world of credit ratings an industry that has faced a blaze of criticism about whether its overly rosy ratings helped
17
interview
Kroll and Kroll: Jeremy cites his father, Jules, as his inspiration and business mentor create the economic meltdown by causing billions of dolarts. to this day he claims nothing can replace the smell lars in losses to investors. of linseed oil on a canvas. the seed of the idea for Kroll Bond Ratings came After dabbling in other jobs, he went to work for his to Jeremy while he was an executive MBA student in fathers company, but never reported directly to Jules. the trium Programme, a global alliance of New york there were many layers by design, says Kroll. I never Universitys stern school of Business, London school of hid from being his son, but I never used it to my advaneconomics, and heC school of Management, Paris. the tage either. I wanted to learn from other people. I made programme gave him the opportunity to pay close attensure I was the rst one in the ofce, and the last one to tion to what was going on in the leave. (For the record, Kroll world and mull potential appears genuinely in awe of his Embracing and holding business opportufather, who is 70. Being his on to a mission in a big nities. partner has been an incredcompany is a challenge. Kroll ible opportunity, he says. hes recalls suralways been my mentor in I was looking for new energy veying the business.) wreckage of eventually, Jeremy headed the credit crisis in a class taught by Krolls marketing and sales division, helping reposiIngo Walter, professor of nance tion the business into a global risk management and and corporate governance at stern. technology company. he took the unprecedented step of one thing that struck me was recruiting people from other industries, such as lawthe lack of integrity of the ratings enforcement ofcers, attorneys, and journalists. Kroll process. there was so much obwas kind of like an artists colony it was an incredibly fuscation in terms of investment creative environment, he says. products, specically mortgagehe also pressed for the company to embrace informabacked securities, and there was tion technology more fully, for example computer a lack of due diligence, he says. [I forensics. It was the dawn of electronic investhought:] what can we do to bring tigations, and Kroll saw great promise for something new to the market that new technologies to help clients gure out would offer a private-sector solution to who was behind a smear campaign, prove a public-policy question? someone was stealing from a company or nd evidence of collusion. roll has a lanky build, tousled During his years at Kroll, the company movie-star hair and a ready grew from $65m to $1bn in annual sales. smile. he wears the standard By 2006, he felt restless. the company Wall street uniform a white had been sold, and while both he and his shirt with a tailored dark suit father stayed on, Kroll found that working but minus the tie. A tie, he says, is for a bigger, more bureaucratic organisanot as relevant as it used to be. tion had its shortcomings. embracing and Business school was not necesholding on to a mission in a big company is a sarily part of his master plan. he challenge, he says. I was looking for new spent a gap year in Florence learnenergy. I wanted to spread my wings. ing to cook, paint, and speak ItalUp to that point, Kroll had been ian. he graduated from georgehis classroom. he knew that to start town University with a degree a new business he would need not in Romance languages and ne only technical expertise in
19
interview
areas such as nance and accounting, but also a deeper understanding of operations and marketing, and exposure to other industries, sectors and business models. roll was initially reluctant to pursue the Trium EMBA because of the time commitment. The 16-month programme involves several international rotations, including modules at the three schools campuses, as well as stints in countries such as China and India. At the time, he had three children. (He now has a fourth.) But his wife, Nicole, persuaded him that the degree would be an investment in his future and a sacrice worth making. She said: Go for it. It was the last boost of condence I needed, he says. The experience was mind-expanding. He recalls latenight study sessions with his classmates, whose average age was 41 and who came from very different professional backgrounds and cultural perspectives. Personalities often clashed. We had to gure out how to work together, he says. Youre there to learn. Youre not there to play politics, or to one-up your competitors. We could have all been doing other things, but we chose to be there. Inspiration came from unlikely sources. Kroll says that a guest lecture by an executive from Louis Vuitton, the French fashion house, made him more aware of how important a high-end, personalised experience is for customers even in the corporate investigations business. In this economic climate, no one is paying premium rates for commodity services, he says. In 2008, the senior Kroll launched an unsuccessful attempt to buy back his old company. (Marsh & McLennan sold it to Altegrity, the security group, instead.) Jeremy says the failed bid was a necessary step in the creative process, because it forced us to gure out what we wanted to do next. One project he is working on now is a service that uses pattern recognition and forensic analysis to understand the social graph of a given person: who they know, the quality of those relationships, and what is being said about them online. Consider it a detailed background check for the digital world. Its an iterative process, he says. It uses digital technologies, but it also requires going back to gumshoe work and liaising with actual human beings, and not taking for granted whats on the web. Its like Reagan [the former US president] said, Trust, but verify. It gets to the premium part of what we do: good, old-fashioned detective work. B The digital gumshoe: Kroll is using new technology to augment traditional investigative work
21
A guest lecture by an executive from Louis Vuitton made him more aware of how important a high-end, personalised experience is for customers
PHOTO: PASCAL PERICH
Introduction, p23
What the 2011 surveys reveal
Tables, p28
rankings
Archic te ra quam is pore et mod unte excest fuga. Busam qui bla et voluptatecte dolent pe similis in no-
The top 100 schools rated
Methodology, p30
How the lists were compiled

Past school and course rankings at www.ft.com/ rankings
23
illustration: neil webb
Executive MBA ranking 2011

The worlds best EMBA programmes and how they compare plus expert analysis
rankings
Sitting pretty
24
The top schools resilience highlights the enduring quality of their EMBAs. By Michael Jacobs
of 2008, the ranking gives an overview of the career progress of graduates, gauges the diversity of schools and assesses the research capabilities of each institution. the stability of the ranking is not restricted to the very top. among the highest 25 programmes, 15 saw their classication change by ve places or fewer when compared with 2010, while the average absolute change was 4.4. of the 23 that were also ranked in the top 100 in 2010, 19 were similarly placed among the top quartile that year. Yet the top tier is not impregnable. the two remaining entries in the top 25 make impressive debuts this year. a joint entry from the anderson school of business at the university of california, los angeles, and the national university of singapore is the highest, entering at number nine. the ucla-nus global eMba is based in four locations over a 15-month period. while the programme is taught mainly at the home campuses of the two institutions, students also spend time in shanghai and bangalore. the the programme scores well on the Financial times international course experience rank. based on the percentage of classroom teaching hours outside the country in which a programme is primarily located, ucla-nus is ranked fth overall. Meng tan, an american graduate from the class of 2008, particularly valued the international aspects of the ucla-nus experience. My eMba programme helped me build a strong foundation to pursue many business opportunities in north america and greater asia, he explains. the eastwest programme structure delineated the style and culture of how companies operate in different parts of the world. i have a competitive edge. tan is now
t is tough at the top, but the business schools at the summit of the 2011 executive Mba ranking have seen off the competition for the third year running. the leading handful of programmes has maintained its top-ve status and the number one eMba remains the same. topping the table of 100 global management programmes for senior executives is the collaboration between the kellogg school, near chicago, and hong kong university of science and technology, which chalks up a hat-trick of titles in the process. the trium programme, a link-up between hec paris, the london school of economics and political science and the stern school of business at new York university, takes second spot, relegating the columbia and london business school offering to third place. based on a survey of schools and another of alumni of the eMba class
A good return on investment

Despite tough economic times, money spent on an EMBA still delivers results
Median salary increase (%)

Three years after graduation compared with pre-EMBA. By location of school
80 70 60 50 40 30
2007 08
UK school alumni saw greater proportional salary increases
09
10
11
Source: FT EMBA rankings 2007-2011
illustrations: neil webb; graphics: russell birkett
ore students are paying their own way through their executive MBA programmes, so getting a better job at the end of it is critical. In spite of the challenging economic climate, self-financing EMBA graduates have continued to increase their salaries significantly. The number of self-financing students increased from 27 to 33 per cent between the FTs surveys in 2007 and 2011. Indeed, growth in EMBA student numbers over the past few years has been driven by students receiving either partial or no financial support. Using data from alumni surveys completed between
2007 and 2011, the FT compared their salaries before commencing EMBA programmes and three years after graduation. Alumni surveyed in 2011 graduated in 2008. Even though the median salary increases of selffinancing alumni declined from 55 per cent (2007 respondents) to 43 per cent (2011), the median salary rise for 2011 respondents was $38,078. Over the five-year survey period, the median percentage salary increase for self-financing
alumni was 50 per cent, marginally higher than the median increase for all EMBA alumni (48 per cent). Analysing data by school region, graduates from continental European schools have been the hardest hit, with salary increases dropping from 88 per cent in the survey of 2007, to 53 per cent this year. However, UK school alumni saw greater proportional salary increases. This appears largely attributable to the international composition of the UK EMBA programme. Adam Palin
90
All Asia-Pacic North America Europe (non-UK) UK
Find interactive rankings online at www.ft.com/ rankings
based in los angeles, where he works as a business development director for Dragon heart Medical, a producer of medical supplies. the korea university business school eMba is the other debutant in the top 25. it enters the ranking at 23, thanks in part to the strength of salary data reported by the graduating class of 2008. on average, kubs alumni earned $234,000 three years after graduation (see methodology, Salary increases page 30). this represents reported by alumni of a 92 per cent increase the Korea University on their pay before they Business School started the programme three years after the second-highest rise in completing the EMBA the entire ranking. programme the seoul-based school also scores well in terms of its doctoral programme. based on the number of doctoral graduates during the past three years, as well as the number who subsequently took full-time faculty positions at one of the top 50 full-time Mba schools, kubs is 15th in the Ft doctoral rank. the high placings of these debutants reect two continuing trends. the rst is the increasing dominance of international, collaborative eMbas, with programmes offered in more than one location, often involving two or more business schools. among the 100 programmes in the 2011 table, 19 are taught in more than one country; 11 of these span two or more continents. the second development has seen the emergence of schools from outside north america and europe. of the ranked programmes taught in a single location, 14 are outside these regions. the international spread of the ranked programmes is more than matched by the students. graduates surveyed by the Ft came from 99 different countries. on average, there were six different nationalities per programme among the alumni who completed the questionnaire. B
Relocation, relocation
Alumni who moved to a different country earned more
92%
he grass may be greener on the other side for executive MBA graduates, an analysis of alumni survey data reveals. Those graduates who relocated following their studies were more likely to feel they had succeeded in changing careers and in increasing their earnings. Among more than 5,250 alumni from the class of 2008 who responded to the FT survey (which is used as part of the 2011 EMBA ranking), around 14 per cent lived in a different country three years after graduation compared with before they started. Roughly half moved to a foreign country, while the remainder returned home. Both groups of migrants reported above-average success in changing careers 59 per cent of those who moved overseas indicated that they had achieved this aim, while the proportion was 56 per cent for those returning home. The overall average was 51 per cent.
Moving targets
Mobility and achievement of professional goals (%)

Changed career Increased earnings
25
100
80
60
40
Moved abroad home
Stayed abroad home
Source: FT EMBA ranking 2011
Ninety per cent of those graduates who left their home country reported increased pay
While most alumni felt the EMBA boosted their earning potential 84 per cent reported that completing the programme had helped them with this objective 90 per cent of those who became foreign nationals after graduation reported increased pay. In contrast, graduates who returned home were the most likely to start their own businesses. About one-third did so. Regardless of where they relocated, the majority of alumni felt they had progressed in their career two-thirds reported that completing their course had enabled them to realise their professional ambitions. MJ
rankings
Financial Times executive MBA 2011

The top 100 programmes globally (continued overleaf)
2011 2010
1 3 2 4 5 9 8 7 6 18 23 26 10 18 12 14 20 27 28 17 13 34 15 22 24 29 10 32 15 31 32 35 46 29 38 24 41 41 44 21 55 37 52 44 36 72 44 40 55 33 50 41 51 41 45 25 20 21 35 37 30 28 41 31 39 37 41 24 31 40 40 42 29 24 28 29 35 39 32 34 29 21 29 20
2009
1 2 3 5 4 10 5 7 8 26 23 16 19 12 14 18 17 11 41 15 13 31 9 27
3 year
1 2 3 4 5 8 7 7 8 18 19 18 14 15 14 16 18 19 30 18 16 29 16 25
School
Kellogg/Hong Kong UST Business School Trium: HEC Paris/LSE/New York University: Stern Columbia/London Business School Insead University of Chicago: Booth Duke University: Fuqua University of Pennsylvania: Wharton IE Business School UCLA / NUS London Business School Ceibs Kellogg/York University: Schulich Iese Business School Chinese University of Hong Kong Washington University: Olin IMD Kellogg/WHU-Otto Beisheim School Northwestern University: Kellogg National University of Singapore School of Business Arizona State University: Carey New York University: Stern UC Berkeley/Columbia Imperial College Business School Korea University Business School Columbia Business School OneMBA: CUHK/RSM/UNC/FGV So Paulo/Egade Cornell University: Johnson University of Toronto: Rotman City University: Cass University of Oxford: Sad ESCP Europe University of Michigan: Ross Essec/Mannheim Warwick Business School Georgetown University: McDonough University of Western Ontario: Ivey UCLA: Anderson WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business)/University of Minnesota: Carlson Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rice University: Jones Emory University: Goizueta University of Pittsburgh: Katz Purdue/TiasNimbas/CEU/Gisma Cornell University: Johnson/Queen's School of Business National Taiwan University College of Management University of Texas at Austin: McCombs Cranfield University School of Management University of Maryland: Smith Vanderbilt University: Owen Henley Business School
Country
China France/UK/US US/UK France/Singapore/UAE US/UK/Singapore US US Spain US/Singapore UK/UAE China Canada Spain China US/China Switzerland Germany US Singapore China US US UK South Korea US China/Netherlands/US/Brazil/Mexico US Canada UK UK France/UK/Germany/Spain/Italy US France/Germany UK US Canada/China US Austria Netherlands US US US/Brazil/Czech Republic US/Netherlands/Hungary/Germany US/Canada Taiwan US UK US US UK
Programme name
Kellogg-HKUST EMBA Trium Global EMBA EMBA-Global Americas and Europe Insead Gemba EMBA MBA - Global Executive MBA for Executives EMBA UCLA-NUS EMBA EMBA International EMBA Kellogg-Schulich EMBA Global EMBA EMBA Washington-Fudan EMBA EMBA Kellogg-WHU EMBA EMBA Asia-Pacific EMBA Carey / SNAI EMBA EMBA Berkeley-Columbia EMBA EMBA EMBA EMBA OneMBA EMBA One-Year Executive MBA EMBA EMBA European EMBA EMBA Essec & Mannheim EMBA EMBA EMBA EMBA EMBA Global EMBA EMBA MBA for Executives Weekend EMBA EMBA Worldwide International Masters in Management Cornell-Queen's EMBA NTU EMBA EMBA EMBA EMBA EMBA EMBA
26
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 11 13 14 15 16 17 17 19 20 21 22 23 23 25 26 26 28 29 29 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 41 43 44 45 45 47 48 49 50
Career Progress
School Diversity
International course experience rank
Idea Generation
Faculty with doctorates (%)
International students rank
International faculty (%)
International board (%)
Work experience rank
Career progress rank
Women students (%)
Aims achieved rank
Salary increase (%)
Women faculty (%)
Salary today (US$)
Women board (%)
FT research rank
FT doctoral rank
Languages
Rank 2011
Key to the 2011 ranking

Weighting in brackets as a percentage. Salary today US$ (20) The average alumni salary three years after graduation. This figure includes alumni salary data for the current year and the one or two preceding years, where available. Salary percentage increase (20) The increase in average alumni salary from before commencing the EMBA to three years after graduation as a percentage of the pre-EMBA salary. This figure includes data for the current year and the one or two preceding years, where available. Career progress (5) This is calculated according to changes in the level of seniority and the size of the companies alumni are working in now versus before their EMBA. Data for the current year and the one or two preceding years are included where available. Work experience (5) This measures the previous experience of EMBA participants by examining seniority of positions held, number of years in each position, size of company and any international work experience prior to starting the EMBA. Aims achieved (5) The extent to which alumni fulfilled their most important goals or reasons for doing an EMBA. Women faculty (3) The percentage of female faculty. Women students (3) The percentage of female students. Women board (1) The percentage of female members on the advisory board. International faculty (5) The percentage of faculty whose citizenship differs from their country of employment.
Footnote: although the headline ranking figures show changes in the data year to year, the pattern of clustering among the schools is equally significant. There are about 290 points between Kellogg/Hong Kong UST Business School at the top and the school ranked 100th. The first 10 business schools up to London Business School form the top group of schools. The second group is headed by Ceibs, which would need to increase its score by 5 points in order to move up a group. Top of the third group is the joint programme from Cornell University: Johnson and Queens School of Business about 40 points separate the top and bottom schools in this third group. The fourth group is slightly closer together, separated by 33 points.
419,416 307,808 259,833 219,441 219,736 254,564 220,704 177,026 232,928 180,409 267,062 182,969 206,276 275,866 237,847 213,929 163,628 238,155 219,571 239,622 193,390 204,244 149,250 234,006 203,239 184,615 226,040 155,168 156,726 191,168 138,657 202,256 151,282 131,479 184,398 182,992 196,505 146,414 143,412 176,461 180,838 172,112 141,199 152,732 209,688 151,110 136,036 166,149 162,104 140,008
63 58 85 60 70 54 62 153 72 79 72 66 70 57 52 58 79 52 58 66 59 50 79 93 53 55 66 53 75 66 72 55 73 77 67 62 46 56 68 56 54 50 51 64 47 51 64 48 63 69
6 71 13 31 23 57 34 39 21 9 24 14 4 83 59 19 3 30 50 67 12 55 2 96 27 32 70 33 16 53 7 77 10 11 8 54 56 20 40 28 26 44 18 36 92 22 35 93 49 47
3 1 35 4 17 12 67 78 15 33 21 8 13 11 5 2 22 20 18 41 79 43 73 100 87 14 64 10 58 16 24 38 25 83 69 28 26 6 36 65 56 55 39 45 32 80 27 47 71 63
2 1 6 3 14 71 12 53 85 5 55 26 21 84 57 22 20 33 15 68 31 4 11 43 32 38 48 46 40 10 25 29 16 8 51 90 35 39 23 45 42 61 36 24 89 19 27 69 79 17
21 23 19 14 15 17 20 32 24 21 13 22 21 21 21 17 19 20 30 25 16 19 27 7 17 21 25 26 28 13 35 24 25 39 20 24 16 34 16 21 24 29 19 27 21 28 32 26 13 36
17 26 21 18 18 28 24 26 21 19 36 35 25 33 38 19 15 24 22 27 29 28 24 13 37 19 17 31 19 10 25 18 22 29 28 30 25 34 25 23 25 28 12 13 28 17 27 22 29 19
12 13 13 22 14 11 11 24 19 17 17 17 26 50 14 12 11 8 14 11 10 10 40 0 10 14 24 41 43 35 38 18 4 14 12 16 19 20 25 20 15 6 14 21 7 12 21 17 10 15
94 90 62 90 79 42 33 54 70 84 62 87 51 82 91 98 79 45 61 96 48 56 80 10 61 77 32 71 74 55 68 33 65 60 38 59 37 45 37 23 19 71 48 35 18 27 48 29 23 32
6 4 24 16 18 44 38 40 17 5 42 3 8 28 34 10 30 26 1 98 41 39 20 98 56 14 45 2 12 13 9 62 22 33 48 32 81 29 25 35 63 43 21 15 98 36 19 89 47 23
94 76 42 70 36 44 56 81 20 70 50 70 87 100 100 75 81 8 29 0 16 28 50 0 35 85 24 53 57 38 41 12 78 14 15 28 11 46 21 4 4 3 29 25 33 2 36 4 3 15
39 2 8 1 28 6 70 81 5 17 33 12 9 30 33 14 22 81 10 81 44 70 51 24 70 7 56 81 21 70 4 81 11 52 44 56 33 13 33 79 59 15 2 54 81 59 44 81 70 28
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1
96 99 98 97 96 99 100 95 97 99 98 96 100 96 98 100 95 94 94 87 100 98 94 100 97 94 91 98 95 97 91 84 96 97 100 98 100 88 100 93 94 91 99 88 98 86 86 97 100 71
17 18 23 6 4 28 1 66 45 37 83 26 68 55 79 83 20 10 58 32 3 8 31 15 9 34 57 12 29 33 75 2 44 7 83 30 38 73 11 83 71 63 46 69 5 27 53 40 80 70
14 24 12 11 3 2 1 57 31 7 69 15 56 74 20 65 18 9 53 27 8 6 45 66 16 55 26 10 58 46 96 4 67 44 34 33 17 51 36 13 23 39 54 41 89 19 87 5 37 91
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 11 13 14 15 16 17 17 19 20 21 22 23 23 25 26 26 28 29 29 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 41 43 44 45 45 47 48 49 50
27
rankings
Financial Times executive MBA 2011

The top 100 programmes globally (continued)
2011 2010
75 43 62 53 62 39 54 66 71 84 64 51 78 50 65 53 69 56 52 59 34 65 61 43 59 61
2009
55 54 55 48
3 year
60 50 57 52
School
Villanova School of Business Temple University: Fox Aalto University School of Economics National Sun Yat-Sen University Texas A&M University: Mays Tongji University/ENPC University College Dublin: Smurfit Fundao Instituto de Administrao Yonsei University Georgia Institute of Technology Euromed Management Ashridge University of Buffalo School of Management Georgia State University: Robinson Stockholm School of Economics University of Florida: Hough Fordham University Graduate School of Business Gordon Institute of Business Science SDA Bocconi
Country
US US Finland/South Korea/Singapore/Poland Taiwan US China Ireland Brazil South Korea US France/China UK US US Sweden/Russia/Latvia US US South Africa Italy US US Turkey Canada US US Denmark US Switzerland Costa Rica US Belgium US US Canada UK Netherlands US US US US US US/Switzerland US US UK/Netherlands/Germany US Argentina Mexico US US
Programme name
EMBA EMBA EMBA EMBA EMBA Shanghai International MBA (Simba) EMBA International EMBA Corporate MBA Global EMBA World Med Part-time MBA Part-Time EMBA EMBA EMBA MBA Executive EMBA EMBA MBA EMBA EMBA EMBA EMBA Alberta / Haskayne EMBA EMBA EMBA Flexible EMBA EMBA EMBA Global EMBA EMBA Part-time EMBA Auburn EMBA EMBA EMBA EMBA EMBA EMBA EMBA EMBA EMBA EMBA Rochester-Bern EMBA EMBA-US EMBA Executive Part-time MBA MBA Fellows EMBA Medex EMBA Weekend MBA
28
51 52 53 54 54 56 57 57 57 60 61 62 62 64 65 65 67 67 67 70 70 72 73 74 75 76 76 78 78 80 81 82 83 84 85 85 87 88 89 90 90 90 93 94 95 95 97 98 99 100
73 78 57 48 75 60 47 64 59 80 73 61 75 84 69 89
46 76 63 36 64 58 51 46 69 61 84 80 65 78 69
63 75 64 52 71 60 64 61 74 68 80 82 73 84
Rutgers Business School SMU: Cox Ko University GSB University of Alberta/University of Calgary: Haskayne Tulane University: Freeman University of Georgia: Terry Copenhagen Business School University of Texas at Dallas Universitt St.Gallen Incae Business School Ohio State University: Fisher Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School Auburn University University of Washington Business School: Foster Queen's School of Business University of Strathclyde Business School Nyenrode Business Universiteit University of Arizona: Eller
88 91 86 86
77 73 72 74
84 84 83
University of Utah: Eccles Baylor University: Hankamer Pepperdine University: Graziadio University of Houston: Bauer University of Rochester: Simon
55 81 69 89 96 93 95 83
45 71 79 89 95 87 85 80
64 82 81 91 96 93 93 88
Thunderbird School of Global Management University of Miami School of Business Administration Bradford University School of Management/TiasNimbas Business School Loyola University Maryland: Sellinger IAE Business School Ipade University of Denver: Daniels Michigan State University: Broad
Career Progress
School Diversity
International course experience rank
Idea Generation
Faculty with doctorates (%)
International students rank
International faculty (%)
International board (%)
Work experience rank
Career progress rank
Women students (%)
Aims achieved rank
Salary increase (%)
Women faculty (%)
Salary today (US$)
Women board (%)
FT research rank
FT doctoral rank
175,621 155,979 134,914 141,656 170,471 147,316 124,694 195,214 151,819 154,178 138,582 141,970 146,090 153,219 130,166 141,483 156,418 180,836 138,488 158,108 167,015 135,771 138,591 167,458 147,856 119,410 131,569 129,414 161,190 151,228 116,509 147,792 152,857 120,780 121,893 108,488 127,870 133,570 131,582 168,652 136,382 121,911 146,508 128,842 109,936 118,630 157,403 179,016 151,236 119,524
57 51 51 61 45 70 60 30 66 42 56 60 60 48 49 47 56 56 50 38 38 56 48 54 43 41 40 50 45 36 54 48 28 37 34 42 46 43 58 36 41 46 26 34 50 55 46 51 44 39
62 65 25 82 85 80 58 52 64 75 95 79 69 89 74 37 17 46 86 29 66 51 68 100 97 43 88 5 99 48 41 38 87 72 42 1 78 90 81 73 94 91 45 60 76 61 63 15 84 98
44 50 31 98 23 74 53 7 90 97 81 66 72 57 29 49 96 88 42 37 40 99 62 19 77 9 34 54 59 68 70 30 46 51 84 82 91 75 85 60 76 61 48 89 94 93 95 86 52 92
18 88 76 9 41 99 58 72 65 28 52 63 97 77 49 73 100 93 92 44 59 67 74 96 47 54 86 13 56 78 37 62 91 34 94 7 98 80 30 60 66 50 83 70 64 81 75 82 95 87
32 26 30 27 33 37 24 18 14 10 30 39 28 31 17 22 26 25 38 20 29 43 26 35 28 31 23 11 10 27 27 22 29 28 31 39 30 36 32 22 27 19 27 26 25 25 13 6 27 29
22 31 23 42 18 41 33 17 23 28 51 40 23 32 23 15 31 29 18 39 21 25 17 18 32 24 32 13 12 13 9 19 42 25 33 45 26 10 21 35 19 21 21 26 23 30 17 18 24 23
17 26 43 29 24 17 17 36 40 7 20 14 11 13 33 29 30 44 33 19 11 20 16 9 14 18 20 11 13 12 20 19 19 19 33 0 16 13 19 18 24 12 20 6 35 20 5 0 12 26
11 35 79 8 16 3 42 9 10 29 42 36 70 27 58 18 29 29 27 16 24 16 54 32 16 29 56 66 50 21 23 7 18 44 100 18 29 36 3 6 23 29 29 32 45 20 34 8 3 22
76 27 75 97 83 94 49 91 95 60 67 7 37 52 57 77 54 74 81 92 79 93 85 71 65 50 66 55 11 68 59 86 80 46 31 58 77 84 70 96 63 61 53 73 69 71 51 87 90 88
5 50 86 43 0 58 54 43 40 2 13 14 7 13 0 2 32 11 67 0 3 73 9 26 0 0 14 56 80 4 100 3 13 55 33 33 2 4 8 4 21 18 23 0 10 0 38 9 4 9
44 17 33 30 81 81 81 30 81 15 25 41 81 44 41 77 44 50 59 59 59 81 70 56 59 70 41 40 27 77 55 69 81 53 81 19 59 22 59 80 59 20 25 81 81 68 81 81 33 81
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 1
84 81 76 95 82 79 97 100 100 90 89 53 81 82 95 94 86 58 89 74 92 95 88 88 88 90 80 52 90 83 92 96 90 86 79 57 91 87 75 79 84 81 90 95 86 92 57 32 67 89
83 36 24 21 65 13 48 19 49 51 83 83 67 50 16 42 83 82 22 35 83 83 72 62 59 14 47 61 83 43 74 77 41 56 39 78 25 76 83 83 60 64 83 81 52 83 83 83 83 54
79 63 78 95 29 75 68 98 83 25 82 84 59 52 70 30 76 88 64 61 47 62 32 72 42 60 22 85 97 21 81 86 28 49 71 99 40 43 77 90 50 48 73 38 80 94 93 99 92 35
51 52 53 54 54 56 57 57 57 60 61 62 62 64 65 65 67 67 67 70 70 72 73 74 75 76 76 78 78 80 81 82 83 84 85 85 87 88 89 90 90 90 93 94 95 95 97 98 99 100
International students (5) This combines two pieces of data. The first is the percentage of participants who are resident in the country of the business school but whose citizenship is different from that country. The second is the percentage of participants who are both international and resident outside the country in which the business school is situated. International board (2) The percentage of the board whose citizenship differs from the country in which the business school is based. International course experience (5) The percentage of classroom teaching hours that are conducted outside the country in which the business school is situated. Languages (1) Number of languages students are required to speak upon graduation. Faculty with doctorates (5) The percentage of faculty with a doctoral degree. FT doctoral rank (5) This is calculated according to the number of doctoral graduates from each business school during the past three years. Additional points are given if these doctoral graduates took up faculty positions at one of the top 50 full-time MBA schools of 2011. FT research rank (10) This is calculated according to the number of faculty publications in 45 international academic and practitioner journals. Points are accrued by the business school at which the author is currently employed. The total is weighted for faculty size. Judith Pizer of Jeff Head Associates acted as the FTs database consultant. The FT research rank was calculated using the Scopus database of research literature.
Footnote: although the headline ranking figures show changes in the data year to year, the pattern of clustering among the schools is equally significant. There are about 290 points between Kellogg/Hong Kong UST Business School at the top and the school ranked 100th. The first 10 business schools up to London Business School form the top group of schools. The second group is headed by Ceibs, which would need to increase its score by 5 points in order to move up a group. Top of the third group is the joint programme from Cornell University: Johnson and Queens School of Business about 40 points separate the top and bottom schools in this third group. The fourth group is slightly closer together, separated by 33 points.
Languages
Rank 2011
29
rankings
Methodology
30
his is the 11th consecutive year that the Financial times has published its ranking of executive MBa programmes part-time MBa degrees for senior working managers. the ranking aims to give a thorough assessment of EMBas worldwide through a survey of business schools and their alumni. to be eligible to participate in the ranking, schools must meet strict criteria for inclusion. Most notably, schools must be internationally accredited and the EMBa programme must have run for at least four consecutive years. For this years ranking, 129 business schools took part eight more than in 2010. once schools had demonstrated their compliance with the criteria for inclusion, two sets of online surveys were used to collect the data. the rst was completed by the schools, and the second by alumni who graduated three years ago. For schools to remain eligible, a 20 per cent response rate is required from alumni, with a minimum of 20 responses for schools with fewer than 100 alumni in the graduating class. this year, a total of 5,255 responses were submitted by alumni, representing 55 per cent of 2008 graduates. once the surveys are closed, the data from the alumni questionnaires are used to compile the rst ve of the rankings criteria. the published gures for these criteria include information collated by the Ft over three years. the data collected in 2011 account for 50 per cent of the total weight and those from 2010 and 2009 25 per cent each. if only two years of data are available for a school, this years survey carries 60 per cent weight, and the 2010 survey carries 40 per cent. the rst four criteria in the ranking table examine the salaries and career progression of alumni from
The criteria, methods, scores and rules that underpin the ranking. By Adam Palin
commencing their EMBa to today the fth criterion, aims achieved, typically a period of ve years. these assesses the extent to which the school criteria contribute 50 per cent of has enabled respondents to full their the nal score. most important goals for undertaking to calculate the gure presented an EMBa. this measure carries 5 per in salary today (us$), cent of the nal total. the salaries of alumni the next eight criteria, collectively working in the nonaccounting for 25 per cent of the prot and public service nal rank, are calculated using data sectors, and those who provided through the business school are full-time students, survey. these criteria measure the are removed. Purchasing diversity of each schools teaching staff, power parity rates supboard members and EMBa students, plied by the international according to gender and nationalMonetary Fund are used ity, and the international reach of the to convert the remaining EMBa programme. salary data to us$ PPPof the nal three criteria, constitutequivalent gures. PPP ing the remaining 20 per cent of the rates of currency convertotal ranking, two are based on data sion account for differfrom the school survey. the nal criences in purchasing power terion in the table, Ft research rank, between countries, thereby is calculated according to the relative enabling alumni salaries to number of articles published by each be compared meaningfully. schools full-time faculty members in Following this conversion, 45 internationally recognised academic the highest and lowest 15 per and practitioner journals. the period cent of salaries are for which publications are excluded before the assessed is January 2008 mean average wage, to august 2011. For each The ranking salary today (us$), is publication, a point (or a aims to give calculated for each school. fraction, if there is more a thorough the salary percentage than one author) is awardincrease, salary increase ed to the school where the assessment %, is calculated for each author is now employed. of EMBAs school according to the difthe rank measure comference in average alumni bines the absolute number worldwide salary before starting their of publications with the EMBa and three years after number of publications graduation. weighted relative to the facultys size. the Career progress measure after all calculations have been quanties changes in alumni levels of applied to the data for each of the professional seniority and the size different ranking criteria, an Ft score of their employer from the point of is calculated for each school. First, a enrolling to three years after graduaZ-score a mathematical formula that tion. Work experience takes into creates numbers reecting the range account the seniority of alumni, the of the points is calculated for each of size of their employer, the length of the measures. these scores are added time they remained with that company together, giving a nal total score and any international work experience from which the schools are ranked in all before they commenced their descending order to compose the Fts EMBa programme. EMBa ranking 2011. B
Online
For an interactive ranking with this years results along with tables of FT business education rankings dating back to 2005 go to www.ft.com/ rankings
illustration: nEil WEBB
Networking, p38
Making contacts who count
EMBA projects, p34
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Evgeny Bulgakovs EMBA project transformed his company
Exercises that build careers
Travel & technology, p42
Going global in person and online
33
PHOTO: JEREMY NICHOLL/EYEVINE
Costs and benefits

Executive MBAs are gruelling, time consuming and expensive so are they worth it? From exacting projects, networking and travel to remote learning, we ask what sets EMBAs apart
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Getting real
Heavyweight projects test students mettle, writes Ian Wylie
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he tension in the room is such that you can actually see knuckles whiten, claims Jim Pulcrano as he describes IMDs discovery project in Silicon Valley, where EMBA students pitch businesses to venture capitalists. Except that they are not pitching their own businesses, but the companies of ve, equally nervous Swiss high-tech entrepreneurs. the entrepreneurs are present, but not able to say anything I dont even introduce them, says Pulcrano, EMBA executive director at the Swiss business school, who also ies his students to Mumbai and Shanghai for similar projects. It is very high stress and some of the students dont sleep very much before. No one wants to fail. Working with a start-up developing biotech coatings for implantable medical devices was like nothing I would ever experience in a large multinational company like mine, admits Mark Pattenden, an EMBA graduate of the Lausanne-based school who is vicepresident of manufacturing at Shell Downstream, part of the oil group, in houston, texas. But the benet to me and my company was learning how to foster an entrepreneurial mindset within our company, develop and commercialise ideas and technologies and how to look through a different lens with regard to technical and commercial risk. I also learnt what it means to be on the other side of the fence when a big company comes along and wants to buy your company or your idea. IMDs EMBA is one of the most project-intensive programmes around aside from the three discovery expeditions and a personal leadership assignment, students must complete six projects within their own companies by the end of the one-year course. Its messy, concedes Pulcrano. theres no way I can predict whats going to come out of each assignment.
Its one of the reasons why most other schools dont do it this way, because as an academic, youre not in control. And its very resource intensive 50 students doing company assignments, each with up to 20 different deliverables to be read and evaluated by two markers. It would certainly be a lot easier to just give them a 30-page case study that contained all the answers. And yet, EBMA students are increasingly aware that devising the right project and executing it well can fast-forward their careers, particularly if it is a project that gives them a greater prole in their own organisation. Students tell us the projects are the most valuable part of the programme for them, says Pulcrano. their learning gets pushed and stretched in a way it wouldnt if they were just doing case studies they didnt care about. At Insead, the international business school, students complete a large single-company-based project to conclude their programme. Peter Zemsky, who teaches the core competitive strategy module, says project Students work embodies the partnership between school and tell us the employer. Company projects projects are are amazing opportunities for the students to bring all of the the most knowledge and hard work at valuable Insead to the benet of their organisation, says Prof Zempart of the of the challenge for programme sky. Partis nding the project students that will give them maximum visibility inside the company. Most are in senior roles, and so have access to some really interesting problems our projects range from a strategy to meet the challenge of new entrants to an industry, to optimising a supply chain, or trying to overcome skills shortages. But whatever the topic, integrating the knowledge theyve gained from a top business school to solve real problems helps many gain recognition in their companies.
Photo: JEREMY NIChoLL/EYEVINE
Energy boost: Evgeny Bulgakov developed a performancemanagement tool for TNK-BP in Russia; (above left) IMDs Jim Pulcrano
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Past school profiles are available on www.ft.com
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Choosing the right project one that balances Value added the needs of your organisation with the requirements When Yves Karcher of your academic tutors is began the Learning challenging. There is a balfrom your Customer ance to be struck between assignment on his ambition and workload, IMD EMBA, he did not cautions Pulcrano, whose imagine that as a result, students have six company his employer, Logitech, projects that apply their the Swiss computer learning in marketing, peripherals maker, nance, organisational would a year later unveil design, human resources, the first in a new generastrategy and execution. tion of wireless presentaThey could choose to do tion devices. all six projects on six different areas of a company, all outside their area of responsibility. That would be fantastic experience, but such a steep learning curve that workload would increase exponentially. Alternatively, students can decide to do all the projects within their own department, but their learning would be much narrower and diminished. Those whose EMBA coincides with a large corporate initiative, such as a company acquisition or merger, sometimes nd it helpful to carve out all six from the same initiative, says Pulcrano. In general I advise that they do maybe two projects in their own area of responsibility, and three or four in other areas. At Insead, Prof Zemsky says he would like to see leadership development feature more prominently in EMBA projects. As much as there is an analytical element to these projects, there is also a huge human and leadership dimension to the problems theyre trying to solve, he says. Were keen to see that reected in action items that are not only analytically sound, but recommendaProf Zemsky tions that can actually move an wants to organisation. see more Pulcrano says IMD is ponleadership dering how it can better prepare development its EMBA students for the unplanned. Were trying to gure out if theres a way these company projects can force them to work more in a crisis mode and give them a skill set that works in a world that doesnt always stick to the agenda in their iPhone. B
Helping high-fliers to soar

Kellogg EMBA aims to take winners to the next level
he Kellogg School of Management may be based in Evanston, at Northwestern Universitys main campus just north of Chicago, but its vision and student intake are truly global. That is especially true for the EMBA programmes. About a third of the student intake for EMBAs taught in the US comes from abroad. One current student even flies in to Evanston from Dubai every other week. Kellogg also has a campus in Coral Gables near Miami, Florida, that, like the main site, has two cohorts every year (and is particularly popular with students from Latin America). Moreover, the school offers joint programmes with four international institutions: the Recanati Graduate School of Management at Tel Aviv University in Israel; WHU Otto Beisheim Graduate School of Management in Vallendar, Germany; the School of Business and Management at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; and the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto, Canada. Wherever students choose to study, Kellogg strives to ensure the EMBA experience is the same. A Kellogg MBA is a Kellogg MBA, regardless of which
Students are encouraged to be bold in driving change in companies
programme you enter, says Betsy Ziegler, the new associate dean of MBA programmes and dean of students. Ziegler says that like the MBA, the EMBA provides a framework based on three pillars: grounded wisdom, by which she means fact-based, experiential learning; a collaborative spirit that emphasises the power of teamwork; and encouraging students to be bold in driving change in their companies. This framework is imparted through a core curriculum in foundations of business management. In their second year, students can choose elective courses. While Kellogg is keen to emphasise the similarities, there are obvious differences between the MBA and EMBA. The students are at a different stage in their careers and lives. The typical EMBA student here has about 10 years work experience and is between 35 and 38. MBA students tend to be 27 28 years old with 3 5 years of experience. The timetable is also very different. EMBA students have classes once or twice a month, in which they work in teams, applying business strategies to the challenges they face in their own companies. This condensed schedule is distinct from the full-time programme, Ziegler says, meaning that the velocity and stickiness of the learning curve is quite different from the traditional MBA. Networking plays a critical role in the EMBA experience, culminating in live-in weeks at Evanston that bring together students from the two US campuses with EMBAs from Kelloggs partner schools. Social events feature alongside classes and study groups. Student-created networks are also important places in which EMBAs form lasting professional and personal relationships. Ziegler says Kellogg recognises that networking is a big reason why people choose to study for an EMBA. As she puts it: Networking at EMBA is in overdrive. Hal Weitzman
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
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Joined-up thinking
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Building a high-level network is an important part of the EMBA experience. By Emma Jacobs
the programme we asked them to look at a problem and nd people within an organisation to help. they nd that in doing so they have broadened their list of contacts. Generally with networking you need a good reason to talk to them you cant just phone them. the assignment gives them a good reason. Business schools are focusing on networking more and more, says sandford. Increasingly, there is a huge number of jobs that are never advertised. If you are looking for a niche job, in particular, then you need to network. Moreover, if candidates have been referred through their networks, it boosts their chances. If an eMBa candidate came to an interview at heC, says Prof dussauge, and said the content is just hot air and the real reason they were applying was to broaden their contacts, then we would reject them. But we recognise students are there for more than just the academic work. It counts better in your favour, however, if you show that you have many contacts that are useful too. We like to emphasise that networking isnt just one way. alexander adell, who is midway through his eMBa at the University of Pennsylvanias Wharton school, has found the networks surprisingly accessible. the video game producer was sceptical that I would nd many connections in the entertainment industry, but within six months of starting the programme I connected with an alumnus involved in video game venture capital. he says eMBas are appealing for their industry connections. In regular full-time MBa programmes, students are generally at an early stage in their careers, with few connections. Whartons executive MBa, however, requires that students have 10 years of experience in their eld, so each of my 90 classmates brings a deep network of their own to the programme. he cites an extra-curricular trip to China,
hen Chris Caldwell embarked on the eMBa programme at london Business school, he hoped to advance his career in corporate nance. as it turned out, it marked the end of the line in banking for him. soon after nishing the course, he quit his job and is now in the process of setting up a business in cardiac diagnostics, despite having no experience in healthcare. he puts the career switch down to networking. It was after meeting and working on a project with Gawun Chung, a doctor on the course, that the two decided to go into business together. this is lefteld for me, says Caldwell. I had no plans to set up a business. But the people I met on the course opened my eyes and made me realise there was more to life than nance. Caldwell is one of many who has gained more from their eMBa than academic teaching. often, the appeal of such programmes is the high-level networking opportunities. Christophe servais, a marketing director at Cisco, the maker of computer-networking equipment, in France, says that this was one of his key goals when he embarked upon the eMBa at heC Paris. I am a trained engineer We recognise and had moved into the marketing side, and as students are my career progressed I was starting to interact here for more with people who were than just the at a very senior level. academic I realised that in order to progress I needed work to develop my networking skills. Fiona sandford, the director of london Business schools career services, says this is a key element of the eMBa programme. one of the rst things we say to people when they start is that their networks are in the room we do
an introductory exercise to show them the power of students. We say, you know that job youre desperate to get out of, someone in the room is desperate to get into it. lBs invites alumni not only to meet the current eMBa students, but also to network across Get yourself classes in london and dubai, using connected web-based learnIts not all about you. ing. We try to make Offering to help other networking less scary people can pay divi if youre not an dends in the future. extrovert, [it] can be Be open-minded. overpowering, adds People from different sandford. We tell disciplines may offer them that offering to new perspectives help other people can and contacts. pay huge dividends. Understand the power Pierre dussauge, of networking. eMBa academic Most positions are director at heC, says not advertised, so the school also tries referrals are key in to encourage partodays competitive ticipants to network job market. EJ within their company. on one part of
Photos: jason alden
New directions: Chris Caldwell decided to set up a cardiac diagnostic company while studying for an EMBA at London Business School; (left) business partner Gawun Chung
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I had no plans to set up a business. But the people I met on the course made me realise there was more to life than finance
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where, purely through student connections, we got to meet with the principals of over a dozen top rms and government agencies in Beijing and Shanghai truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Olivier Ferhat, a sales director at IBM, the computer group, who is about to move to a smaller information technology company, says until recently his career focus had not included networking. Ive worked in sales for a number of years and wanted to expand my responsibilities. When you have had sales director on your CV for a long time, you nd only sales director jobs. I wanted to widen my area of knowledge so I could apply for managing positions. I knew that the academic component [at HEC] supply chain, nance, etc would be helpful, of course, but also the networks. I chatted to a headhunter recently, who conrmed what I already assumed. They said that they only ever see 20 per cent of high-level jobs. The rest 80 per cent come through networks. Long term, he would like to return to his birthplace, Algeria, to set up a business incubator. He worked on plans for this during his EMBA. The networks have been very helpful in developing the idea, he says. You have a vision, you dont know where youll go, but if you communicate it, I nd people want to help. Through the EMBA I met very high-level people who put me into contact with others. It brought me to the ministry level in Algeria very quickly. For Servais, the value of the networks has been more esoteric than he anticipated. After graduating, he has kept up with a small group, including a senior manager at a multinational and another executive at Sunil Kumar of a pharmaceutical group, who Chicago Booth; meet socially. It can be very (top) London difcult to navigate a corpoBusiness rate organisation. We meet for School lunch and discuss situations that we are having problems with. Their perspective helps navigate complex situations. They are detached from the problem. We all have different angles but try to nd a common solution. This is one of the benets beyond academic knowledge. B
An ideas-based meritocracy
Chicago Booths Dean Sunil Kumar welcomes a challenge
f you hear the initials XP at the University of Chicagos Booth School of Business, it would be a mistake to assume that it refers to the computer operating programmes. Here, XP is more often used as shorthand for executive programmes the courses referred to in other institutions as EMBAs. Booth, the second-oldest business school in the US, launched its EMBA programme in 1943, as a way to provide business training to people whose lives had been disrupted by the second world war. (A few years earlier, the school had also begun offering MBA classes in the evening.) Sunil Kumar, the dean, says that basic principle still applies: the XP courses train business managers who have not received training before and for whom their timetable precludes full-time study. The regular MBA programme offers students considerable freedom in designing their own courses, but the irregular EMBA calendar denies XP students that flexibility. They go through the programme in lock-step, Kumar says. They lose the independence, but that means they feel closer to each other. Booth sees XP programmes as a critical aspect of its overall educational offering,
Part of the goal of the XP programme is to broaden the horizons of these people
enabling students who cannot spend a couple of years in Chicago the opportunity to experience what the school has to offer. Booth also runs XP programmes in Singapore and London. A task force is currently reviewing the schools global strategy, and although it is yet to make its recommendations, Kumar speculates that technology could be used to bring executive business education to even more far-flung or time-limited students in future. By providing us access to a talent pool that would not come to the full-time programme, the XP expands our reach, he says. The question is how to leverage the technology without diluting the experience. XP students work on problems at other companies as part of a compulsory course in which they do strategy research for businesses that are not their own. You dont want to be myopic and think about problems within your business only from a narrow, company-specific perspective, says the dean. Part of the goal of the programme is to broaden the horizons of these people. In terms of what sets a Booth EMBA apart, Kumar argues that an important aspect is the proprietary nature of all the programmes. The XP students get the full flavour of our educational experience the emphasis on fundamentals complemented by practical courses and the insistence on rigour at all levels. That ethos, he says, was encapsulated on a T-shirt he was given while interviewing for the schools top job. It bore the motto: Question everything. The attitude was underlined when he gave his inaugural talk as dean. A junior faculty member in the audience questioned my methodology. There arent many schools where a junior faculty member would tell the dean he didnt think highly of his research paper, he says, chuckling. I find that stimulating, Kumar adds. I say that friction produces light at Chicago Booth. Were an ideas-based meritocracy. I love that. Hal Weitzman
Photos: daniel lynch
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Value-added travel
arlos Quintana is Mexican and Genilson Melo is Brazilian. But their small national differences are nothing compared with the unexpected cultural challenges they face studying together on the executive MBA programme at Fundao Getulio Vargas (FGV) in So Paulo, Brazil. What has proved most demanding is working on projects via phone and email with a team scattered around the world and who are all from different nationalities and sectors. I think most of us were surprised by how difcult it would be to really work with people from different business cultures around the world, since we mostly have already had plenty of international experience, says Melo. But wed often stayed within our own hemispheres or at least our own sectors or companies. Dealing with truly different cultures has proved a real challenge, which I suppose speaks to the value of doing a course like this. Maybe we didnt know it, adds Quintana, but this kind of tough lesson is probably something we needed. Melo, nancial manager at Copersucar, Brazils largest sugar and ethanol exporter, and Quintana, director of compensation at PepsiCo, the drinks and snacks company, in Mexico, are on the Global Executive MBA programme, one of a number of EMBAs focused on giving working professionals a truly international experience in addition to more traditional coursework. On the OneMBA programme, participants are based either at FGV in Brazil, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Egade Business School in Monterrey, Mexico, Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University in the Netherlands or Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina in the US. Students meet periodically at their home campuses, spend some time studying at each of the others,
Globetrotting students find not everyone does business the same way. By Vincent Bevins
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and in between over the course of the 21-month programme work on projects in teams made up of students from all the other locations. Elsewhere, on the Georgetown/ Esade Global Executive MBA programme, students of various
nationalities do not have a home base close to where they live or work, but travel to meet for 12 days of intensive, non-stop coursework six times over two years. What amounts to 60 working days of study on location in Washington DC, Barcelona, So Paulo
Jet set students: Carlos Quintana (left) and Genilson Melo found that cultural dierences can be challenging
PHOTO: LALO DE ALMEIDA
or Buenos Aires, Bangalore, Beijing or Shanghai, and New York includes special attention given to international geopolitics. Normally the participants recognise their need to do the global executive MBA, says Pollyanna Nethersole,
a big gap between a normal MBA in associate director of Hong Kong and the Executive MBA, admissions at Esade Guillot says. Most international MBAs Business School in here are based exclusively on mainland Spain. Either they wish China. For students that only want to to conduct an internaThe percentage of put their focus there, we tell them to tional career, or they students enrolling in stay with the local programmes. have already been doing programmes this That is not the only warning. I tell so for several years. year who live outside them: This is going to be a challenging She says three special the country where programme, Guillot says. They think themes loom large the business school they are prepared to work with global in the course localis located, according teammates, and I tell them: Be really, company case studies at to an FT survey. really careful, because you only have each of the international Three years after experienced this in your own business. locations, management graduation, 19 per cent I dont think they anticipate the and leadership skills, of surveyed alumni difculty of this. That is exactly what and the global business were living overseas we want. environment. Indeed, it seems the programme It is important for aims to force learning by wrenchstudents to be certain ing students out of their comfortable this type of programme routines, before globalisation itself is what they want, say Melo and Quininevitably does so. tana. That is not only because of the These people are executives. They are cost the OneMBA costs R$112,000 bosses, says Marina Heck, associate dean ($60,000) if based in So Paulo but for the FGV programme. Here, they also because they are so demanding. become students and have to work with In addition to carefully selecting people they cant command. This obliges candidates to maximise interaction at them into some kind of sociability. If you high-executive level across national put ve stars in a room and and sector boundaries, such tell them to make a deciprogrammes attempt to Dealing sion, its not easy. ensure participants get the Melo and Quintana most from every hour they with truly recall some such moments can carve out from their prodierent with looks of exasperation. fessional and family lives. We in the Americas or We arent allowed to cultures has assume miss our classes or our proved a real Europe tended tomajority that once a clear meetings with global teams, challenge, came to one conclusion, says Quintana. This has led made, to some tense conversations which speaks the decision wasour says Melo. But with the directors in Mexico to the value colleagues in Asia tended City when it meant I had to insist that everyone fall to miss important PepsiCo of a course into line before a conclumeetings. But they had to like this sion was reached. Id never understand: Im doing dealt with that. this course. But both say they It can be tough to juggle emerged from such delicate negotiahome, ofce, classroom, and global tions with valuable experience and a projects, says Melo. But thats another network of contacts abroad. And for the skill we need to build. moment, all has been resolved. They Didier Guillot, director of FGVs are planning to go for drinks after the Hong Kong programme, says he somelast day of class in this round and not times discourages students he thinks talk too much about the course. B really want something else. There is
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report
A class apart
but technology is bringing together students scattered around the world. By Bernard Simon
ach Sunday evening, Scott Pearman joins the six other members of his executive MBA team to discuss their course assignments. Before getting down to work, they typically spend a few minutes chatting about their families and favourite ice hockey teams. All are enrolled at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario. But Mr Pearman lives 1,700km away in Bermuda, where he is chief operating ofcer of the hospitals board, and his team-mates are scattered across Canada from Fort McMurray, centre of the Alberta oil sands, to the prairie city of Winnipeg. With the help of sophisticated video-conferencing technology, they form a desktop learning team, holding their weekly meetings and receiving about half of their course instruction online. Kathryn About 15 of the 84 stuBrohman dents enrolled in Queens teaching at EMBA this year are memQueens school bers of online teams such as Pearmans. The rest come together in person every second week in corporate boardrooms around the country, but take part in the same online classes as the desktop teams. Classes We dont meet every second week, for almost the full day on just chuck Friday, continuing on Satpeople into a urday morning. group and The reality is that the technology that were seesay hope you ing factored into everyday get along living will have to be factored into education, says Elspeth Murray, an associate dean at Queens, citing students ever-growing familiarity with social media, smartphones and tablets. Many business schools post teaching materials online. Some allow recruiters to use their video-conferencing facilities for job interviews with students.
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But few have gone as far as Queens in Kenan-Flagler launched a two-year bringing the classroom into far-away online MBA course, known as MBA@ homes and ofces. UNC, in July. Although not an EMBA, Madrids IE Business School, Corit does not require regular classroom nell Universitys Johnson school, Duke attendance and shares many of the Universitys Fuqua school and the Unicharacteristics. versity of North Carolinas Kenan-FlaFuquas cross-continent and gler school are among others that offer global EMBAs include weekly chat some form of distance learning. Cornell sessions with faculty, similar to corpoleases Queens technology, developed by rate conference calls but without video. Polycom, a CaliforniaThe school puts modbased supplier of videoules on its computer conferencing equipment. servers and provides No longer a Doug Shackelford, an students with CDs budget option associate dean at Kenanthat Jennifer Francis, Students are increasFlagler, says, We believe senior associate dean, ingly willing to pay theres a tremendous describes as very, very more for online market out there for souped-up Powerpoint tuition. Both Queens people who have presentations. school in Ontario a great job and dont The Queens proand Kenan-Flagler in want to leave it, or who gramme grew out of North Carolina charge live in a place where video-conferencing close to $90,000 for theres not a top-tier facilities that the school online programmes [business] education began using in 1994. within driving distance. Groups of students
PHOTOS: QUEENS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
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would assemble simultaneously in boardrooms across the country. Pearman can see his Queens team on his laptop during their Sunday get-togethers. For lectures, students screens are split between the professor and course material. Participants can raise virtual hands to ask a question, speak to the instructor through microphones and communicate with each other via instant messaging. Shackelford says that UNCs bedrock motto in its online programme is to match the standards of its residential courses. If anything has to be compromised, were not going down that path, he says. Still, many schools have yet to be convinced that online education can match face-to-face teaching. London Business School, Columbia in New York and the University of Hong Kong jointly offer a global EMBA, and
Elspeth Murray, associate dean at Queens school, says students expect modern technology on their courses
along, Murray says. A put much of their learnTheres a coach assesses how the ing material online. But teams work together. We teachers and students still market out work very hard to estabshuttle between the cities there for lish trust, she adds. for classes. Even so, virtual attendAmir Ziv, vice-dean at people who ance undoubtedly presents Columbia, stresses that the dont want to challenges. Without school strongly values the leave their job the benet of close-up classroom experience and body language, Queens in-classroom instruction, as lecturers have had to change the way it leads to peer interaction and they communicate with students. exchange between faculty and stuEven though youre seeing them on dents. It also promotes practical learnyour screen, you have to be a bit more ing through working in small groups, explicit about saying what you mean, and networking, Murray says. Queens requires students to attend Video-conferencing is also ill-suited a two-week residential session at the to more than one person talking at a start of the EMBA, as well as two onetime. According to Pearman, you have week sessions during the 16-month to be very organised and very specic. programme. Each team also comes Whatever the drawbacks, propotogether for a project outside North nents of online teaching point to some America. We dont just chuck people tangible advantages over classroom into a group and say hope you get
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report
tuition. Class sizes are generally smaller, allowing more individual attention and less disruption. According to Murray, its been fascinating to see how the faculty has really changed their course material to leverage whats possible. She cites electronic tools that help teams conduct simulations and surveys. Francis says that Fuquas students have responded enthusiastically to the CDs provided by the school. Its a very exible and accommodating way to learn the material, she says, noting that students can repeatedly review modules. Some use them to study on plane trips. Polycom, which supplies the Scott Pearman technology used lives 1,700km by Queens and away from his Cornell, provides university virtual meet-
to pay full price for online tuition. ing rooms not only for the entire class Both Queens and UNC charge close but also for small break-out groups. to $90,000 for their online proPolycom says that its immersive telegrammes. Schools that have embraced presence solution provides real-life distance learning see it as a way of dimensions, allowing participants to accelerating the globalisation of read each others body language on the business education. screen. Another prodFor example, Queens uct, known as eagle-eye Its fascinating is assessing opportunities director uses two highto see how the for team-based courses in denition cameras that India and Latin America. automatically zoom in on faculty has According to Shackthe person who is speaking, changed elford of Kenan-Flagler, thus eliminating much of were expending a lot of the sea-sickness common their course time, a lot of money and a in manual camera systems. material lot of energy on what we Marci Powell, Polycoms believe is the vanguard of global education direcbusiness education. tor, says that such technological Pearman in Bermuda agrees, advances have made busipredicting that when his three-year-old ness schools less hesitant daughter graduates from high school, about using online tools. shell have to decide whether to go to As a result, students university or cyber-college. B are increasingly willing
47
Technology, p51
Winning the judges and the crowd
Hopes & Fears, p54
review
Disruptive influence
books
A bankers eastern premise
A low-cost entrant can end up overturning a high-profit business
Strategy can help innovators sidestep heavyweight opposition. By Philip Delves Broughton
nnovation is the hottest topic in business these days, more popular, as such companies as Apple and Amazon and a doctrinal gulf is now opening up between the made it easier to download and play digital music. What key thinkers on the subject. On one side are those began as a low-cost entrant into the music industry ended up who embrace the ideas of collaborative consumption overturning the high-cost, high-prot CD business. Compaand fast failure, who argue that innovators need to nies from outside the music business led the revolution. They experiment with their potential consumers until they nd created not just a new product in an existing market, but a a product or service that succeeds. These are the doers, the new business model to upend the dominant companies. tinkerers who see innovation as a kind of performance art, Raynor draws on a diverse set of examples, from Southto be done in full public view and modied according to the west Airlines to Holiday Inn, and Apple to the Dollar General cheers and jeers of the crowd. retail store. He writes that disruption is only possible when On the other side are the strategists, those who still an enabling technology or process believe in thinking through an innovation before leaping in. comes along to allow a company to The current enthusiasm break the trade-offs made by everyone Michael Raynor, a management consultant and protg of for fast failure and Clay Christensen, the Harvard Business School professor, is else in a sector. one of the most articulate and interesting of the strategists. Raynor writes convincingly that the corporate cultures of In The Innovators Manifesto, he takes us on a highly current enthusiasm for fast failure and learning is unrealistic analytical path, weighing and testing Prof Christensens most corporate cultures of learning is unrefamous idea of disruptive innovation, and seeing if it is a alistic. Corporate pathologies, such as useful tool for analysing a business opportunity and creating long memories, the jockeying for position, decision making an appropriate solution. by consensus, he writes, lead to risk aversion and incremenRaynors purpose is to unpack the ideas around disruptalism, which make such innovation processes unworkable. tion to such an extent that one should feel comfortable using It is much more realistic for companies to strategise their the theory to predict, explain and implement innovation. He way to innovation by focusing on areas where they might is not an easy read, which is a shame because he has many have a disruptive effect and designing processes and interesting things to say. teams to exploit them. This requires a high degree of Disruptions central claim, he writes, is that an self-awareness and self-criticism. The innovation has the best chance of success when it has Raynor cites a set of experiments done on MBA Innovators a very different performance prole and appeals to students, in which they were asked to Manifesto is customers of relatively little interest to dominant rate the likelihood of success of a published by incumbents, and the organisation commercialising group of businesses before and after Crown Business it enjoys substantial strategic and studying the theory of disruptive ($23) operational autonomy. innovation. Their success rate went In the music industry, for up by 50 per cent after learning example, digital downloads about disruption. crept up on the big record If companies could think their labels. At rst, they were just way to similar levels of improvefor people on the technological ment, then innovation might not fringes. But slowly they became seem such a frightening prospect. B
49
PHOTO: DREAMSTIME
technology
Pleasing the crowd

or MBAs seeking a career in the world of technology, the true test of their carefully constructed business plans can often come down to a six-minute performance on stage in Silicon Valley and San Francisco in September. Demo Fall in Santa Clara and TechCrunch Disrupt in San Franciscos South of Market area are held at the same time, and compete to host the best start-ups as they battle for recognition, prizes and the attention of venture capitalists. It all comes down to that strict six minutes in the spotlight, where amateur dramatics experience, a few props and some awless demos count more than any business calculations in convincing an audience that a start-up still in its infancy can succeed. There are American Idol-style VC judges giving their opinions and asking questions, but unfortunately no system of shutting up and counting out the lamest ideas. After viewing dozens of these presentations at both shows last month, I realised that imaginative pitches can help, but they cannot hide any lack of originality and appeal in the business concept itself. I was appalled at the delivery of some of the presenters one sounded like a town crier in the way he shouted out the features of his product. Others charmed with their attempts, particularly some of the youngest MBAs. A case in point was Zero2One, whose mobile app presented at Demo Fall is designed to help prevent back pain. The start-up comprises three Stanford University graduates a physician, an engineer and an MBA who started out without a business idea. They were given six months by Google chairman Eric Schmidts Innovation Endeavours venture fund to come up with something. After conceiving and rejecting 52 ideas, they settled on a service that could help
This years best start-ups will tell you how to make your pitch a winner, writes Chris Nuttall
people improve their posture and avoid back problems. Lumo Back consists of an app and an adhesive sensor that can be attached easily by anyone to their spine. The founders showed how the app picks I was appalled by the up data from the sensor to give a repdelivery of some of resentation on the the presenters one smartphones screen of your current of them sounded posture, showing like a town crier whether it is good or bad. The app can make the sensor vibrate if a person slumps while sitting, and it awards points and shows charts of how well the person is sitting, standing or moving in the course of a day or week. It was a condent demonstration and it addressed a need, with 80 per cent of Americans expected to suffer back pain at some point. Zero2One was one of a handful of DemoGods chosen, representing the judges favourites. Demo Fall did not conne itself to Silicon Valley start-ups. There were many international entries, and Aurasma from the UK was the big winner, with both DemoGod and Peoples Choice awards. Aurasmas aura of success comes from its augmented reality technology it describes itself as the worlds rst visual browser. Its presentation seemed like a magic show. A copy of The New York Times was held up to the camera of an iPad, and a picture of Osama Bin Laden on the front page suddenly came to life on screen as video played where the photo had been.
51
30%
PHOTO: ZERO2ONE
The proportion of Executive MBA alumni surveyed by the FT who set up their own businesses within three years of graduating from business school
technology
The linking of With Harry Potter-style an image to such wizardry, it was easy digital content creates what the to see how an audience company calls could be wowed auras and these can be changed at by the pitch will so the video report could be updated with newer material. Also, moving the iPads camera around did not disrupt the video, which stayed within its photo frame. We were shown a Harry Potter movie poster transformed into live action with 3D effects, and a 3D building rose from a 2D oor plan placed on the ground. With Harry Potter-style wizardry like this, it was easy to see how an audience could be wowed by the pitch, and Aurasma could emerge as overall winner. After the auras, we had aurals over at TechCrunch Disrupt, where the entertainment continued with a string quartet accompanying a presentation by Tonara, which described itself as a Kindle for sheet music. It was actually just an iPad app, but we were able to watch as a red bar moved across the sheet music as the app heard and recognised the notes played, helping everyone follow their parts and automatically turning pages for them. A singer was introduced, but her voice did not
distract the app from continuing to hear the instruments and accurately keep its place. While this was all easy on the ear, Shaker shook things up by throwing a party on stage. This was meant to illustrate that this kind of reallife social networking could not be imitated by a website like Facebook or LinkedIn. Shaker unveiled its alternative a virtual night club where people can dance as avatars while listening to the same music. The avatars have bubbles over their heads showing
their Facebook pictures and proles. Conversations can begin by walking over to someone on the dance oor. This is not a game, this is real life, Shaker said, though the cartoonish gures and setting looked pretty unconvincing, even compared with something else less than real, like Second Life or The Sims. However, the judges were impressed. TechCrunchs founder revealed he was investing in the Israeli start-up and Shaker was declared the overall winner of a $50,000 prize, out of 31 start-ups presenting and seven nalists. Shaker may not have been the most original business idea, but it had style and it was already proving popular a beta version had attracted tens of thousands of users. And, of course, with its victory, it now had the excuse and the money to throw a proper party. B
53
Aurasma brings a printed image to life by linking it to video
Apps for printing, phoning and remote computing

PrintCentral Pro (iOS) Printing a document from an iPhone or iPad is made easy by this $10 app. It works best when a small program called WePrint is installed on your local computer, giving the app instant access to any printer it uses. PrintCentral also has hooks into Google Docs, the Dropbox le storage service, and is able to print attachments straight from email. Photo printing, converting les into PDFs and even dragging les between a computer and an iOS device are all no problem for this versatile app. Line 2 HD (iOS, Android) Line2s founder claims to have completely replaced his o ce desk phone with the large-screen iPad version of this app using its built-in speakers and microphone as a speakerphone or linking up a Bluetooth headset for more private conversations. The app is free, but for around $10 a month Line2 provides you with a US phone number and free calling over wi- to phones in the US and Canada. There is unlimited texting and conference calls with up to 20 people. Splashtop XDisplay (iPad) Splashtop has come up with a series of Android and iOS apps that tap its server so ware installed on a remote PC. So a Windows PC desktop can appear on an iPads screen and be controlled from it from anywhere in the world with Remote Desktop and you can see what the PCs webcam is seeing with its CamCam app. A computer can be controlled from across the room with Touchpad and the $5 XDisplay lets you prop up the iPad next to the PC as a second monitor. CN
PHOTO: AURASMA
technology
The linking of With Harry Potter-style an image to such wizardry, it was easy digital content creates what the to see how an audience company calls could be wowed auras and these can be changed at by the pitch will so the video report could be updated with newer material. Also, moving the iPads camera around did not disrupt the video, which stayed within its photo frame. We were shown a Harry Potter movie poster transformed into live action with 3D effects, and a 3D building rose from a 2D oor plan placed on the ground. With Harry Potter-style wizardry like this, it was easy to see how an audience could be wowed by the pitch, and Aurasma could emerge as overall winner. After the auras, we had aurals over at TechCrunch Disrupt, where the entertainment continued with a string quartet accompanying a presentation by Tonara, which described itself as a Kindle for sheet music. It was actually just an iPad app, but we were able to watch as a red bar moved across the sheet music as the app heard and recognised the notes played, helping everyone follow their parts and automatically turning pages for them. A singer was introduced, but her voice did not
distract the app from continuing to hear the instruments and accurately keep its place. While this was all easy on the ear, Shaker shook things up by throwing a party on stage. This was meant to illustrate that this kind of reallife social networking could not be imitated by a website like Facebook or LinkedIn. Shaker unveiled its alternative a virtual night club where people can dance as avatars while listening to the same music. The avatars have bubbles over their heads showing
their Facebook pictures and proles. Conversations can begin by walking over to someone on the dance oor. This is not a game, this is real life, Shaker said, though the cartoonish gures and setting looked pretty unconvincing, even compared with something else less than real, like Second Life or The Sims. However, the judges were impressed. TechCrunchs founder revealed he was investing in the Israeli start-up and Shaker was declared the overall winner of a $50,000 prize, out of 31 start-ups presenting and seven nalists. Shaker may not have been the most original business idea, but it had style and it was already proving popular a beta version had attracted tens of thousands of users. And, of course, with its victory, it now had the excuse and the money to throw a proper party. B
53
Aurasma brings a printed image to life by linking it to video
Apps for printing, phoning and remote computing

PrintCentral Pro (iOS) Printing a document from an iPhone or iPad is made easy by this $10 app. It works best when a small program called WePrint is installed on your local computer, giving the app instant access to any printer it uses. PrintCentral also has hooks into Google Docs, the Dropbox file storage service, and is able to print attachments straight from email. Photo printing, converting files into PDFs and even dragging files between a computer and an iOS device are all no problem for this versatile app. Line 2 HD (iOS, Android) Line2s founder claims to have completely replaced his office desk phone with the large-screen iPad version of this app using its built-in speakers and microphone as a speakerphone or linking up a Bluetooth headset for more private conversations. The app is free, but for around $10 a month Line2 provides you with a US phone number and free calling over wi-fi to phones in the US and Canada. There is unlimited texting and conference calls with up to 20 people. Splashtop XDisplay (iPad) Splashtop has come up with a series of Android and iOS apps that tap its server software installed on a remote PC. So a Windows PC desktop can appear on an iPads screen and be controlled from it from anywhere in the world with Remote Desktop and you can see what the PCs webcam is seeing with its CamCam app. A computer can be controlled from across the room with Touchpad and the $5 XDisplay lets you prop up the iPad next to the PC as a second monitor. CN
PHOTO: AURASMA
hopes & fears
LOUISE VOGLER
Cultural evolution
How a China-based banker hopes an EMBA will help her bridge east and west
y ambition when I started my EMBA at China Europe International Business School (Ceibs) in Shanghai in March 2010 was to challenge my ways of thinking and keep my intellect going. It is easy to get stuck in modes of working and I want to be on the cutting edge of business. I have been living in greater China (the mainland, Hong Kong or Taiwan) for more than 18 years and am uent in Mandarin and some Cantonese. The way I think has become quite Asian. I have been with Standard Chartered Bank, primarily based in Shanghai, for 12 years. Prior to that I worked for a Canadian bank in Taipei and the Canadian Consulate in Guangzhou. I graduated in 1995 from the University of Victoria in Canada with a degree in Chinese studies and international business. Chinese studies is popular with foreigners now, but even today there are relatively few foreigners who have lived in China for as long as I have. You have to be exible. In the west, things are much more black and white. In China they are still nding out where their line between black and white will be. You have to be prepared to go with the ow entrepreneurs have to be prepared to take more risks. Everything here has rules, but at the same time, the rules can be very exible. You have to get used to dealing in that sort of ambiguous environment. One of the great things about Ceibs is that many students are Chinese. To succeed in China, you have to understand the Chinese way of doing things compared with other Asian countries, and being immersed with Chinese executives as classmates helps to sharpen your sensitivity and cultural empathy. At the same time, since I am in the international class, I have classmates from Europe, North and Latin America, and other parts of Asia. It is a great learning lab for cross-cultural leadership skills. At Ceibs they have a strong focus on business in China and leadership development. My hope was that I would become a better leader at work, obviously, but I also hoped learning such skills might help me in other areas of my life, even becoming a better parent and local community leader. I had been thinking about doing the programme for about two to three years. But I had to make sure my husband was on board because it is so demanding I have an Being immersed with 11-year-old son and I was worried about giving up even more Chinese executives of my time. Also, about halfas classmates helps way through the programme, your cultural empathy I was promoted to country
F T.C O M / B U S I N E S S E D U C AT I O N
54
credit ofcer for wholesale banking for China, which was obviously great, but there was a worry that I would not be able to do everything well. One of my motivations for doing the course was to prove to myself that I could manage my time and to try and create some kind of balance. And so far it seems to have worked. What I have found is that when you have committed to something, then you squeeze the time out. It has been a real boost to my condence. It might sound grandiose, but I also hope to apply the skills I have learnt and the connections I have made while doing my EMBA to make an impact not only at my company, but also in my husbands birthplace, Zambia, in southern Africa. He works in the textile industry in east China. He started off with very little and has become successful he has ambitions to return home and I want to be able to help him make a difference. I am very lucky that my company is sponsoring me, though in some ways it adds to the pressure if you have support from them, then you really feel you need to deliver on the EMBA programme and also at work. It sometimes feels as if I am being pulled in 10 different directions. The Ceibs EMBA is an excellent opportunity for networking. Among the students are government contacts and people involved in state-owned enterprises who are making inroads into international markets. Making contacts in this sector is important. I want to act as a bridge between Chinese and western business, and I have found that Ceibs gives me a good platform to develop that skill. It can be difcult for a westerner to nd a way to truly connect with the Chinese, and Ceibs is a great place to try out how to do just that. B As told to Emma Jacobs
PHOTO: JONATHAN BROWNING

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The interview

Make contacts who make a difference

Executive MBA ranking 2011

OPENINGS 4 from the editor

11 meet the dean

David Thomas brings a fresh approach to the McDonough school, Georgetown

An EMBA is about building high-level contacts as well as coursework

Classmates from different cultures offer a truly global perspective

Grigor McClelland helped to change the face of British business education

Distance is relative in the world of video-conferencing technology

PHOTOS: PASCAL PERICH; JEREMY NICHOLL/EYEVINE; JONATHAN BROWNING

A start-up event throws up some smart ideas and terrible pitches

54 hopes & fears

from the editor

Photo: ed robinson; illustration: raymond biesinger

Top of the class

The pursuit of happiness

PHOTOS: DREAMSTIME; ALAMY; WIREIMAGE; GETTY

See key (p26) and methodology (p30) for criteria

Salary today (US$)

FT EXECUTIVE MBA 2011 The top 25 EMBA programmes

ILLUSTRATION: NICK LOWNDES; PHOTO: ZUMA

The programme is not for everyone. But we dont want everyone

PHOTOS: ALAMY; JAMES KEGLEY

View profiles of top deans at www.ft.com/ deans

Meet the dean

Past columns: www.ft.com/ business education

ILLUSTRATION: ANDREW BAKER; PHOTO: ED ROBINSON

View pro les of top deans at www. .com/ deans

Risk and reward

Photo: PAsCAL PeRICh Photos: getty

PHOTO: PASCAL PERICH

What the 2011 surveys reveal

The top 100 schools rated

How the lists were compiled

illustration: neil webb

Executive MBA ranking 2011

A good return on investment

Median salary increase (%)

UK school alumni saw greater proportional salary increases

Source: FT EMBA rankings 2007-2011

illustrations: neil webb; graphics: russell birkett

All Asia-Pacic North America Europe (non-UK) UK

Find interactive rankings online at www.ft.com/ rankings

Mobility and achievement of professional goals (%)

Moved abroad home

Stayed abroad home

Source: FT EMBA ranking 2011

Financial Times executive MBA 2011

Faculty with doctorates (%)

International students rank

International faculty (%)

International board (%)

Work experience rank

Career progress rank

Women students (%)

Aims achieved rank

Salary increase (%)

Women faculty (%)

Salary today (US$)

Women board (%)

Key to the 2011 ranking