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FT business education The interview A corporate sleuth finds a new direction Special report Are EMBAs worth the high price tag? Networking Make contacts who make a difference www.ſt.com/businesseducation/emba October 24 2011 Executive MBA ranking 2011

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Page 1: Ft Mba Report

FTbusiness education

The interview

A corporate sleuthfinds anewdirection

Special report

Are EMBAsworththehighprice tag?

Networking

Make contactswhomake adifference

www.ft.com/businesseducation/embaOctober 24 2011

ExecutiveMBA ranking 2011

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contentsSEPTEMBER 2011 03

CONTRIBUTORSDELLA BRADSHAW is the

FT’s business education editor;VINCENT BEVINS is a freelancejournalist; SIMON CAULKIN isa management writer; PHILIPDELVES BROUGHTON is amanagement author; EMMAJACOBS is assistant editor ofFT Business Life; MICHAELJACOBS is the FT’s business

education statistician; REBECCAKNIGHT is a freelance journalist;PETERMOIZER is dean of Leeds

University Business School;CHRIS NUTTALL is the

FT’s technology correspond-ent; ADAM PALIN is the FT’sbusiness education researcher;EMMANUELLE SMITH is the

FT’s business education reporter;LOUISE VOGLER is an EMBAstudent; HALWEITZMAN isthe FT’s Chicago and Midwestcorrespondent; IANWYLIE is

a freelance journalist

Special reports editorMichael Skapinker

Business education editorDella Bradshaw

EditorHugo Greenhalgh

Lead editorJerry AndrewsArt directorSheila Jack

Visual consultantEd Robinson

Production editorSiobahn CassidyPicture editor

Lindsay CameronCommercial director, EMEA

Dominic GoodHead of business education

Elli PapadakiAccount manager

Ade Fadare-Chard, Gemma TaylorPublishing systemsmanager

Andrea Frias-AndradeAdvertising production

Daniel Lesar, Daniel Scanlon

on the coverIllustration by Neil Webb

OPENINGS

4 from the editor

6 upfrontCarbon footprints, Olympic vets,happiness indices and the FT’s top25 executive MBA programmes

8 introductionHow the EMBA went from being theMBA’s poor relation to a respected,in-demand luxury product

11 meet the deanDavid Thomas brings a fresh approachto the McDonough school, Georgetown

12 on managementExceptions to the rule, such as Apple,can change the whole game

14 dean’s columnGrigor McClelland helped to changethe face of British business education

FEATURE

16 interviewJeremy Krollstarted asuccessfulcorporateinvestigationsbusiness. Sowhy did he needan executive MBA?

RANKINGS

24 introductionMichael Jacobs analyses the datafrom the FT’s annual surveys ofbusiness schools and their alumni

26 the rankingThe 100 top business schools in theFT’s 2011 executive MBA ranking

30 methodologyAdam Palin explains how this year’sEMBA ranking was compiled

TOP25 REPORT

34 projectsAmbitious course projects transformcareers – and entire companies

38 networkingAn EMBA is about building high-levelcontacts as well as coursework

42 travelClassmates from different culturesoffer a truly global perspective

45 high-tech teachingDistance is relative in the world ofvideo-conferencing technology

ENDINGS

49 booksThe Innovator’s Manifesto byMichael Raynor

51 technologyA start-up event throws up somesmart ideas – and terrible pitches

54 hopes & fearsLouise Vogler hopes an EMBA willhelp her bridge east and west

Find interactiverankings onlineatwww.ft.com/

rankings

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from the editordella bradshaw

boom and bust are the bread and butter ofbusiness schools. An economy that isheading into recession is good news forbusiness schools, as it is likely to mean a risein applications – and fee income.

Ironically, it is times when the economy is boomingand companies are thriving that business schools reallyfeel the pinch. This is when busy managers often eschewfull-time degree programmes to concentrate instead ongrowing their businesses.

But are the attitudes of business school professors andstudents towards the subject of ethics equally cyclical?

When the credit crunch hit and Lehman Brothers, theinvestment bank, collapsed in 2008, unethical bankerswere held up as responsible. And, as everybody thinks,all bankers have MBAs. So clearly, the oddfalse assumption aside, MBA studentsmust be unethical.

Business schools and MBAstudents reacted with pleas ofinnocence, nowhere more sothan at Harvard BusinessSchool, where studentswent as far as developingthe MBA Oath.

On graduation,individuals pledged toserve the greater goodand act with the utmostintegrity. The movementcaught the mood of thetime, and similar schemeswere established in businessschools around the world.

That first year of the oathat Harvard, in 2009, more than500 of the graduating class signedthe document. The oath website nowboasts more than 6,000 signatories and theinstigators of the pledge even wrote a book about theirexperiences.

But by 2010, the number of HBS’s graduating classthat signed the oath had dropped to about 300. Thisyear, it fell again to just 220.

So has the enthusiasm for clamorous declarationfaded, or are people just using other means to channeltheir protestations? Was the oath ever anything morethan a fad or a passing fashion?

Personally, I have always had a problem with oathssuch as this. I have long suspected that this wasjust my cynical British hack reaction. Every time I

thought about it I was reminded of one of my grand-mother’s favourite sayings: “Never trust a man who sayshe is honest.”

My other major concern has always been that it isdivisive. The oath has real implications for those whochoose not to sign it. Does it mean, for example, thatthey are unethical? Or does it mean they, like me, simplyfeel uneasy about such a process?

When I mentioned the MBA Oath to a new colleaguerecently, her comment was perhaps the most instructiveof all. “Well,” she said, “it doesn’t really mean anything,does it?”

But what makes the oath so unworkable is that it isprimarily a declaration about the individual student.I cannot help feeling that this is because it is US inorigin, where the individual “I” tends to take precedenceover the collective “we”.

In fact, it is very difficult for an individual to makea real “ethical” difference in a company if the corpo-rate culture is set against such a course of action. Moreparticularly, it is impossible to do so if the remunerationstructure and the promotion, hiring and firing of indi-viduals is based on a series of premises that do not “servethe 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 tohear him say that one of their focuses now was on talkingto corporations and trying to inculcate them with theethos of the oath. Perhaps that will help. Let us hope so.

But here is my question to business schools: if theyare running programmes for the greater good, how dothey justify charging such exorbitant prices for theirexecutive MBA programmes? A decade ago, whenColumbia and London Business School launched theirEMBA Global course, it was billed as the first $100,000

programme. At the time, there wasoutrage at the high cost. Yet schools nowregularly charge $150,000 or more.

Is it ethical when such high prices arelikely to preclude the participation ofthose working for charities or non-governmental organisations, for example?

This, of course, does not answermy original question. Are ethical stand-ards scrutinised and promoted only intimes of malpractice – when people getcaught out? And will the MBA Oath makea comeback? If we hit a double-diprecession, perhaps we will find out soonerthan we hoped.

Promising students

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➔ Whyare fewer people signing theMBAOath – and can it reallymake adifference?

04

It is difficult foran individual tomakean ‘ethical’difference if thecorporateculture is setagainst suchacourseof action

Who is signingthe pledge?At the timeof goingto press, 6,272 peoplefrommore than 250business schoolsaround theworld hadsigned theMBAOath.To read thepledge infull go tombaoath.org

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In the 18th century, embarking upon a cultural GrandTour of Europe was an educational rite of passage. Inthe 21st century, top executive MBA programmes areincreasingly 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 pro-gramme at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business,based in the US, takes in six countries in Europe and Asia.

FT analysis suggests that the average student will travelapproximately 41,500 miles for compulsory teaching on thetop 10 EMBA programmes. This is equivalent to more thanone-and-a-half times around the equator.

While travel may well broaden the mind, flying also resultsin the emission of carbon dioxide – a major contributor toclimate change. Using UK government estimates of CO2

emissions per passenger mile flown, the FT calculates thatthese students’ course-related travel generatesabout 11.8 tonnes of CO2 each, assuming economyclass travel. If students elected for business class,this figure would be 24.2 tonnes each. The averagetotal annual “carbon footprint” for individuals inindustrialised nations is about 11 tonnes.

If students from these 10 programmes wereto offset their course-related emissions, at least17,000 trees could be planted – about the totalnumber in central London’s Royal Parks.– Adam Palin

The 2012OlympicGames in 2012 hasspecial significance for CambridgeUniversity EMBAstudent and equinevet Julian Samuelson. Itwill be the jobof his practice to look after the 200

horses that participate in the gamesinGreenwichPark in south Lon-don. “Our veterinary trainingwas

marvellous butwedidn’t get anyformal training in business,” he says.Presumably crisismanagement andlogisticswill play a big part in his JudgeBusiness School programme.

upfront

F T. COM / BU S I N E S S EDUC AT I ON

➔ WhyanEMBAboosts your airmiles – and carbon footprint

SteveBlank, the serialhigh-tech entrepreneurand conservationist, stillfinds time to teachon theBerkeley-Columbia EMBAprogramme. In his class,budding entrepreneurslearnhowstart-upsoperate bybuilding one

$124,500The cost of the current, top-rankedKellogg-HongKongUSTEMBA. The feefor thenext programme, starting nextJanuary, rises to $143,300

Top for salary(Three years aftergraduation)Kellogg-HongKongUSTBusiness School(average $419,416)

➔Topof the class

06

➔AnOlympic contender

Zara Phillipsis fighting fora place in the

Olympic squad

$176,440:averageEMBA

salary after threeyears (top 100

schools)

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Wellbeing is increasingly on the agenda forpolicymakers, who now pore over happi-ness indices alongside traditional indica-tors. In business, too, the bottom line isno longer the only measure of success.

Prosperity is more than “return on equity and value toshareholders”, says Simon Learmount, director of the ex-ecutive MBA at Judge Business School in Cambridge.

He says the Judge EMBA was devised with wellbeing inmind, and adds that people who successfully manage inten-sive study, career and family make better leaders.

A happy, well-rounded executive is likely to be a bettermanager than a stressed one – and more schools are takingnote, whether by offering yoga classes,nutrition advice or personal coaching.

At Columbia Business School inNew York, Hitendra Wadhwa drawson cognitive behaviour therapytechniques.

Ariane Ollier-Malaterre ofRouen Business School inFrance agrees that a whole-person approach makessense. “Wellbeing is notjust wishy-washy ‘be niceto your employees’,” shesays. “It’s important forsociety as a whole, foreconomic competi-tion and for thecompany – from thetop down.”– Emmanuelle Smith

➔ Thepursuit of happiness

Top for career progress(Seniority after three yearsand size of company)NyenrodeBusinessUniversity, Netherlands

Top for female students(Proportion: 51 per cent)EuromedManagement(France/China)

Top for internationalexperience(Based on courseelements overseas)Insead (France/Singapore/UAE)

See key (p26)andmetho-

dology (p30) forcriteria

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Top for aims achievedTrium:HECParis/LSE/NewYorkUniversity:Stern school

➔ FT EXECUTIVEMBA 2011The top 25EMBAprogrammes

Rank School name Salary

today

(US$)

1 Kellogg/Hong Kong UST Business School 419,416

2 Trium: HEC Paris/LSE/New York University: Stern 307,808

3 Columbia/London Business School 259,833

4 Insead 219,441

5 University of Chicago: Booth 219,736

6 Duke University: Fuqua 254,564

7 University of Pennsylvania: Wharton 220,704

8 IE Business School 177,026

9 UCLA / NUS 232,928

10 London Business School 180,409

11 Ceibs 267,062

11 Kellogg/York University: Schulich 182,969

13 Iese Business School 206,276

14 Chinese University of Hong Kong 275,866

15 Washington University: Olin 237,847

16 IMD 213,929

17 Kellogg/WHU Otto Beisheim School 163,628

17 Northwestern University: Kellogg 238,155

19 National University of Singapore School of Business 219,571

20 Arizona State University: Carey 239,622

21 New York University: Stern 193,390

22 UC Berkeley/Columbia 204,244

23 Imperial College Business School 149,250

23 Korea University Business School 234,006

25 Columbia Business School 203,239

Salary igures adjusted for purchasing power parity (see methodology, p30)

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introduction

Aiming high➔EMBAcredibility – andprices – are soaring. ByDella Bradshaw

70%Theproportion ofExecutiveMBAgraduates promotedwithin three years,according to anFTsurveyof alumni

“A large proportion of the reputation ofthe school comes from theEMBAbecause students come fromsuch ahigh level in the company”DIPAK JAIN, DEAN OF INSEAD (LEFT)

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At first glance, DamianBlazy is not your typicalparticipant on an Execu-tive MBA programme –an MBA for working

managers. He works atthe Pentagon as anenergy security analyst,but not long ago hewas on active duty as afighter pilot.

Yet every thirdFriday and Saturday heattends classes at theSloan school at MIT inBoston. The first reasonhe gives for studying amanagement degree willresonate with any engi-neer or accountant onhis course. “I need to translatebetween technical issuesand writing policy.”

His second reasonis learning to saveenergy. For Blazy thisis a bigger problemthan for most: the USmilitary is the world’slargest user of petro-leum and increasingthe use of biofuels hasdramatic consequences.“A lack of energy canresult in casual-ties,” hesays.

The only active service member inhis class of the Sloan EMBA, Blazy saysthe class is made up of folk who are“quant comfortable [highly numerate]... They want rigour, they want the cut-ting edge of data analytics.”

“Quant comfort” is undoubtedly oneof the strengths of the Sloan school,part of science and engineering univer-sity MIT, and, as EMBA programmescontinue to flourish, many schoolsare playing to their strengths. AtGeorgetown University in Washing-ton DC, famous for teaching law anddiplomacy, the McDonough businessschool has joined forces with theWalsh School of Foreign Service and

the Spanish business school Esade torun an EMBA that addresses the socio-political implications of business.

“The programme is not for every-one,” says Paul Almeida, seniorassociate dean for executive educationat Mcdonough. “But we don’t wanteveryone.” At $142,000, the 14-monthGeorgetown-Esade Global EMBA isclearly not for everyone, but it is

well within the range of pricescharged by other top schools. AtWharton, the fees are $167,160for its programme in Philadel-phia, and $173,940 for the onein San Francisco, while theMIT Sloan programme costs$132,000. At London BusinessSchool the London-based pro-gramme is a comparative stealat £53,900 ($83,800), whilethe EMBA-Global Americasand Europe costs $147,723.

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introduction

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“Theprogramme is notfor everyone. Butwedon’twant everyone”PAUL ALMEIDA, ASSOCIATE

DEAN, MCDONOUGH

10

At Chicago, the US programmecosts $148,000, while the Londonprogramme weighs in at ¤80,000($107,000). The Darden school at theUniversity of Virginia has launched itsglobal EMBA this year at $139,000.

For top schools there appears tobe little price sensitivity, but smallerinstitutions have had problems. TheGrenoble Graduate School of Busi-ness, for example, shelved plans for aglobe-trotting EMBA in January 2011because it could not fill seats.

But, as programme directors pointout, programmes cost less than atraditional MBA when the opportunitycost is factored in – EMBA studentscontinue to work while studying.

It is increasingly clear that theEMBA, oncethe Cinderellaprogramme of thewestern businessschool world,is becoming aluxury product.This has alwaysbeen the case inAsia, says SteveDeKrey, seniorassociate deanat Hong KongUniversity of Sci-ence and Tech-nology, whosejoint EMBA

programme with the Kellogg school,near Chicago, is ranked number oneagain this year.

The big development this year, saysProf DeKrey, is that the programme

is able to attractstudents fromfurther afield– Mumbai,Moscow andTurkey.

“The moti-vation is clearlythe rise of

Asia and aprogramme

like ours

FundedbyemployersTwo-thirds of alumnisurveyedby the FTreceived somefunding fromanemployer towardsthe cost of theirExecutiveMBA.A third had theirfees fully paid; theothers only partly.

enables you to build a network as wellas get a great education.”

Programmes in China are alreadythe largest in the world, with Ceibsin Shanghai enrolling around 700students a year and Cheung Kong,China’s first privately funded businessschool, teaching a further 660 – witheach Cheung Kong participant payingaround $100,000 for an EMBA aimedat what dean Bing Xiang calls “the topof the pyramid” – China’s business elite.

Targeting these high-level managersbrings real benefit to business schools,says Dipak Jain, dean of Insead. “Alarge proportion of the reputation ofthe school comes from the EMBAbecause students come from such ahigh level in the company.”

Prof Jain intends to build upInsead’s programmes in Fontainebleauand Abu Dhabi and launch a stream inSingapore next year. Then he intendsto launch an EMBA programme in theUS, probably with a partner, though herealises this will be difficult.

Insead has proved the partnershipEMBA model through its relationshipwith Tsinghua – together they run theTsinghua Insead EMBA in Beijing andSingapore. The potential for influencein the Chinese market is not lost onProf Jain and he is keen for the twoschools to replicate the programmeacross different cities in China.

Elsewhere in Asia, the Indian Schoolof Business launched what is arguablyIndia’s first true EMBA programmelast year and will graduate its first classthis month. While many US and Euro-pean business schools see India as anappropriate destination for an overseasmodule on their programmes, ISBdoes not take its students to developedeconomies, says dean Ajit Rangnekar.“We have one international componentin Brazil or Moscow.” B P

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Developingleaders: HongKongUSTand,below, ISBdeanAjit Rangnekar

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Follow@ProfThomasonTwitter andonany givendayyoumight read a res-

taurant review, amovie recom-mendation—or ameditation.

Recent ponderings from thedeanofMcDonoughSchool ofBusiness atGeorgetownUni-versity inWashingtonDChaveincluded: “Theonly enduringsuccess is thatwhich fulfills asense of purpose for being in theworld andbenefits others.” Andonanother day: “Eachofus privileged to leadothers should reflectonwhatweowethosewho labourand justify us keep-ing our jobs.”

Fewbusinessschools canboast ofa deanwhomedi-tates and tweets, butDavidThomaswasless keen to communicatewithsearch consultants.

“I started getting a continuousstreamof calls froma search con-sultant that started lastNovember,but shedidn’t getmeon thephoneuntil February,” saysThomas,whodidn’t immediately see anobviousfitwithGeorgetown.

But having started inAugust,Thomasnowarticulates a goodmatch: a thoroughbred academicinhis first deanship; and ayoungschoolwith pedigree, ready topush into the top tier.

Educated at Yale andColum-bia, before gaining professorships

atWharton andHarvardBusi-ness School, KansasCity-

bornThomas got hisfirst taste of academicleadership in 1999 atHarvard, running thefirst yearMBA leader-ship curriculum. “One

ofmy roleswasmentor-ing new faculty and for the

first time I could see themultipliereffect – the ability to impact notjust students, but all the classes.”

Further stints as senior associ-ate deanof faculty recruiting, thenheadof theHBSorganisationalbehaviour unit yieldedmoreinsights into creating good teach-ing and learning environments.

“But, at 55, Iwas askingmyself,howdo Iwant to spend thenextdecade andwhere can I have themost impact?” Thomas says.

At a year youngerthanThomas,McDonough is oneoftheyoungest schoolsat the top endofrankings. It teachesundergraduate,MBAand twoexecutiveMBAdegrees, includ-ing theGeorgetown-EsadeGlobal Execu-tiveMBA (GEMBA) in

partnershipwith theWalsh Schoolof Foreign Service andEsadeBusi-ness School,which sends studentsto nine cities on four continents.

Thomas replacedGeorgeDaly,whose accomplishments, asidefromcreatingGEMBA, includedrecruitingmore than 30new fac-ulty to raise the school’s researchprofile. But Thomas admits thereis stillwork to bedone forMcDonough to enter the top tier.

Thanks to itsschools of lawandforeign service,Georgetownenjoysstrong brand recog-nition. “But, relativelyspeaking, comparedwith schools likeHarvard andWhar-ton,McDonough isjust a baby –we’restill in theprocess of growing intoour full potential.Whatwill propelthis school forward is its peopleand their commitment tomaking

this a great place – as opposed to itbeing awell-oiledmachine.”

Thomas sayshewants todevelopMcDonough’s strengths,such as its strong emphasis onundergraduate education. “If youare intent as a business school todevelop andeducate leaderswhoareprincipled andhave a globalmindset andorientation to servebusiness and society youcanmore fully impact that project attheundergraduate level,” he says.

Likewise, hewants to accentu-ate the benefits ofGeorgetown’sJesuit roots andprinciples.“Because of the Jesuit influence, itseemsnatural for us to be creatingleaderswhoare responsible forwhat happens in society.”

His five-year to-do list includesdeveloping a “communityof phil-anthropic leadership” to supportthe school –McDonough is a top20 researchuniversity in termsofquality, but 61st for endowment –and isworkingwith Jesuit universi-ties around theworld to increaseunder-representedminorities ongraduateprogrammes,

A specialist in strategic humanresourcemanagement anddiver-sity— some sayThomas’s researchon the importanceof diversity inIBM’s turnround success shiftedthe conversationon the topic—hesays that trying towalk the talk is

bothhumbling andgratifying.

“It’s humblingbecause I seenowwhyexecutives oftendon’t dowhat theyknow tobe the rightthing. And gratifyingbecausewhen I doliveup towhatmyresearch tellsme, I

find I’mable to create an inclusiveenvironment that gives peoplea voice,without abdicatingmyleadership.” – IanWylie

Meet the deanDavidThomas thinks he can takeGeorgetown to thevery top

“Success isthatwhichfulfills a senseof purpose ...andbenefitsothers”

“McDonoughis a baby ... stillin the processof growinginto our fullpotential”

Lookingahead:

McDonoughschool deanDavidThomas

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Viewprofilesof topdeans atwww.ft.com/

deans

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onmanagementsimon caulkin

it is a curious fact that in industryafter industry there is at least onecompany that appears to succeednot by doing the same thingbetter than everyone else but by

playing a completely different game.Take Apple. The technology com-

pany is unique: this vertically integratedcorporate dictatorship makes expen-sive, beautiful niche products that haverevolutionised several industries (notcounting retail, of which it is also nowa most skilful exponent).

Or Toyota, which despite recentslip-ups, it is still the most formidablecar manufacturer. Probably not one in100 people could name its chief execu-tive, and its management processesare so grooved that appointing a newone causes as much ripple as changinga lightbulb. The Toyota ProductionSystem, a wonder of the industrialworld rivalling the originalassembly line as the most studiedindustrial phenomenon of alltime, sets the carmaker apartfrom less successful competitors.

John Lewis’s model – thedepartment store is owned by itsemployees – is unique, but its rivalswould love the same rapport withtheir customers. Equally distinct fromthe norm is Whole Foods Market, anupmarket organics chain whose chiefexecutive, John Mackey, is a libertariancapitalist, yet the company has a salarycap that limits compensation for every-one to 19 times the average wage of anemployee. Semco, the extraordinarilysuccessful Brazilian mini-conglomerate,has no corporate rule book and allowsemployees to set their own salaries. AtWL Gore, the maker of Gore-Tex fabric,there are no formal management titles:leaders become leaders by attractingfollowers. Lonely Planet was foundedby a couple of hippies – which did notstop it from turning the guidebookindustry on its ear.

Yet it is as if companies such asthese are invisible to conventional

management wisdom. They areexplained away as exceptions that provethe rule or appropriated as examplesof radical differentiation (true, but thatdoes not get us very far). Orthey are simply ignored. Theresult is that, far from beingallowed to challenge theparadigm of the day, they areco-opted into it.

Such marginalisation isharder to sustain since 2008.The collapse of major finan-cial institutions was as mucha challenge to management

as to economics, under-cutting assumptions about

reward, recruitment,risk, strategy and

governance.In this light,

perhaps the“excep-tions” havesomethingto tell us.If they areseen not asexotic outli-ers, but the

advance guardof a new order,

the first obviousquality that these

companies share is asense of purpose beyond

making money forshareholders. As SteveJobs, Apple’s founderwho died earlier thismonth, famouslyasked John Sculley, theformer president ofPepsiCo who becamethe chief executive ofApple, in 1983: “Doyou want to spend therest of your life sellingsugared water or doyou want a chance tochange the world?”

Different strokes

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➔For someof theworld’smost successful companies, going against the flowhas been the key

Past columns:www.ft.com/businesseducation

12

Apple’s products and Toyota’s processesdid alter perceptions of the world; butall the exceptions share the belief thatthey do not need to accept the world as

others see it.They all back purpose

with guiding principles. ForLonely Planet’s founders, itwas to write guidebooks forpoor but obsessive travel-lers such as themselves. ForRicardo Semmler of Semcoand Bill Gore it was strip-ping away management tofree ordinary people to workcreatively. Jobs again: the

Macintosh computer turned out so well,he said, “because the people workingon it were musicians, artists, poets andhistorians who also happened to beexcellent computer scientists”.

These businesses all temper purpose(or the founder’s personality) with avisceral connection to the customer:they are “outside-in”. Toyota’s “pull”production system, geared todelivering a car to the customer inminimum time and with minimumfuss, is the archetype here. Purposeand principles are held together bymeasures that track the organisation’spurpose, not the City’s or Wall Street’s.

Still not convinced? The biggest,indeed elephant-sized, exception to itsindustry is an investment company thatobeys all the above requirements. Itdenounces derivatives, eschews hedgefunds and invests only in real firmsmaking real goods and services that itunderstands. Its preferred holding timeis “forever”. It is, of course, WarrenBuffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, whichsince 1965 has provided shareholderswith a compounded annual book-valuegain of 20.2 per cent, for a total increaseof 490,409 per cent.

Perhaps Management 2.0 does notneed to be invented. It is already here,just – as science fiction writer WilliamGibson said of the future – unevenlydistributed.

“Exceptions”are notexoticoutliers, butthe advanceguardof aneworder

BigAppleThe introductionofproducts such as theiPod, iPhone and iPadunder Steve Jobs’ lead-ership turnedAppleinto theworld’smostvaluable technologycompany.HediedonOctober 5 2011 at theage of 56.

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dean’s columnPETER MOIZER

Superlatives are scattered freely today. High praise is given for successes that soon diminish in stature and peo-ple are lionised for achieve-

ments 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 are such that they need no exaggeration.

As founding director of Manchester Business School (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 found-ing editor of the Journal of Manage-ment Studies (JMS), he established a title that, 50 years later, remains among the best in the world.

Andrew Likier-man, now dean of the London Business School, knew him at Balliol Col-lege, Oxford, when Prof Likierman was an undergradu-ate and Prof McClelland a visiting fellow. “At a time when most manag-ers 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 prac-titioners could usefully talk to each other and that the best management education would come from a combi-nation 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 war, helping the dispossessed and the needy at a time when many in Europe shunned a nation whose actions had caused so much bloodshed. The experience had a pro-found effect on him.

He always maintained that clear moral compass. Decades later, in 2003, he handed back his CBE in protest against Britain’s involvement in the war in Iraq. Yet he is probably not as well known in the UK as he should be.

Prof McClelland held the role of founding director of MBS from

1965 to 1977. It is important to remember that British man-

agement was not in the best of health in the 1960s, and

that this was attributed in part to the absence of graduate business schools. The Lon-don and Manchester business schools were created in response to this problem. Under his direction, the seeds were

sown that would see MBS develop into the signifi cant

player that it is today in busi-ness, education and the wider

economy of the north-west of England, as well as nationally and abroad.

Prof McClel-land believed that his business school had a responsibility to improve society. It would graduate managers who, armed with the knowledge and expertise they had acquired,

A moral force

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➔ Grigor McClelland’s drive and integrity have transformed British business education

View pro� les of top deans at

www.� .com/deans

14

would be more effective bosses. Their companies would in turn generate more wealth and jobs.

It was before he took up his posi-tion at MBS, that Prof McClelland created the JMS. In 1963, he believed that a UK-based journal of academic research would contribute to the effectiveness of manage-ment as a profession, as well as to social and economic welfare. He initially involved senior members of the business

community, but soon turned the journal into a primarily academic publication with an eye towards informing business and management, either directly or indirectly through management educa-tion. It remains hugely infl uential.

Prof McClelland is now 89 years old and the JMS will celebrate its 50th birthday in 2013. It has strong con-nections to Leeds University Business School, another leading academic insti-tution. Joep Cornelissen, professor of corporate communication at Leeds and a general editor of the JMS, has been involved with this year’s launch of the inaugural Grigor McClelland Award. The award, which recognises the high-est standards of academic excellence, went to Jean-Philippe Vergne from HEC Paris for research on reputational dynamics. It seems a fi tting tribute.

When he was asked earlier this year why he had worked so tirelessly to develop management education and to make a difference to business and society, Prof McClelland said simply that he had been fortunate enough to make a contribution.

Superlatives are overused today, but I think some could be applied to Prof McClelland. He is hugely generous, tal-ented and charitable. His achievements have not diminished with time, and his successes remain as impressive today as they were half a century ago.

McClelland believed that his business school had a responsibility to improve society

The columnistPeter Moizer is dean of Leeds University Business School. He was a reporting member of the Com-petition Commission and is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Grigor McClelland

(above), and the school he

founded

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Photos:getty

interview

ropped against the wall of Jeremy Kroll’s Lexing-ton Avenue office in midtown Manhattan is a largeportrait of Bernie Madoff, the disgraced financier,looking sullen and shifty in a black baseball cap andsunglasses. the picture, upon closer inspection, is adigital mosaic made up of tiny, rectangular com-

pany logos, each one representing a corporatescandal of the past decade: enron, WorldCom, tyco, andRite Aid, among others. At the bottom a tongue-in-cheekadmonishment reads: “enjoy your day. It could havebeen a lot worse.”

Kroll, the chief executive of K2 global Consulting,a risk consultancy, says the picture “is a good reminderof why we are here: to try to solve problems, and to helppeople 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 mod-ern corporate investigations industry. In 1972, after anunsuccessful 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 formerpresident of Iraq, and tracked down the assets of Ferdi-nand and Imelda Marcos, the former presidential coupleof the Philippines. he sold Kroll to Marsh & McLennan,the insurance giant, for nearly $2bn in 2004.

their new company, which today has 40 employeesand offices in London, Madrid, New york, and Bahrain,provides anticorruption, due diligence and forensicaccounting services. their aim is to become a premiumone-stop shop to help businesses identify and managerisk using both the gumshoe investigative techniquesthat made the old company famous, and new digitalinformation technologies.

“Volatility is the new norm,” says Kroll. “We are help-ing companies mine information and understand thethreats 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 ear-lier this year, the company is a new entrant to the worldof credit ratings – an industry that has faced a blaze ofcriticism about whether its overly rosy ratings helped

Risk andreward

f t. com / BU S i n e S S edUc at i on

JeremyKroll had already run a successfulcorporate investigations businesswhenenrolling on anexecutiveMBAopenedupsomenew leads. ByRebeccaKnight

16

PIf you canmake it here:JeremyKroll in hisLexingtonAvenueoffice inManhattan

Photo:PAsCALPeRIC

h

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interview

arts. to this day he claims “nothing can replace the smellof linseed oil on a canvas”.

After dabbling in other jobs, he went to work for hisfather’s company, but never reported directly to Jules.“there were many layers by design,” says Kroll. “I neverhid from being his son, but I never used it to my advan-tage either. I wanted to learn from other people. I madesure I was the first one in the office, and the last one to

leave.” (For the record, Krollappears genuinely in awe of hisfather, who is 70. “Being hispartner has been an incred-ible opportunity,” he says. “he’salways been my mentor inbusiness.”)

eventually, Jeremy headedKroll’s marketing and sales division, helping reposi-tion the business into a global risk management andtechnology company. he took the unprecedented step ofrecruiting people from other industries, such as law-enforcement officers, attorneys, and journalists. “Krollwas kind of like an artists’ colony – it was an incrediblycreative environment,” he says.

he also pressed for the company to embrace informa-tion technology more fully, for example computerforensics. It was the dawn of electronic inves-tigations, and Kroll saw great promise fornew technologies to help clients figure outwho was behind a smear campaign, provesomeone was stealing from a company orfind evidence of collusion.

During his years at Kroll, the companygrew from $65m to $1bn in annual sales.

By 2006, he felt restless. the companyhad been sold, and while both he and hisfather stayed on, Kroll found that workingfor a bigger, more bureaucratic organisa-tion had its shortcomings. “embracing andholding on to a mission in a big company is achallenge,” he says. “I was looking for newenergy. I wanted to spread my wings.”

Up to that point, Kroll had beenhis classroom. he knew that to starta new business he would need notonly technical expertise in

19

Kroll andKroll: Jeremycites his father, Jules,as his inspiration andbusinessmentor

create the economic meltdown by causing billions of dol-lars in losses to investors.

the seed of the idea for Kroll Bond Ratings cameto Jeremy while he was an executive MBA student inthe trium Programme, a global alliance of New yorkUniversity’s stern school of Business, London school ofeconomics, and heC school of Management, Paris. theprogramme gave him the opportunity to “pay close atten-tion to what was going on in the

world” and mull potentialbusiness opportu-

nities.Kroll

recalls sur-veying thewreckage ofthe credit crisis in a class taught byIngo Walter, professor of financeand corporate governance at stern.“one thing that struck me wasthe lack of integrity of the ratingsprocess. there was so much ob-fuscation in terms of investmentproducts, specifically mortgage-backed securities, and there was

a lack of due diligence,” he says. “[Ithought:] what can we do to bringsomething new to the market that

would offer a private-sector solution toa public-policy question?”

roll has a lanky build, tousledmovie-star hair and a readysmile. he wears the standardWall street uniform – a whiteshirt with a tailored dark suit –but minus the tie. A tie, he says, isnot as “relevant” as it used to be.Business school was not neces-

sarily part of his master plan. hespent a gap year in Florence learn-ing to cook, paint, and speak Ital-ian. he graduated from george-town University with a degreein Romance languages and fine

“Embracing andholdingon to amission in a bigcompany is a challenge.Iwas looking for newenergy”

K

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areas such as finance and accounting, but also a deeperunderstanding of operations and marketing, and expo-sure to other industries, sectors and business models.

Kroll was initially reluctant to pursue theTrium EMBA because of the time com-mitment. The 16-month programmeinvolves several international rotations,including modules at the three schools’campuses, as well as stints in countriessuch 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 “sacrifice”worth making. “She said: ‘Go for it.’ It was the last boostof confidence I needed,” he says.

The experience was “mind-expanding”. He recalls late-night study sessions with his classmates, whose averageage was 41 and who came from very different professionalbackgrounds and cultural perspectives. Personalitiesoften clashed. “We had to figure out how to work together,”he says. “You’re there to learn. You’re not there to play poli-tics, or to one-up your competitors. We could have all beendoing other things, but we chose to be there.”

Inspiration came from unlikely sources. Kroll saysthat a guest lecture by an executive from Louis Vuitton,the French fashion house, made him more aware ofhow important a high-end, personalised experience is

for customers – even in the corporate investigationsbusiness. “In this economic climate, no one is payingpremium rates for commodity services,” he says.

In 2008, the senior Kroll launched an unsuccessfulattempt to buy back his old company. (Marsh & McLen-nan sold it to Altegrity, the security group, instead.)Jeremy says the failed bid was a “necessary step in thecreative process, because it forced us to figure out whatwe wanted to do next”.

One project he is working on now is a service thatuses pattern recognition and forensic analysis tounderstand the “social graph” of a given person: whothey know, the quality of those relationships, and whatis being said about them online. Consider it a detailedbackground check for the digital world.

“It’s an iterative process,” he says. “It uses digitaltechnologies, but it also requires going back to gumshoework and liaising with actual human beings, and nottaking for granted what’s on the web. It’s like Reagan[the former US president] said, ‘Trust, but verify’. It getsto the premium part of what we do: good, old-fashioneddetective work.”

Thedigital gumshoe:Kroll is using newtechnology toaugment traditionalinvestigativework

Aguest lecture by anexecutive fromLouisVuittonmadehimmore aware of how important ahigh-end, personalised experience is for customers

PHOTO:PASCAL

PERIC

H

interview

21

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f t. com / BU S i n e S S edUc at i on

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rankingsIntroduction, p23

What the 2011surveys reveal

Tables, p28

The top 100schools rated

Methodology, p30

How the listswere compiled

ExecutiveMBA ranking 2011

Archic te ra quam ispore etmodunteexcest fuga. Busamqui bla et voluptatectedolent pe similis in no-

➔ Theworld’s best EMBAprogrammes andhow they compare – plus expert analysis

Past school andcourse rankingsatwww.ft.com/

rankings

23

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rankings

It is tough at the top, but the busi-ness schools at the summit of the2011 executive Mba ranking haveseen off the competition for thethird year running. the leading

handful of programmes has maintainedits top-five status – and the number oneeMba remains the same.

topping the table of 100 globalmanagement programmes for seniorexecutives is the collaboration betweenthe kellogg school, near chicago, andhong kong university of science andtechnology, which chalks up a hat-trickof titles in the process.

the trium programme, a link-upbetween hec paris, the london schoolof economics and political science andthe stern school of business at newYork university, takes second spot,relegating the columbia and londonbusiness school offering to third place.

based on a survey of schools andanother of alumni of the eMba class

More students are payingtheir own way throughtheir executive MBA pro-

grammes, so getting a better jobat the end of it is critical. In spite ofthe challenging economic climate,self-financing EMBA graduateshave continued to increase theirsalaries significantly.

The number of self-financingstudents increased from 27 to 33per cent between the FT’s surveysin 2007 and 2011. Indeed, growth inEMBA student numbers over thepast few years has been driven bystudents receiving either partial orno financial support.

Using data from alumnisurveys completed between

2007 and 2011, the FT comparedtheir salaries before commenc-ing EMBA programmes and threeyears after graduation. Alumnisurveyed in 2011graduated in 2008.

Even though themedian salaryincreases of self-financing alumnideclined from 55 percent (2007 respon-dents) to 43 per cent(2011), the mediansalary rise for 2011respondents was $38,078.

Over the five-year surveyperiod, the median percentagesalary increase for self-financing

alumni was 50 per cent, marginallyhigher than the median increasefor all EMBA alumni (48 per cent).

Analysing data by schoolregion, graduates fromcontinental Europeanschools have been thehardest hit, with salaryincreases droppingfrom 88 per cent in thesurvey of 2007, to 53per cent this year.

However, UKschool alumni sawgreater proportional

salary increases. This appearslargely attributable to the inter-national composition of the UKEMBA programme. –AdamPalin

f t. com / BU S i n e S S edUc at i on

24

of 2008, the ranking gives an overviewof the career progress of graduates,gauges the diversity of schools andassesses the research capabilities of

each institution. the stability ofthe ranking is not restricted to thevery top. among the highest 25programmes, 15 saw their clas-sification change by five placesor fewer when compared with

2010, while the average absolutechange was 4.4. of the 23 that were

also ranked in the top 100 in 2010, 19were similarly placed among the topquartile that year.

Yet the top tier is not impregnable.the two remaining entries in the top25 make impressive debuts this year.a joint entry from the andersonschool of business at the universityof california, los angeles, and thenational university of singapore is thehighest, entering at number nine.

the ucla-nus global eMba is

AllAsia-PacificNorth AmericaEurope (non-UK)UK

Three years after graduation comparedwith pre-EMBA. By location of school

Median salary increase (%)

Source: FT EMBA rankings 2007-2011

2007 08 09 10 11

40

60

80

30

50

70

90

based in four locations over a 15-monthperiod. while the programme is taughtmainly at the home campuses of thetwo institutions, students also spendtime in shanghai and bangalore. thethe programme scores well on theFinancial times’ international courseexperience rank. based on the percent-age of classroom teaching hours out-side the country in which a programmeis primarily located, ucla-nus isranked fifth overall.

Meng tan, an american graduatefrom the class of 2008, particularlyvalued the international aspects of theucla-nus experience. “My eMbaprogramme helped me build a strongfoundation to pursue many businessopportunities in north america andgreater asia,” he explains. “the east-west programme structure delineatedthe style and culture of how companiesoperate in different parts of the world.i have a competitive edge.” tan is now

Sitting pretty

A good return on investment➔ Despite tough economic times,money spent on anEMBAstill delivers results

➔ The top schools’ resiliencehighlights the enduring quality of their EMBAs. ByMichael Jacobs

UKschoolalumni sawgreaterproportionalsalaryincreases

Page 25: Ft Mba Report

The grass may be greener on theother side for executive MBAgraduates, an analysis of alumni

survey data reveals. Those graduateswho relocated following their studieswere more likely to feel they had succeed-ed in changing careers and in increasingtheir earnings.

Among more than 5,250 alumni fromthe class of 2008 who responded to theFT survey (which is used as part of the2011 EMBA ranking), around 14 per centlived in a different country three yearsafter graduation compared withbefore they started. Roughly half movedto a foreign country, while the remainderreturned home.

Both groups of migrants reportedabove-average success in changingcareers – 59 per cent of those whomoved overseas indicated that theyhad achieved this aim, while the propor-tion was 56 per cent for those returning

home. The overall average was51 per cent.

92%Salary increasesreported by alumni oftheKoreaUniversityBusiness Schoolthree years aftercompleting the EMBAprogramme

25

While mostalumni felt theEMBA boostedtheir earningpotential – 84 percent reported thatcompleting the

programme had helped them with thisobjective – 90 per cent of those whobecame foreign nationals after graduationreported increased pay.

In contrast, graduates who returnedhome were the most likely to start theirown businesses. About one-third didso. Regardless of where they relocated,

the majority of alumni felt they hadprogressed in their career –

two-thirds reported that complet-ing their course had enabledthem to realise their profes-sional ambitions. –MJ

Ninety per cent of thosegraduateswho lefttheir homecountryreported increasedpay

Relocation, relocation➔Alumniwhomoved to adifferent country earnedmore

Find interactiverankings onlineatwww.ft.com/

rankings

0

40

60

80

100

abroad home abroad homeMoved Stayed

Changed careerIncreased earnings

Moving targetsMobility and achievement ofprofessional goals (%)

Source: FT EMBA ranking 2011

B

based in los angeles, where he worksas a business development director forDragon heart Medical, a producer ofmedical supplies.

the korea university businessschool eMba is the other debutantin the top 25. it enters the ranking at23, thanks in part to the strength ofsalary data reported bythe graduating class of2008. on average, kubsalumni earned $234,000three years after gradu-ation (see methodology,page 30). this representsa 92 per cent increaseon their pay before theystarted the programme –the second-highest rise inthe entire ranking.

the seoul-basedschool also scores wellin terms of its doctoralprogramme. based on the number ofdoctoral graduates during the past threeyears, as well as the number who subse-quently took full-time faculty positions atone of the top 50 full-time Mba schools,kubs is 15th in the Ft doctoral rank.

the high placings of these debutantsreflect two continuing trends. the firstis the increasing dominance ofinternational, collaborativeeMbas, with programmesoffered in more than one loca-tion, often involving two or morebusiness schools. among the100 programmes in the 2011table, 19 are taught in morethan one country; 11 of thesespan two or more continents.

the second development has seenthe emergence of schools from outsidenorth america and europe. of theranked programmes taught in a singlelocation, 14 are outside these regions.

the international spread of theranked programmes is more thanmatched by the students. graduatessurveyed by the Ft came from 99different countries. on average, therewere six different nationalities perprogramme among the alumni whocompleted the questionnaire.

Page 26: Ft Mba Report

2011 2010 2009 3year School Country Programmename

1 1 1 1 Kellogg/Hong Kong UST Business School China Kellogg-HKUST EMBA

2 3 2 2 Trium: HEC Paris/LSE/New York University: Stern France/UK/US Trium Global EMBA

3 2 3 3 Columbia/London Business School US/UK EMBA-Global Americas and Europe

4 4 5 4 Insead France/Singapore/UAE Insead Gemba

5 5 4 5 University of Chicago: Booth US/UK/Singapore EMBA

6 9 10 8 Duke University: Fuqua US MBA - Global Executive

7 8 5 7 University of Pennsylvania: Wharton US MBA for Executives

8 7 7 7 IE Business School Spain EMBA

9 UCLA / NUS US/Singapore UCLA-NUS EMBA

10 6 8 8 London Business School UK/UAE EMBA

11 18 26 18 Ceibs China International EMBA

11 23 23 19 Kellogg/York University: Schulich Canada Kellogg-Schulich EMBA

13 26 16 18 Iese Business School Spain Global EMBA

14 10 19 14 Chinese University of Hong Kong China EMBA

15 18 12 15 Washington University: Olin US/China Washington-Fudan EMBA

16 12 14 14 IMD Switzerland EMBA

17 14 18 16 Kellogg/WHU-Otto Beisheim School Germany Kellogg-WHU EMBA

17 20 17 18 Northwestern University: Kellogg US EMBA

19 27 11 19 National University of Singapore School of Business Singapore Asia-Pacific EMBA

20 28 41 30 Arizona State University: Carey China Carey / SNAI EMBA

21 17 15 18 New York University: Stern US EMBA

22 13 13 16 UC Berkeley/Columbia US Berkeley-Columbia EMBA

23 34 31 29 Imperial College Business School UK EMBA

23 Korea University Business School South Korea EMBA

25 15 9 16 Columbia Business School US EMBA

26 22 27 25 OneMBA: CUHK/RSM/UNC/FGV São Paulo/Egade China/Netherlands/US/Brazil/Mexico OneMBA

26 24 Cornell University: Johnson US EMBA

28 29 29 29 University of Toronto: Rotman Canada One-Year Executive MBA

29 10 21 20 City University: Cass UK EMBA

29 32 University of Oxford: Saïd UK EMBA

31 15 25 24 ESCP Europe France/UK/Germany/Spain/Italy European EMBA

32 31 20 28 University of Michigan: Ross US EMBA

33 32 21 29 Essec/Mannheim France/Germany Essec & Mannheim EMBA

34 35 35 35 Warwick Business School UK EMBA

35 46 37 39 Georgetown University: McDonough US EMBA

36 29 30 32 University of Western Ontario: Ivey Canada/China EMBA

37 38 28 34 UCLA: Anderson US EMBA

38 41 WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business)/University of Minnesota: Carlson Austria Global EMBA

39 24 31 31 Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Netherlands EMBA

40 41 39 40 Rice University: Jones US MBA for Executives

41 41 37 40 Emory University: Goizueta US Weekend EMBA

41 44 41 42 University of Pittsburgh: Katz US/Brazil/Czech Republic EMBAWorldwide

43 21 24 29 Purdue/TiasNimbas/CEU/Gisma US/Netherlands/Hungary/Germany International Masters in Management

44 55 Cornell University: Johnson/Queen's School of Business US/Canada Cornell-Queen's EMBA

45 37 40 41 National Taiwan University College of Management Taiwan NTU EMBA

45 52 55 51 University of Texas at Austin: McCombs US EMBA

47 44 33 41 Cranfield University School of Management UK EMBA

48 36 50 45 University of Maryland: Smith US EMBA

49 72 Vanderbilt University: Owen US EMBA

50 44 Henley Business School UK EMBA

rankings

f t. com / BU S i n e S S edUc at i on

➔The top 100programmes globally (continuedoverleaf)

26

Financial Times executiveMBA 2011

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Career Progress School Diversity Idea Generation

Salarytoday

(US$)

Salaryincrease

(%)

Careerprogressrank

Workexperience

rank

Aimsachievedrank

Women

faculty(%)

Women

students(%)

Women

board(%)

Internationalfaculty(%)

Internationalstudentsrank

Internationalboard(%)

Internationalcourseexperience

rank

Languages

Facultywithdoctorates(%)

FTdoctoralrank

FTresearch

rank

Rank20

11

419,416 63 6 3 2 21 17 12 94 6 94 39 1 96 17 14 1

307,808 58 71 1 1 23 26 13 90 4 76 2 1 99 18 24 2

259,833 85 13 35 6 19 21 13 62 24 42 8 1 98 23 12 3

219,441 60 31 4 3 14 18 22 90 16 70 1 1 97 6 11 4

219,736 70 23 17 14 15 18 14 79 18 36 28 1 96 4 3 5

254,564 54 57 12 71 17 28 11 42 44 44 6 1 99 28 2 6

220,704 62 34 67 12 20 24 11 33 38 56 70 1 100 1 1 7

177,026 153 39 78 53 32 26 24 54 40 81 81 1 95 66 57 8

232,928 72 21 15 85 24 21 19 70 17 20 5 1 97 45 31 9

180,409 79 9 33 5 21 19 17 84 5 70 17 1 99 37 7 10

267,062 72 24 21 55 13 36 17 62 42 50 33 1 98 83 69 11

182,969 66 14 8 26 22 35 17 87 3 70 12 1 96 26 15 11

206,276 70 4 13 21 21 25 26 51 8 87 9 2 100 68 56 13

275,866 57 83 11 84 21 33 50 82 28 100 30 1 96 55 74 14

237,847 52 59 5 57 21 38 14 91 34 100 33 1 98 79 20 15

213,929 58 19 2 22 17 19 12 98 10 75 14 2 100 83 65 16

163,628 79 3 22 20 19 15 11 79 30 81 22 1 95 20 18 17

238,155 52 30 20 33 20 24 8 45 26 8 81 1 94 10 9 17

219,571 58 50 18 15 30 22 14 61 1 29 10 1 94 58 53 19

239,622 66 67 41 68 25 27 11 96 98 0 81 1 87 32 27 20

193,390 59 12 79 31 16 29 10 48 41 16 44 1 100 3 8 21

204,244 50 55 43 4 19 28 10 56 39 28 70 1 98 8 6 22

149,250 79 2 73 11 27 24 40 80 20 50 51 1 94 31 45 23

234,006 93 96 100 43 7 13 0 10 98 0 24 2 100 15 66 23

203,239 53 27 87 32 17 37 10 61 56 35 70 1 97 9 16 25

184,615 55 32 14 38 21 19 14 77 14 85 7 1 94 34 55 26

226,040 66 70 64 48 25 17 24 32 45 24 56 1 91 57 26 26

155,168 53 33 10 46 26 31 41 71 2 53 81 1 98 12 10 28

156,726 75 16 58 40 28 19 43 74 12 57 21 1 95 29 58 29

191,168 66 53 16 10 13 10 35 55 13 38 70 1 97 33 46 29

138,657 72 7 24 25 35 25 38 68 9 41 4 2 91 75 96 31

202,256 55 77 38 29 24 18 18 33 62 12 81 1 84 2 4 32

151,282 73 10 25 16 25 22 4 65 22 78 11 1 96 44 67 33

131,479 77 11 83 8 39 29 14 60 33 14 52 1 97 7 44 34

184,398 67 8 69 51 20 28 12 38 48 15 44 1 100 83 34 35

182,992 62 54 28 90 24 30 16 59 32 28 56 1 98 30 33 36

196,505 46 56 26 35 16 25 19 37 81 11 33 1 100 38 17 37

146,414 56 20 6 39 34 34 20 45 29 46 13 1 88 73 51 38

143,412 68 40 36 23 16 25 25 37 25 21 33 2 100 11 36 39

176,461 56 28 65 45 21 23 20 23 35 4 79 1 93 83 13 40

180,838 54 26 56 42 24 25 15 19 63 4 59 1 94 71 23 41

172,112 50 44 55 61 29 28 6 71 43 3 15 1 91 63 39 41

141,199 51 18 39 36 19 12 14 48 21 29 2 1 99 46 54 43

152,732 64 36 45 24 27 13 21 35 15 25 54 1 88 69 41 44

209,688 47 92 32 89 21 28 7 18 98 33 81 2 98 5 89 45

151,110 51 22 80 19 28 17 12 27 36 2 59 1 86 27 19 45

136,036 64 35 27 27 32 27 21 48 19 36 44 1 86 53 87 47

166,149 48 93 47 69 26 22 17 29 89 4 81 1 97 40 5 48

162,104 63 49 71 79 13 29 10 23 47 3 70 1 100 80 37 49

140,008 69 47 63 17 36 19 15 32 23 15 28 1 71 70 91 50

f t. com / BU S i n e S S edUc at i on

27

Weighting inbrackets asapercentage.

Salary todayUS$ (20)Theaveragealumnisalary threeyearsafter graduation.Thisfigure includesalumni salarydata for thecurrentyearand theoneor twoprecedingyears,whereavailable.Salarypercentage increase (20)Theincrease inaveragealumni salary frombeforecommencing theEMBAto threeyearsafter graduationasapercentageofthepre-EMBAsalary.This figure includesdata for thecurrentyearand theoneor twoprecedingyears,whereavailable.Careerprogress (5)This is calculatedaccording tochanges in the levelofseniorityand thesizeof thecompaniesalumniareworking innowversusbeforetheirEMBA.Data for thecurrentyearand theoneor twoprecedingyearsareincludedwhereavailable.Workexperience (5)Thismeasures thepreviousexperienceofEMBAparticipantsbyexamining seniorityofpositionsheld,numberofyears ineachposition, sizeofcompanyandany internationalworkexpe-rienceprior to starting theEMBA.Aimsachieved (5)Theextent towhichalumni fulfilled theirmost important goalsor reasons fordoinganEMBA.Women faculty (3)Thepercentageoffemale faculty.Womenstudents (3)Thepercentageoffemale students.Womenboard (1)Thepercentageof femalememberson theadvisoryboard.International faculty (5)Thepercentageoffacultywhosecitizenshipdiffers fromtheircountryof employment.

Key to the 2011 ranking

Footnote: although the headline ranking figuresshow changes in the data year to year, the patternof clustering among the schools is equallysignificant. There are about 290 points betweenKellogg/Hong Kong UST Business School at the topand the school ranked 100th. The first 10 businessschools up to London Business School form thetop group of schools. The second group is headedby Ceibs, which would need to increase its scoreby 5 points in order to move up a group. Top of thethird group is the joint programme from CornellUniversity: Johnson and Queen’s School of Business– about 40 points separate the top and bottomschools in this third group. The fourth group isslightly closer together, separated by 33 points.

Page 28: Ft Mba Report

2011 2010 2009 3year School Country Programmename

51 75 55 60 Villanova School of Business US EMBA

52 43 54 50 Temple University: Fox US EMBA

53 62 55 57 Aalto University School of Economics Finland/South Korea/Singapore/Poland EMBA

54 53 48 52 National Sun Yat-Sen University Taiwan EMBA

54 62 Texas A&M University: Mays US EMBA

56 39 34 43 Tongji University/ENPC China Shanghai International MBA (Simba)

57 54 65 59 University College Dublin: Smurfit Ireland EMBA

57 66 61 61 Fundação Instituto de Administração Brazil International EMBA

57 71 Yonsei University South Korea Corporate MBA

60 Georgia Institute of Technology US Global EMBA

61 84 Euromed Management France/China World Med Part-time MBA

62 64 52 59 Ashridge UK Part-Time EMBA

62 51 University of Buffalo School of Management US EMBA

64 78 65 69 Georgia State University: Robinson US EMBA

65 50 53 56 Stockholm School of Economics Sweden/Russia/Latvia MBA Executive

65 University of Florida: Hough US EMBA

67 Fordham University Graduate School of Business US EMBA

67 Gordon Institute of Business Science South Africa MBA

67 SDA Bocconi Italy EMBA

70 73 46 63 Rutgers Business School US EMBA

70 78 76 75 SMU: Cox US EMBA

72 57 63 64 Koç University GSB Turkey EMBA

73 48 36 52 University of Alberta/University of Calgary: Haskayne Canada Alberta / Haskayne EMBA

74 75 64 71 Tulane University: Freeman US EMBA

75 60 University of Georgia: Terry US EMBA

76 47 58 60 Copenhagen Business School Denmark Flexible EMBA

76 64 51 64 University of Texas at Dallas US EMBA

78 59 46 61 Universität St.Gallen Switzerland EMBA

78 80 Incae Business School Costa Rica Global EMBA

80 73 69 74 Ohio State University: Fisher US EMBA

81 61 61 68 Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School Belgium Part-time EMBA

82 75 84 80 Auburn University US Auburn EMBA

83 84 80 82 University of Washington Business School: Foster US EMBA

84 69 65 73 Queen's School of Business Canada EMBA

85 89 78 84 University of Strathclyde Business School UK EMBA

85 69 Nyenrode Business Universiteit Netherlands EMBA

87 University of Arizona: Eller US EMBA

88 88 77 84 University of Utah: Eccles US EMBA

89 91 73 84 Baylor University: Hankamer US EMBA

90 86 72 83 Pepperdine University: Graziadio US EMBA

90 86 University of Houston: Bauer US EMBA

90 74 University of Rochester: Simon US/Switzerland Rochester-Bern EMBA

93 55 45 64 Thunderbird School of Global Management US EMBA-US

94 81 71 82 University of Miami School of Business Administration US EMBA

95 69 79 81 Bradford University School of Management/TiasNimbas Business School UK/Netherlands/Germany Executive Part-time MBA

95 89 89 91 Loyola University Maryland: Sellinger US MBA Fellows

97 96 95 96 IAE Business School Argentina EMBA

98 93 87 93 Ipade Mexico Medex

99 95 85 93 University of Denver: Daniels US EMBA

100 83 80 88 Michigan State University: Broad US Weekend MBA

rankings

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➔The top 100programmes globally (continued)

28

Financial Times executiveMBA 2011

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Career Progress School Diversity IdeaGeneration

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175,621 57 62 44 18 32 22 17 11 76 5 44 1 84 83 79 51

155,979 51 65 50 88 26 31 26 35 27 50 17 1 81 36 63 52

134,914 51 25 31 76 30 23 43 79 75 86 33 1 76 24 78 53

141,656 61 82 98 9 27 42 29 8 97 43 30 1 95 21 95 54

170,471 45 85 23 41 33 18 24 16 83 0 81 1 82 65 29 54

147,316 70 80 74 99 37 41 17 3 94 58 81 1 79 13 75 56

124,694 60 58 53 58 24 33 17 42 49 54 81 1 97 48 68 57

195,214 30 52 7 72 18 17 36 9 91 43 30 2 100 19 98 57

151,819 66 64 90 65 14 23 40 10 95 40 81 2 100 49 83 57

154,178 42 75 97 28 10 28 7 29 60 2 15 1 90 51 25 60

138,582 56 95 81 52 30 51 20 42 67 13 25 1 89 83 82 61

141,970 60 79 66 63 39 40 14 36 7 14 41 1 53 83 84 62

146,090 60 69 72 97 28 23 11 70 37 7 81 1 81 67 59 62

153,219 48 89 57 77 31 32 13 27 52 13 44 1 82 50 52 64

130,166 49 74 29 49 17 23 33 58 57 0 41 1 95 16 70 65

141,483 47 37 49 73 22 15 29 18 77 2 77 1 94 42 30 65

156,418 56 17 96 100 26 31 30 29 54 32 44 1 86 83 76 67

180,836 56 46 88 93 25 29 44 29 74 11 50 1 58 82 88 67

138,488 50 86 42 92 38 18 33 27 81 67 59 2 89 22 64 67

158,108 38 29 37 44 20 39 19 16 92 0 59 1 74 35 61 70

167,015 38 66 40 59 29 21 11 24 79 3 59 1 92 83 47 70

135,771 56 51 99 67 43 25 20 16 93 73 81 1 95 83 62 72

138,591 48 68 62 74 26 17 16 54 85 9 70 1 88 72 32 73

167,458 54 100 19 96 35 18 9 32 71 26 56 1 88 62 72 74

147,856 43 97 77 47 28 32 14 16 65 0 59 1 88 59 42 75

119,410 41 43 9 54 31 24 18 29 50 0 70 1 90 14 60 76

131,569 40 88 34 86 23 32 20 56 66 14 41 1 80 47 22 76

129,414 50 5 54 13 11 13 11 66 55 56 40 2 52 61 85 78

161,190 45 99 59 56 10 12 13 50 11 80 27 1 90 83 97 78

151,228 36 48 68 78 27 13 12 21 68 4 77 1 83 43 21 80

116,509 54 41 70 37 27 9 20 23 59 100 55 2 92 74 81 81

147,792 48 38 30 62 22 19 19 7 86 3 69 1 96 77 86 82

152,857 28 87 46 91 29 42 19 18 80 13 81 1 90 41 28 83

120,780 37 72 51 34 28 25 19 44 46 55 53 1 86 56 49 84

121,893 34 42 84 94 31 33 33 100 31 33 81 1 79 39 71 85

108,488 42 1 82 7 39 45 0 18 58 33 19 1 57 78 99 85

127,870 46 78 91 98 30 26 16 29 77 2 59 1 91 25 40 87

133,570 43 90 75 80 36 10 13 36 84 4 22 1 87 76 43 88

131,582 58 81 85 30 32 21 19 3 70 8 59 1 75 83 77 89

168,652 36 73 60 60 22 35 18 6 96 4 80 1 79 83 90 90

136,382 41 94 76 66 27 19 24 23 63 21 59 1 84 60 50 90

121,911 46 91 61 50 19 21 12 29 61 18 20 1 81 64 48 90

146,508 26 45 48 83 27 21 20 29 53 23 25 2 90 83 73 93

128,842 34 60 89 70 26 26 6 32 73 0 81 1 95 81 38 94

109,936 50 76 94 64 25 23 35 45 69 10 81 1 86 52 80 95

118,630 55 61 93 81 25 30 20 20 71 0 68 1 92 83 94 95

157,403 46 63 95 75 13 17 5 34 51 38 81 2 57 83 93 97

179,016 51 15 86 82 6 18 0 8 87 9 81 1 32 83 99 98

151,236 44 84 52 95 27 24 12 3 90 4 33 1 67 83 92 99

119,524 39 98 92 87 29 23 26 22 88 9 81 1 89 54 35 100

f t. com / BU S i n e S S edUc at i on

29

International students (5)This combinestwopiecesofdata. Thefirst is thepercentageofparticipantswhoare resi-dent in thecountryof thebusiness schoolbutwhosecitizenship isdifferent fromthatcountry.Thesecond is thepercentageofparticipantswhoareboth internationaland residentoutside thecountry inwhichthebusiness school is situated.International board (2)Thepercentageoftheboardwhosecitizenshipdiffers fromthecountry inwhich thebusiness schoolis based.International courseexperience (5)Thepercentageof classroomteachinghoursthat areconductedoutside thecountry inwhich thebusiness school is situated.Languages (1)Numberof languagesstudentsare required to speakupongraduation.Facultywithdoctorates (5)Thepercent-ageof facultywithadoctoraldegree.FTdoctoral rank (5)This is calculatedaccording to thenumberofdoctoralgraduates fromeachbusiness schooldur-ing thepast threeyears.Additionalpointsaregiven if thesedoctoral graduates tookup facultypositionsatoneof the top50full-timeMBAschoolsof 2011.FTresearch rank (10)This is calculatedaccording to thenumberof facultypublica-tions in45 international academicandpractitioner journals. Points areaccruedbythebusiness school atwhich theauthor iscurrentlyemployed.The total isweightedfor faculty size.JudithPizer of JeffHeadAssociates actedas theFT’s database consultant. TheFTresearch rankwas calculatedusing theScopusdatabaseof research literature.

Footnote: although the headline ranking figuresshow changes in the data year to year, the patternof clustering among the schools is equallysignificant. There are about 290 points betweenKellogg/Hong Kong UST Business School at the topand the school ranked 100th. The first 10 businessschools up to London Business School form thetop group of schools. The second group is headedby Ceibs, which would need to increase its scoreby 5 points in order to move up a group. Top of thethird group is the joint programme from CornellUniversity: Johnson and Queen’s School of Business– about 40 points separate the top and bottomschools in this third group. The fourth group isslightly closer together, separated by 33 points.

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illustratio

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rankings

the fifth criterion, “aims achieved”,assesses the extent to which the schoolhas enabled respondents to fulfil theirmost important goals for undertakingan EMBa. this measure carries 5 percent of the final total.

the next eight criteria, collectivelyaccounting for 25 per cent of thefinal rank, are calculated using dataprovided through the business schoolsurvey. these criteria measure thediversity of each school’s teaching staff,board members and EMBa students,according to gender and national-ity, and the international reach of theEMBa programme.

of the final three criteria, constitut-ing the remaining 20 per cent of thetotal ranking, two are based on datafrom the school survey. the final cri-terion in the table, “Ft research rank”,is calculated according to the relativenumber of articles published by eachschool’s full-time faculty members in45 internationally recognised academicand practitioner journals. the period

for which publications areassessed is January 2008to august 2011. For eachpublication, a point (or afraction, if there is morethan one author) is award-ed to the school where theauthor is now employed.the rank measure com-bines the absolute numberof publications with thenumber of publications

weighted relative to the faculty’s size.after all calculations have been

applied to the data for each of thedifferent ranking criteria, an Ft scoreis calculated for each school. First, aZ-score – a mathematical formula thatcreates numbers reflecting the rangeof the points – is calculated for each ofthe measures. these scores are addedtogether, giving a final total scorefrom which the schools are ranked indescending order to compose the Ft’sEMBa ranking 2011.

This is the 11th consecutiveyear that the Financialtimes has published itsranking of executive MBaprogrammes – part-time

MBa degrees for senior working man-agers. the ranking aims to give a thor-ough assessment of EMBas worldwidethrough a survey of business schoolsand their alumni.

to be eligible to participate in theranking, schools must meet strict crite-ria for inclusion. Most notably, schoolsmust be internationally accreditedand the EMBa programme must haverun for at least four consecutive years.For this year’s ranking, 129 businessschools took part – eight morethan in 2010.

once schools had demonstratedtheir compliance with the criteriafor inclusion, two sets of onlinesurveys were used to collect thedata. the first was completedby the schools, and the secondby alumni who graduated threeyears ago.

For schools to remain eligible,a 20 per cent response rate is requiredfrom alumni, with a minimum of 20responses for schools with fewer than100 alumni in the graduating class.this year, a total of 5,255 responseswere submitted by alumni, represent-ing 55 per cent of 2008 graduates.

once the surveys are closed, thedata from the alumni questionnairesare used to compile the first five of theranking’s criteria. the published figuresfor these criteria include informationcollated by the Ft over three years.the data collected in 2011 accountfor 50 per cent of the total weight andthose from 2010 and 2009 25 per centeach. if only two years of data are avail-able for a school, this year’s survey car-ries 60 per cent weight, and the 2010survey carries 40 per cent.

the first four criteria in theranking table examine the salariesand career progression of alumni from

commencing their EMBa to today –typically a period of five years. thesecriteria contribute 50 per cent ofthe final score.

to calculate the figure presentedin “salary today (us$)”,the salaries of alumniworking in the non-profit and public servicesectors, and those whoare full-time students,are removed. Purchasingpower parity rates sup-plied by the internationalMonetary Fund are usedto convert the remainingsalary data to us$ PPP-equivalent figures. PPPrates of currency conver-sion account for differ-ences in purchasing powerbetween countries, therebyenabling alumni salaries tobe compared meaningfully.Following this conversion,

the highest and lowest 15 percent of salaries areexcluded before the

mean average wage,“salary today (us$)”, iscalculated for each school.the salary percentageincrease, “salary increase%”, is calculated for eachschool according to the dif-ference in average alumnisalary before starting theirEMBa and three years aftergraduation.

the “Career progress” measurequantifies changes in alumni levels ofprofessional seniority and the sizeof their employer from the point ofenrolling to three years after gradua-tion. “Work experience” takes intoaccount the seniority of alumni, thesize of their employer, the length oftime they remained with that companyand any international work experience– all before they commenced theirEMBa programme.

Methodology

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➔ The criteria,methods, scores and rules that underpin the ranking. ByAdamPalin

30

OnlineFor aninteractiverankingwith thisyear’s resultsalongwithtables of FTbusiness educa-tion rankingsdating back to2005 go towww.ft.com/rankings

The rankingaims to givea thoroughassessmentof EMBAsworldwide

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reportNetworking, p38

Making contactswho count

EMBAprojects, p34

Exercises thatbuild careers

Travel & technology, p42

Going global – inperson andonline

Costs and benefits➔ ExecutiveMBAs are gruelling, time consuming andexpensive – so are theyworth it? From

exacting projects, networking and travel to remote learning,we askwhat sets EMBAs apart

33

EvgenyBulgakov’s

EMBAprojecttransformedhis

company

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The tension in the room issuch that you can actu-ally see knuckles whiten,claims Jim Pulcrano as hedescribes IMD’s “discov-

ery” project in Silicon Valley, whereEMBA students pitch businesses toventure capitalists. Except that they arenot pitching their own businesses, butthe companies of five, equally nervousSwiss high-tech entrepreneurs.

“the entrepreneurs are present, butnot able to say anything – I don’t evenintroduce them,” says Pulcrano, EMBAexecutive director at the Swiss businessschool, who also flies his students toMumbai and Shanghai for similar proj-ects. “It is very high stress and someof the students don’t sleep very muchbefore. No one wants to fail.”

Working with a start-up develop-ing biotech coatings for implantablemedical devices was “like nothing Iwould ever experience in a large multi-national company like mine”, admitsMark Pattenden, an EMBA graduate ofthe Lausanne-based school who is vice-president of manufacturing at ShellDownstream, part of the oil group, inhouston, texas.

“But the benefit to me and mycompany was learning how to fosteran entrepreneurial mindset within ourcompany, develop and commercialiseideas and technologies and how to lookthrough a different lens with regard totechnical and commercial risk. I alsolearnt what it means to be on the otherside of the fence when a big companycomes along and wants to buy yourcompany or your idea.”

IMD’s EMBA is one of the mostproject-intensive programmes around– aside from the three “discovery” expe-ditions and a personal leadershipassignment, students must completesix projects within their own compa-nies by the end of the one-year course.

“It’s messy,” concedes Pulcrano.“there’s no way I can predict what’sgoing to come out of each assignment.

It’s one of the reasons why most otherschools don’t do it this way, becauseas an academic, you’re not in control.And it’s very resource intensive – 50students doing company assignments,each with up to 20 different deliver-ables to be read and evaluated by twomarkers. It would certainly be a loteasier to just give them a 30-page casestudy that contained all the answers.”

And yet, EBMA students areincreasingly aware that devising theright project and executing it well canfast-forward their careers, particularlyif it is a project that gives them a greaterprofile in their own organisation. “Stu-dents tell us the projects are the mostvaluable part of the programme forthem,” says Pulcrano. “their learninggets pushed and stretched in a way itwouldn’t if they were just doing casestudies they didn’t care about.”

At Insead, the international businessschool, students complete a large sin-gle-company-based project to concludetheir programme. Peter Zemsky, who

teaches the core competitivestrategy module, says projectwork embodies the partner-ship between school andemployer. “Company projectsare amazing opportunities forthe students to bring all of theknowledge and hard work atInsead to the benefit of theirorganisation,” says Prof Zem-sky. “Part of the challenge forstudents is finding the projectthat will give themmaximum

visibility inside the company.“Most are in senior roles, and so have

access to some really interestingproblems – our projects range from astrategy tomeet the challenge of newentrants to an industry, to optimisinga supply chain, or trying to overcomeskills shortages. But whatever the topic,integrating the knowledge they’ve gainedfrom a top business school to solve realproblems helps many gain recognitionin their companies.”

Getting real

“Studentstell us theprojects arethemostvaluablepart of theprogramme”

report

34

Energy boost:EvgenyBulgakovdeveloped aperformance-management toolfor TNK-BP inRussia;(above left) IMD’sJimPulcrano

➔ Heavyweight projects test students’mettle,writes IanWylie

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Choosing the rightproject – one that balancesthe needs of your organisa-tion with the requirementsof your academic tutors – ischallenging. There is a bal-ance to be struck betweenambition and workload,cautions Pulcrano, whosestudents have six companyprojects that apply theirlearning in marketing,finance, organisationaldesign, human resources,strategy and execution.“They could choose to doall six projects on six differ-ent areas of a company, alloutside their area of responsibility. Thatwould be fantastic experience, but sucha steep learning curve that workloadwould increase exponentially.”

Alternatively, students can decide todo all the projects within their owndepartment, but their learning wouldbe much narrower and diminished.Those whose EMBA coincides witha large corporate initiative, such asa company acquisition or merger,sometimes find it helpful to carve outall six from the same initiative, saysPulcrano. “In general I advise that theydo maybe two projects in their ownarea of responsibility, and three or fourin other areas.”

At Insead, Prof Zemsky says hewould like to see leadership develop-ment feature more prominently inEMBA projects. “As much as thereis an analytical element to these proj-ects, there is also a huge human andleadership dimension to the problemsthey’re trying to solve,” he says. “We’rekeen to see that reflected in actionitems that are not only analyti-cally sound, but recommenda-tions that can actually move anorganisation.”

Pulcrano says IMD is pon-dering how it can better prepareits EMBA students for the un-planned. “We’re trying to figure out ifthere’s a way these company projectscan force them to work more ina crisis mode – and give them askill set that works in a world thatdoesn’t always stick to the agendain their iPhone.”

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Helping high-fliers to soar➔ Kellogg EMBAaims to takewinners to thenext level

36

The Kellogg School of Managementmay be based in Evanston, atNorthwestern University’s main

campus just north of Chicago, but itsvision and student intake are truly global.

That is especially true for the EMBAprogrammes. About a third of the studentintake for EMBAs taught in the US comesfrom abroad. One current student evenflies in to Evanston fromDubai every other week.

Kellogg also has a campusin Coral Gables near Miami,Florida, that, like the mainsite, has two cohorts everyyear (and is particularlypopular with students fromLatin America).

Moreover, the schooloffersjointprogrammeswith fourinternational institutions: theRecanatiGraduateSchoolofManagementatTelAvivUniversity in Israel;WHU OttoBeisheimGraduateSchoolofManagement

inVallendar,Germany; theSchoolofBusinessandManagement

at theHongKongUniversityof ScienceandTechnology;and theSchulichSchoolofBusinessatYorkUniver-sity inToronto,Canada.

Wherever studentschoose to study, Kellogg

strives to ensure the EMBAexperience is the same.

“A Kellogg MBA is aKellogg MBA,

regardless ofwhich

programme you enter,” says Betsy Ziegler,the new associate dean of MBA pro-grammes and dean of students.

Ziegler says that like the MBA, theEMBA provides a framework based onthree pillars: “grounded wisdom”, bywhich she means fact-based, experien-tial learning; a collaborative spirit thatemphasises the power of teamwork; and

encouraging students to bebold in driving change intheir companies.

This framework is impartedthrough a core curriculumin foundations of businessmanagement. In their secondyear, students can chooseelective courses.

While Kellogg is keen toemphasise the similarities,there are obvious differences

between the MBA and EMBA. The stu-dents are at a different stage in theircareers and lives. The typical EMBAstudent here has about 10 years’ workexperience and is between 35 and 38. MBAstudents tend to be 27 28 years old with3 5 years of experience.

The timetable is also very different.EMBA students have classes once ortwice a month, in which they work inteams, applying business strategies to thechallenges they face in their own compa-nies. This condensed schedule is distinctfrom the full-time programme, Ziegler says,meaning that “the velocity and stickinessof the learning curve” is quite differentfrom the traditional MBA.

Networking plays a critical role in theEMBA experience, culminating in “live-inweeks” at Evanston that bring togetherstudents from the two US campuses withEMBAs from Kellogg’s partner schools.Social events feature alongside classesand study groups.

Student-created networks are alsoimportant places in which EMBAs formlasting professional and personal relation-ships. Ziegler says Kellogg recognises thatnetworking is a big reason why peoplechoose to study for an EMBA. As she putsit: “Networking at EMBA is in overdrive.” –HalWeitzman

Past schoolprofiles areavailable onwww.ft.com

Students areencouragedto be boldin drivingchange incompanies

Value addedWhenYvesKarcherbegan theLearningfromyourCustomerassignmentonhisIMDEMBA,hedidnotimagine that asa result,his employer, Logitech,theSwiss computerperipheralsmaker,wouldayear laterunveilthefirst inanewgenera-tionofwirelesspresenta-tiondevices.

Prof Zemskywants toseemoreleadership

development

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When Chris Caldwellembarked on theeMBa programmeat london Businessschool, he hoped to

advance his career in corporate finance.as it turned out, it marked the end ofthe line in banking for him. soon afterfinishing the course, he quit his job andis now in the process of setting up abusiness in cardiac diagnostics, despitehaving no experience in healthcare.

he puts the career switch downto networking. It was after meetingand working on a project with GawunChung, a doctor on the course, thatthe two decided to go into businesstogether. “this is leftfield for me,” saysCaldwell. “I had no plans to set up abusiness. But the people I meton the course opened my eyes andmade me realise there was more to lifethan finance.”

Caldwell is one of many who hasgained more from their eMBa thanacademic teaching. often, the appealof such programmes is the high-levelnetworking opportunities.

Christophe servais, a market-ing director at Cisco, the maker ofcomputer-networking equipment, inFrance, says that this was one of hiskey goals when he embarked upon theeMBa at heC Paris. “Iam a trained engineerand had moved into themarketing side, and asmy career progressedI was starting to interactwith people who wereat a very senior level.I realised that in orderto progress I neededto develop my network-ing skills.”

Fiona sandford, the director of lon-don Business school’s career services,says this is a key element of the eMBaprogramme. “one of the first things wesay to people when they start is thattheir networks are in the room – we do

an introductory exercise to show themthe power of students. We say, ‘youknow that job you’re desperate to getout of, someone in the room is desper-ate to get into it’.”

lBs invites alumni not only to meetthe current eMBastudents, but alsoto network acrossclasses in londonand dubai, usingweb-based learn-ing. “We try to makenetworking less scary– if you’re not anextrovert, [it] can beoverpowering,” addssandford. “We tellthem that offering tohelp other people canpay huge dividends.”

Pierre dussauge,eMBa academicdirector at heC, saysthe school also triesto encourage par-ticipants to networkwithin their com-pany. “on one part of

Joined-up thinking

f t. com / BU S i n e S S edUc at i on

Get yourselfconnectedIt’s not all about you.Offering to help otherpeople canpaydivi-dends in the future.Beopen-minded.People fromdifferentdisciplinesmayoffernewperspectivesand contacts.Understand the powerof networking.Most positions arenot advertised, soreferrals are key intoday’s competitivejobmarket. –EJ

38

the programme we asked them to lookat a problem and find people within anorganisation to help. they find that indoing so they have broadened their listof contacts. Generally with network-ing you need a good reason to talk tothem – you can’t just phone them. theassignment gives them a good reason.”

Business schools are focusing onnetworking more and more, sayssandford. “Increasingly, there is a hugenumber of jobs that are never adver-tised. If you are looking for a niche job,in particular, then you need to network.Moreover, if candidates have beenreferred through their networks, itboosts their chances.”

If an eMBa candidate came to aninterview at heC, says Prof dussauge,“and said the content is just hot airand the real reason they were applyingwas to broaden their contacts, then wewould reject them. But we recognisestudents are there for more than justthe academic work. It counts better inyour favour, however, if you show thatyou have many contacts that are usefultoo. We like to emphasise that network-ing isn’t just one way.”

alexander adell, who is midwaythrough his eMBa at the Universityof Pennsylvania’s Wharton school,has found the networks “surprisinglyaccessible”. the video game producerwas “sceptical that I would find manyconnections in the entertainmentindustry, but within six months of start-ing the programme I connected withan alumnus involved in video gameventure capital”.

he says eMBas are appealing fortheir industry connections. “In regularfull-time MBa programmes, studentsare generally at an early stage in theircareers, with few connections. Whar-ton’s executive MBa, however, requiresthat students have 10 years of experi-ence in their field, so each of my 90classmates brings a deep network oftheir own to the programme.” he citesan extra-curricular trip to China,

➔Building ahigh-level network is an important part of the EMBAexperience. ByEmmaJacobs

‘We recognisestudents arehere formorethan just theacademicwork’

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New directions:Chris Caldwell decidedto set up a cardiacdiagnostic companywhile studying foran EMBA at LondonBusiness School;(left) business partnerGawun Chung

“I had no plans to setup a business. But thepeople I met on thecourse … made merealise there was moreto life than finance”

39

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“where, purely through studentconnections, we got to meet with theprincipals of over a dozen top firms andgovernment agencies in Beijing andShanghai – truly a once-in-a-lifetimeopportunity”.

Olivier Ferhat, a sales director atIBM, the computer group, who is aboutto move to a smaller information tech-nology company, says until recently hiscareer focus had not included network-ing. “I’ve worked in sales for a numberof years and wanted to expand myresponsibilities. When you have hadsales director on your CV for a longtime, you find only sales directorjobs. I wanted to widen my area ofknowledge so I could apply for manag-ing positions. I knew that the academiccomponent [at HEC] – supply chain,finance, etc – would be helpful, ofcourse, but also the networks.

“I chatted to a headhunter recently,who confirmed what I already assumed.They said that they only ever see 20 percent of high-level jobs. The rest – 80 percent – come through networks.”

Long term, he would like to returnto his birthplace, Algeria, to set upa business incubator. He worked onplans for this during his EMBA. Thenetworks have been very helpful indeveloping the idea, he says. “Youhave a vision, you don’t know whereyou’ll go, but if you communicate it, Ifind people want to help. Through theEMBA I met very high-level peoplewho put me into contact with others.It brought me to the ministry level inAlgeria very quickly.”

For Servais, the value of the net-works has been more esoteric than heanticipated. After graduating, he haskept up with a small group, includinga senior manager at a multina-tional and another executive ata pharmaceutical group, whomeet socially. “It can be verydifficult to navigate a corpo-rate organisation. We meet forlunch and discuss situations thatwe are having problems with. Theirperspective helps navigate complexsituations. They are detached from theproblem. We all have different anglesbut try to find a common solution.This is one of the benefits beyond aca-demic knowledge.”

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‘An ideas-basedmeritocracy’➔ ChicagoBooth’s Dean Sunil Kumarwelcomes a challenge

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If youhear the initials “XP” at theUniversity of Chicago’s Booth Schoolof Business, itwould be amistake to

assume that it refers to the computeroperating programmes. Here, “XP” ismoreoftenused as shorthand for “executiveprogrammes” – the courses referred to inother institutions as EMBAs.

Booth, the second-oldest businessschool in theUS, launched its EMBApro-gramme in 1943, as away toprovidebusi-ness training topeoplewhose liveshadbeendisruptedby the secondworldwar.(A fewyears earlier, the schoolhadalsobegunofferingMBAclasses in theevening.)

Sunil Kumar, thedean,says that basic principle stillapplies: theXP courses trainbusinessmanagerswhohavenot received training beforeand forwhom their timetableprecludes full-time study.

The regularMBApro-grammeoffers students considerable free-dom indesigning their owncourses, butthe irregular EMBAcalendar deniesXPstudents that flexibility. “They go throughtheprogramme in lock-step,” Kumar says.“They lose the independence, but thatmeans they feel closer to eachother.”

Booth seesXPprogrammes as a criticalaspect of its overall educational offering,

enabling studentswhocannot spendacouple of years inChicago theopportunityto experiencewhat the school has to offer.

Booth also runsXPprogrammes inSingapore andLondon. A task force is cur-rently reviewing the school’s global strategy,and although it is yet tomake its recom-mendations, Kumar speculates that tech-nology could beused to bring executivebusiness education to evenmore far-flungor time-limited students in future.

“Byprovidingus access to a talentpool thatwouldnot come to the full-time

programme, theXPexpandsour reach,” he says. “Theques-tion is how to leverage thetechnologywithout dilutingthe experience.”

XP studentswork onproblems at other compa-nies as part of a compulsorycourse inwhich theydo strat-egy research for businessesthat are not their own.

“Youdon’twant to bemyopic and thinkabout problemswithin your business onlyfromanarrow, company-specific perspec-tive,” says thedean. “Part of the goal of theprogramme is to broaden thehorizons ofthesepeople.”

In termsofwhat sets a BoothEMBAapart, Kumar argues that an importantaspect is theproprietarynature of all theprogrammes. “TheXP students get the fullflavour of our educational experience – theemphasis on fundamentals complementedbypractical courses and the insistenceonrigour at all levels.”

That ethos, he says,was encapsulatedonaT-shirt hewas givenwhile interview-ing for the school’s top job. It bore themotto:“Question everything”.

The attitudewasunderlinedwhenhegavehis inaugural talk as dean. “A juniorfacultymember in the audienceques-tionedmymethodology. There aren’tmanyschoolswhere a junior facultymemberwould tell thedeanhedidn’t thinkhighly ofhis researchpaper,” he says, chuckling.

“I find that stimulating,” Kumar adds.“I say that ‘frictionproduces light’ at ChicagoBooth.We’re an ideas-basedmeritocracy.I love that.” –HalWeitzman

Sunil Kumar ofChicagoBooth;(top) LondonBusinessSchool

‘Part of thegoal of theXPprogrammeis to broadenthehorizonsof thesepeople’

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Value-added travel

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➔ Globetrotting students findnot everyonedoes business the sameway. ByVincent Bevins

Carlos Quintana is Mexi-can and Genilson Melo isBrazilian. But their smallnational differences arenothing compared with the

unexpected cultural challenges theyface studying together on the executiveMBA programme at Fundação GetulioVargas (FGV) in São Paulo, Brazil.What has proved most demanding isworking on projects via phone andemail with a team scattered around theworld and who are all from differentnationalities and sectors.

“I think most of us were surprised byhow difficult it would be to really workwith people from different businesscultures around the world, since wemostly have already had plenty ofinternational experience,” says Melo.“But we’d often stayed within our ownhemispheres or at least our own sectorsor companies. Dealing with trulydifferent cultures has proved a realchallenge, which I suppose speaks tothe value of doing a course like this.”

“Maybe we didn’t know it,” addsQuintana, “but this kind of tough les-son is probably something we needed.”

Melo, financial manager at Copersu-car, Brazil’s largest sugar and ethanolexporter, and Quintana, director ofcompensation at PepsiCo, the drinksand snacks company, in Mexico, are onthe Global Executive MBA programme,one of a number of EMBAs focused ongiving working professionals a trulyinternational experience in addition tomore traditional coursework.

On the OneMBA programme, par-ticipants are based either at FGVin Brazil, the Chinese University ofHong Kong, Egade Business Schoolin Monterrey, Mexico, RotterdamSchool of Management at ErasmusUniversity in the Netherlands orKenan-Flagler Business School atthe University of North Carolina inthe US. Students meet periodicallyat their home campuses, spend sometime studying at each of the others,

and in between – over the course ofthe 21-month programme – work onprojects in teams made up of studentsfrom all the other locations.

Elsewhere, on the Georgetown/Esade Global Executive MBAprogramme, students of various

nationalities do not have a home baseclose to where they live or work, buttravel to meet for 12 days of inten-sive, non-stop coursework six timesover two years. What amounts to 60working days of study – on location inWashington DC, Barcelona, São Paulo

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Jet set students:Carlos Quintana (left)

and Genilson Melofound that cultural

differences canbe challenging

43

associate director ofadmissions at EsadeBusiness School inSpain. “Either they wishto conduct an interna-tional career, or theyhave already been doingso for several years.”She says three specialthemes loom largein the course – local-company case studies ateach of the internationallocations, managementand leadership skills,and the global businessenvironment.

It is important forstudents to be certainthis type of programme

is what they want, say Melo and Quin-tana. That is not only because of thecost – the OneMBA costs R$112,000($60,000) if based in São Paulo – butalso because they are so demanding.

In addition to carefully selectingcandidates to maximise interaction athigh-executive level across nationaland sector boundaries, suchprogrammes attempt toensure participants get themost from every hour theycan carve out from their pro-fessional and family lives.

“We aren’t allowed tomiss our classes or ourmeetings with global teams,”says Quintana. “This has ledto some tense conversationswith the directors in MexicoCity when it meant I hadto miss important PepsiComeetings. But they had tounderstand: I’m doingthis course.”

“It can be tough to jugglehome, office, classroom, and globalprojects,” says Melo. “But that’s anotherskill we need to build.”

Didier Guillot, director of FGV’sHong Kong programme, says he some-times discourages students he thinksreally want something else. “There is

a big gap between a normal MBA inHong Kong and the Executive MBA,”Guillot says. “Most international MBAshere are based exclusively on mainlandChina. For students that only want toput their focus there, we tell them tostay with the local programmes.”

That is not the only warning. “I tellthem: ‘This is going to be a challengingprogramme,’” Guillot says. “They thinkthey are prepared to work with globalteammates, and I tell them: ‘Be really,really careful, because you only haveexperienced this in your own business.’I don’t think they anticipate thedifficulty of this. That is exactly whatwe want.”

Indeed, it seems the programmeaims to force learning by wrench-ing students out of their comfortableroutines, before globalisation itselfinevitably does so.

“These people are executives. They arebosses,” saysMarinaHeck, associate deanfor the FGV programme. “Here, theybecome students and have to work withpeople they can’t command. This obligesthem into some kind of sociability. If you

put five stars in a room andtell them tomake a deci-sion, it’s not easy.”

Melo and Quintanarecall some such momentswith looks of exasperation.“We in the Americas orEurope tended to assumethat once a clear majoritycame to one conclusion,the decision was made,”says Melo. “But ourcolleagues in Asia tendedto insist that everyone fallinto line before a conclu-sion was reached. I’d neverdealt with that.”

But both say theyemerged from such delicate negotia-tions with valuable experience and anetwork of contacts abroad. And for themoment, all has been resolved. Theyare planning to go for drinks after thelast day of class in this round – and nottalk too much about the course.

“Dealingwith trulydifferentcultures hasproved a realchallenge,which speaksto the valueof a courselike this”

or Buenos Aires, Bangalore, Beijingor Shanghai, and New York – includesspecial attention given to internationalgeopolitics.

“Normally the participants recognisetheir need to do the global executiveMBA,” says Pollyanna Nethersole,

12%The percentage ofstudents enrolling inprogrammes thisyear who live outsidethe country wherethe business schoolis located, accordingto an FT survey.Three years aftergraduation, 19 per centof surveyed alumniwere living overseas

B

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No longer abudget optionStudents are increas-inglywilling to paymore for onlinetuition. BothQueen’sschool inOntarioandKenan-Flagler inNorthCarolina chargeclose to $90,000 foronline programmes

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Each Sunday evening, ScottPearman joins the six othermembers of his executiveMBA team to discusstheir course assignments.

Before getting down to work, theytypically spend a few minutes chattingabout their families and favourite icehockey teams.

All are enrolled at Queen’s Uni-versity in Kingston, Ontario. ButMr Pearman lives 1,700km away inBermuda, where he is chief operat-ing officer of the hospitals board, andhis team-mates are scattered acrossCanada from Fort McMurray, centreof the Alberta oil sands, to the prairiecity of Winnipeg.

With the help of sophisticatedvideo-conferencing technology, theyform a “desktop learning team”, hold-ing their weekly meetings and receiv-ing about half of their courseinstruction online.

About 15 of the 84 stu-dents enrolled in Queen’sEMBA this year are mem-bers of online teams suchas Pearman’s. The rest cometogether in person every secondweek in corporate boardroomsaround the country, but take part inthe same online classes asthe desktop teams. Classesmeet every second week,for almost the full day onFriday, continuing on Sat-urday morning.

“The reality is that thetechnology that we’re see-ing factored into everydayliving will have to be fac-tored into education,” saysElspeth Murray, an associate dean atQueen’s, citing students’ ever-growingfamiliarity with social media, smart-phones and tablets.

Many business schools post teachingmaterials online. Some allow recruitersto use their video-conferencing facili-ties for job interviews with students.

But few have gone as far as Queen’s inbringing the classroom into far-awayhomes and offices.

Madrid’s IE Business School, Cor-nell University’s Johnson school, DukeUniversity’s Fuqua school and the Uni-versity of North Carolina’s Kenan-Fla-gler school are among others that offersome form of distance learning. Cornellleases Queen’s technology, developed byPolycom, a California-based supplier of video-conferencing equipment.

Doug Shackelford, anassociate dean at Kenan-Flagler, says, “We believethere’s a tremendousmarket out there forpeople who havea great job and don’twant to leave it, or wholive in a place wherethere’s not a top-tier[business] educationwithin driving distance.”

A class apart…

Kenan-Flagler launched a two-yearonline MBA course, known as MBA@UNC, in July. Although not an EMBA,it does not require regular classroomattendance and shares many of thecharacteristics.

Fuqua’s “cross-continent” and“global” EMBAs include weekly “chatsessions” with faculty, similar to corpo-rate conference calls but without video.

The school puts mod-ules on its computerservers and providesstudents with CDsthat Jennifer Francis,senior associate dean,describes as “very, verysouped-up Powerpointpresentations”.

The Queen’s pro-gramme grew out ofvideo-conferencingfacilities that the schoolbegan using in 1994.Groups of students

➔ …but technology is bringing together students scattered around theworld. ByBernard Simon

“Wedon’tjust chuckpeople into agroup andsay ‘hopeyouget along’”

report

KathrynBrohmanteaching at

Queen’s school

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would assemble simultaneously inboardrooms across the country.

Pearman can see his Queen’s teamon his laptop during their Sundayget-togethers. For lectures, students’screens are split between the professorand course material. Participants canraise virtual hands to ask a question,speak to the instructor through micro-phones and communicate with eachother via instant messaging.

Shackelford says that UNC’s “bed-rock motto” in its online programme isto match the standards of its residentialcourses. “If anything has to be compro-mised, we’re not going down that path,”he says.

Still, many schools have yet to beconvinced that online education canmatch face-to-face teaching. LondonBusiness School, Columbia in NewYork and the University of Hong Kongjointly offer a “global” EMBA, and

46

ElspethMurray,associatedeanatQueen’s school,says studentsexpectmoderntechnologyontheir courses

“There’samarketoutthere forpeoplewhodon’twant toleavetheir job”

put much of their learn-ing material online. Butteachers and students stillshuttle between the citiesfor classes.

Amir Ziv, vice-dean atColumbia, stresses that “theschool strongly values theclassroom experience andin-classroom instruction, asit leads to peer interaction andexchange between faculty and stu-dents”. It also promotes practical learn-ing through working in small groups,and networking,

Queen’s requires students to attenda two-week residential session at thestart of the EMBA, as well as two one-week sessions during the 16-monthprogramme. Each team also comestogether for a project outside NorthAmerica. “We don’t just chuck peopleinto a group and say ‘hope you get

along’,” Murray says. Acoach assesses how theteams work together. “Wework very hard to estab-lish trust,” she adds.

Even so, virtual attend-ance undoubtedly presentschallenges. Withoutthe benefit of close-upbody language, Queen’s

lecturers have had to change the waythey communicate with students.“Even though you’re seeing them onyour screen, you have to be a bit moreexplicit about saying what you mean,”Murray says.

Video-conferencing is also ill-suitedto more than one person talking at atime. According to Pearman, “you haveto be very organised and very specific”.

Whatever the drawbacks, propo-nents of online teaching point to sometangible advantages over classroom

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tuition. Class sizes are generallysmaller, allowing more individualattention and less disruption.

According to Murray, “it’s beenfascinating to see how the faculty hasreally changed their course material toleverage what’s possible”. She cites elec-tronic tools that help teams conductsimulations and surveys.

Francis says that Fuqua’s studentshave responded enthusiastically tothe CDs provided by the school. “It’sa very flexible and accommodatingway to learn the material,” she says,noting that students can repeatedlyreview modules. Some use them tostudy on plane trips.

Polycom, whichsupplies thetechnology usedby Queen’s andCornell, providesvirtual meet-

“It’s fascinatingtoseehowthefacultyhaschangedtheircoursematerial”

report

ing rooms not only for the entire classbut also for small break-out groups.Polycom says that its “immersive tele-presence solution” provides real-lifedimensions, allowing participants toread each other’s body language on thescreen. Another prod-uct, known as “eagle-eyedirector” uses two high-definition cameras thatautomatically zoom in onthe person who is speaking,thus eliminating much ofthe “sea-sickness” commonin manual camera systems.

Marci Powell, Polycom’sglobal education direc-

tor, says that such technologicaladvances have made busi-

ness schools less hesitantabout using online tools.As a result, studentsare increasingly willing

to pay full price for online tuition.Both Queen’s and UNC charge close

to $90,000 for their online pro-grammes. Schools that have embraceddistance learning see it as a way ofaccelerating the globalisation of

business education.For example, Queen’s

is assessing opportunitiesfor team-based courses inIndia and Latin America.

According to Shack-elford of Kenan-Flagler,“we’re expending a lot oftime, a lot of money and alot of energy on what webelieve is the vanguard of

business education”.Pearman in Bermuda agrees,

predicting that when his three-year-olddaughter graduates from high school,“she’ll have to decide whether to go touniversity or cyber-college”. B

Scott Pearmanlives 1,700kmaway fromhisuniversity

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reviewTechnology, p51

Winning the judgesand the crowd

Hopes&Fears, p54

A banker’seastern premise

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Innovation is the hottest topic in business these days,and a doctrinal gulf is now opening up between thekey thinkers on the subject. On one side are thosewho embrace the ideas of collaborative consumptionand fast failure, who argue that innovators need to

experiment with their potential consumers until they finda product or service that succeeds. These are the doers, thetinkerers who see innovation as a kind of performance art,to be done in full public view and modified according to thecheers and jeers of the crowd.

On the other side are the strategists, those who stillbelieve in thinking through an innovation before leaping in.Michael Raynor, a management consultant and protégé ofClay Christensen, the Harvard Business School professor, isone of the most articulate and interesting of the strategists.

In The Innovator’s Manifesto, he takes us on a highlyanalytical path, weighing and testing Prof Christensen’s mostfamous idea of “disruptive innovation”, and seeing if it is auseful tool for analysing a business opportunity and creatingan appropriate solution.

Raynor’s purpose is to unpack the ideas around disrup-tion to such an extent that one should feel comfortable usingthe theory to predict, explain and implement innovation. Heis not an easy read, which is a shame because he has manyinteresting things to say.

Disruption’s central claim, he writes, is that “aninnovation has the best chance of success when it hasa very different performance profile and appeals tocustomers of relatively little interest to dominantincumbents, and the organisation commercialisingit enjoys substantial strategic andoperational autonomy”.

In the music industry, forexample, digital downloadscrept up on the big recordlabels. At first, they were justfor people on the technologicalfringes. But slowly they became

Disruptive influence➔ Strategy canhelp innovators sidestepheavyweight opposition. ByPhilipDelves Broughton

The current enthusiasmfor “fast failure” andcorporate “cultures oflearning” is unrealistic

books

more popular, as such companies as Apple and Amazonmade it easier to download and play digital music. Whatbegan as a low-cost entrant into the music industry ended upoverturning the high-cost, high-profit CD business. Compa-nies from outside the music business led the revolution. Theycreated not just a new product in an existing market, but anew business model to upend the dominant companies.

Raynor draws on a diverse set of examples, from South-west Airlines to Holiday Inn, and Apple to the Dollar Generalretail store. He writes that disruption is only possible when

an “enabling technology” or processcomes along to allow a company tobreak the trade-offs made by everyoneelse in a sector.

Raynor writes convincingly that thecurrent enthusiasm for “fast failure” andcorporate “cultures of learning” is unre-alistic. Corporate pathologies, such as

“long memories, the jockeying for position, decision makingby consensus”, he writes, lead to “risk aversion and incremen-talism”, which make such innovation processes unworkable.

It is much more realistic for companies to strategise theirway to innovation by focusing on areas where they might

have a disruptive effect and designing processes andteams to exploit them. This requires a high degree ofself-awareness and self-criticism.

Raynor cites a set of experiments done on MBAstudents, in which they were asked to

rate the likelihood of success of agroup of businesses before and afterstudying the theory of disruptiveinnovation. Their success rate wentup by 50 per cent after learningabout disruption.

If companies could think theirway to similar levels of improve-

ment, then innovation might notseem such a frightening prospect.

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A low-costentrant can endupoverturningahigh-profitbusiness

TheInnovator’sManifesto ispublishedby

CrownBusiness($23)

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technology

For MBAs seeking a career in the world of technology, the true test of their care-fully 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 Fran-cisco’s 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 fl awless demos count more than any business calcula-tions 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 pres-entations 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, particu-larly 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 phy-sician, an engineer and an MBA – who started out without a business idea.

They were given six months by Google chairman Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavours venture fund to come up with something. After conceiving and rejecting 52 ideas, they settled on a service that could help

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 up data from the sensor to give a rep-resentation on the smartphone’s screen of your current posture, showing 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, stand-ing or moving in the course of a day or week.

It was a confi dent demonstration and it addressed a need, with 80 per cent of Ameri-cans expected to suffer back pain at some point.

Zero2One was one of a handful of “DemoGods” cho-sen, represent-ing the judges’ favourites.

Pleasing the crowd➔ This year’s best start-ups will tell you how to make your pitch a winner, writes Chris Nuttall

30%The proportion of Executive MBA alumni surveyed by the FT who set up their own businesses within three years of graduating from business school

51

Demo Fall did not confi ne itself to Silicon Valley start-ups. There were many international entries, and Aur-asma from the UK was the big win-ner, with both DemoGod and People’s Choice awards.

Aurasma’s aura of success comes from its augmented reality technology – it describes itself as the world’s fi 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.

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technology

The linking of an image to such digital content creates what the company calls “auras” – and these can be changed at will so the video report could be updated with newer material. Also, moving the iPad’s camera around did not disrupt the video, which stayed within its photo frame.

We were shown a Harry Potter movie poster transformed into live ac-tion with 3D effects, and a 3D building rose from a 2D fl 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 real-

life social networking could not be imitated by a website like Facebook or LinkedIn.

Shaker unveiled its alter-native – a virtual night club where people can dance as

avatars while listening to the same music. The avatars have

bubbles over their heads showing

With Harry Potter-stylewizardry, it was easy to see how an audience could be wowed by the pitch

5 3

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 Drop-box � 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)Line2’s 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 link-ing 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 confer-ence calls with up to 20 people.

➔ Apps for printing, phoning and remote computing

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 iPad’s screen and be controlled from it from anywhere in the world with Remote Desktop and you can see what the PC’s 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

their Facebook pictures and profi les. Conversations can begin by walking over to someone on the dance fl oor.

“This is not a game, this is real life,” Shaker said, though the cartoon-ish fi gures and setting looked pretty unconvincing, even compared with something else less than real, like Sec-ond Life or The Sims.

However, the judges were impressed. TechCrunch’s 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 fi 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.

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technology

The linking ofan image to suchdigital contentcreates what thecompany calls“auras” – and thesecan be changed atwill so the videoreport could beupdated with newer material. Also,moving the iPad’s camera around didnot disrupt the video, which stayedwithin its photo frame.We were shown a Harry Potter

movie poster transformed into live ac-tion with 3D effects, and a 3D buildingrose from a 2D floor plan placed onthe ground. With Harry Potter-stylewizardry like this, it was easy to seehow an audience could be wowed bythe pitch, and Aurasma could emergeas overall winner.After the auras, we had aurals over

at TechCrunch Disrupt, where theentertainment continued with a stringquartet accompanying a presentationby Tonara, which described itself as aKindle for sheet music.It was actually just an iPad app,

but we were able to watch as a redbar moved across the sheet musicas the app heard and recognisedthe notes played, helping everyonefollow their parts and automaticallyturning pages for them. A singerwas introduced, but her voice did not

distract the app from continuing tohear the instruments and accuratelykeep its place.While this was all easy on the ear,

Shaker shook things up by throwing aparty on stage. This was meant toillustrate that this kind of real-life social networking couldnot be imitated by a websitelike Facebook or LinkedIn.Shaker unveiled its alter-

native – a virtual night clubwhere people can dance asavatars while listening to thesame music. The avatars have

bubbles over theirheads showing

WithHarry Potter-stylewizardry, itwas easyto seehowanaudiencecould bewowedby thepitch

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PrintCentral Pro (iOS)Printing adocument froman iPhoneor iPad ismadeeasy by this $10 app.

Itworks bestwhena small programcalledWePrint is installed onyour localcomputer, giving the app instant accessto anyprinter it uses. PrintCentral alsohas hooks intoGoogleDocs, theDrop-box file storage service, and is able toprint attachments straight fromemail.

Photo printing, converting files intoPDFs andevendragging files between acomputer and an iOSdevice are all noproblem for this versatile app.

Line 2HD (iOS, Android)Line2’s founder claims tohave completely replacedhis officedeskphonewith

the large-screen iPadversionof thisapp – using its built-in speakers andmicrophone as a speakerphoneor link-ing up aBluetoothheadset formoreprivate conversations.

The app is free, but for around$10amonthLine2 provides youwith aUSphonenumber and free calling overwi-fi to phones in theUS andCanada.There is unlimited texting and confer-ence callswith up to 20people.

➔Apps for printing, phoning and remote computing

SplashtopXDisplay (iPad)Splashtophas comeupwith a series ofAndroid andiOS apps that tap its server

software installed on a remote PC.So aWindowsPCdesktop can

appear on an iPad’s screen andbecontrolled from it fromanywhere in theworldwithRemoteDesktop andyoucan seewhat the PC’swebcam is seeingwith its CamCamapp.A computer canbe controlled fromacross the roomwithTouchpad and the $5XDisplay letsyoupropup the iPadnext to thePCas asecondmonitor. –CN

their Facebook pictures and profiles.Conversations can begin by walkingover to someone on the dance floor.“This is not a game, this is real

life,” Shaker said, though the cartoon-ish figures and setting looked prettyunconvincing, even compared withsomething else less than real, like Sec-ond Life or The Sims.However, the judges were impressed.

TechCrunch’s founder revealed he wasinvesting in the Israeli start-up andShaker was declared the overall winnerof a $50,000 prize, out of 31 start-upspresenting and seven finalists.Shaker may not have been the most

original business idea, but it had styleand it was already proving popular – a

beta version had attracted tensof thousands of users. And,of course, with its victory,it now had the excuseand the money tothrow a properparty.

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Aurasmabrings a printedimage to life bylinking it tovideo

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hopes & fearsLOUISE VOGLER

My ambition when I started my EMBA atChina Europe International BusinessSchool (Ceibs) in Shanghai in March2010 was to challenge my ways of think-ing and keep my intellect going. It is

easy to get stuck in modes of working and I want to beon the cutting edge of business.

I have been living in greater China (the mainland,Hong Kong or Taiwan) for more than 18 years and amfluent in Mandarin and some Cantonese. The way I thinkhas become quite Asian.

I have been with Standard Chartered Bank, primarilybased in Shanghai, for 12 years. Prior to that I worked fora Canadian bank in Taipei and the Canadian Consulatein Guangzhou. I graduated in 1995 from the University ofVictoria in Canada with a degree in Chinese studies andinternational business. Chinese studies is popular withforeigners now, but even today there are relatively fewforeigners who have lived in China for as long as I have.

You have to be flexible. In the west, things are muchmore black and white. In China they are still finding outwhere their line between black and white will be. Youhave to be prepared to go with the flow – entrepreneurshave to be prepared to take more risks. Everything herehas rules, but at the same time, the rules can be veryflexible. You have to get used to dealing in that sort ofambiguous environment.

One of the great things about Ceibs is that many stu-dents are Chinese. To succeed in China, you have to un-derstand the Chinese way of doing things compared withother Asian countries, and being immersed with Chineseexecutives as classmates helps to sharpen your sensitiv-ity and cultural empathy. At the same time, since I am inthe international class, I have classmates from Europe,North and Latin America, and other parts of Asia. It is agreat “learning lab” for cross-cultural leadership skills.

At Ceibs they have a strong focus on business in Chinaand leadership development. My hope was that I wouldbecome a better leader – at work, obviously, but I alsohoped learning such skills might help me in other areasof my life, even becoming a better parent and local com-munity leader.

I had been thinking about doing the programme forabout two to three years. But I had to make sure myhusband was on board becauseit is so demanding – I have an11-year-old son and I was wor-ried about giving up even moreof my time. Also, about half-way through the programme,I was promoted to country

credit officer for wholesale banking for China, which wasobviously great, but there was a worry that I would notbe able to do everything well.

One of my motivations for doing the course was toprove to myself that I could manage my time and to tryand create some kind of balance. And so far it seems tohave worked. What I have found is that when you havecommitted to something, then you squeeze the time out.It has been a real boost to my confidence.

It might sound grandiose, but I also hope to applythe skills I have learnt and the connections I have madewhile doing my EMBA to make an impact not only at mycompany, but also in my husband’s birthplace, Zambia,in southern Africa. He works in the textile industry ineast China. He started off with very little and has become

successful – he has ambitions to return home and Iwant to be able to help him make a difference.

I am very lucky that my company is sponsoringme, though in some ways it adds to the pressure – ifyou have support from them, then you really feel youneed to deliver on the EMBA programme and also atwork. It sometimes feels as if I am being pulled in 10different directions.

The Ceibs EMBA is an excellent opportunity fornetworking. Among the students are

government contacts and peopleinvolved in state-owned enter-

prises who are making inroadsinto international markets.Making contacts in this sectoris important.

I want to act as a bridgebetween Chinese and

western business, andI have found thatCeibs gives me a

good platform todevelop that skill.

It can bedifficult fora westernerto find a wayto trulyconnect with

the Chinese,and Ceibs is agreat place to

try out how to dojust that.As told toEmma Jacobs

Cultural evolution

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➔HowaChina-basedbanker hopes anEMBAwill help her bridge east andwest

“Being immersedwithChinese executivesas classmateshelpsyour cultural empathy”

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