Studies & Degrees in Global Executive MBA
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The Global Executive MBA course, relatively, a new program just launched in recent years, was designed exclusively for highly experienced professionals or more commonly known as executives. Those attending this program are normally sponsored by their respective employers and more or less belonging to the upper management level. Usual enrollees for this course are CFOs, COOs, vice president, and even the top honchos themselves, the CEOs. The Global Executive MBA was patterned after the regular Executive MBA program except that the program would tackle more on business cross-border issues and would usually be in consortium with three or more universities across the globe.
In a regular Executive MBA program, a class would be comprised of a group of executives. They would begin the program and graduate together as a group. More or less, this was designed so as to expose them to other fields which would be represented by their classmates’ respective fields. In a way, all of the members would have some sort of feel of the corporate culture of their other classmates and would learn from their knowledge aside from the subjects that will be taught to them. A Global Executive MBA program setting would be pretty much the same, same classmates all throughout the program except that subjects are geared towards how businesses are done offshore and that some classes are conducted abroad. This type of setting would give enrollees a feel of the business climate in foreign shores giving them a feel on how to better run businesses abroad.
Locations of class would depend on what school an executive would enroll to. Some programs boast of a consortium of five schools that would host classes in four continents and some programs are a joint effort of three universities in four different countries. But wherever executives decide to enroll, pretty much, they will get total exposure to different countries and different business battle grounds. Of course, it follows some side pleasure trips are included.
Some of the popular schools that give a Global Executive MBA course are Columbia/London Business School, Kellogg/Hongkong UST Business School, Trium (HEC Paris, London School of Economics, NYU Stern), Wharton and IE Business School of Spain who were ranked by the Financial Times as the Top Five respectively that offers Global Executive MBA programs.
Fees for this course may be a tad expensive than your usual Executive MBA course but as they say, it would be one of the best investments in an executive's career. According to a survey, 64% of alumni have now a six-figure salary and 64% have an additional 20% increase in salary and 55% got additional international responsibilities.
On top of that, the class is a good way to increase one's business network which may come handy in the future. Also, being lucky enough to be sponsored by their respective company, it is also an indicator that these executives really have a place in their respective companies.
Because of the dynamism Global Executive MBA alumni give to their respective employers, companies like Accenture, American Express, Citigroup, GE, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, IBM, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase & Co are just among the list of big name companies that support the development of the global executive program.
Job positions for Global Executive MBA:
Head of International Operations
With the growing list of multi-national companies throwing their support for the development of the Global Executive MBA program, it is just as well that they should appoint someone to head their international operations that is an alumnus or most probably enrolled in the program. Business trends currently give emphasis to international operations as profits generated from offshore operations represent a large chunk of the overall bottom line. Heads of International Operations would find a degree in a Global Executive MBA program very useful as the program was designed for understanding different business cultural barriers and applying management strategies more suited for respective countries.
More or less, the Head of International Operations report directly to the Chief Executive Operations and would be responsible for anything that concerns doing business offshore. Plans of expansions and determining potential new markets are among the tasks Heads of International Operations keep tabs on apart from their day to day functions. Just before the current financial crisis took off in the US, international operations were having a field day expanding as the so called emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India and China (the BRIC economies) opened their doors to investors. These countries were deemed as consumer markets because of their high population coupled by sustainable economic conditions and low labor costs. Companies really were in a frenzy to get a foothold or at least a presence in these countries as even a slice of the market would really benefit a consumer based company especially when China, with a fifth of the world's population as target consumers, opened their doors to capitalism.
The selection of new markets usually makes or breaks the careers of those in charge of international operations. Now, with the Global Executive MBA program, more or less, identification of risks of certain countries is much more tackled in a more quantitative manner. Before companies decide to branch out just because they were able to secure a government contract and then a few years later a civil war broke out and the capital investment of the company just went to ashes. Example of these were those who invested in Iranian companies during the Shah Khomeini's ascension in 1979 who deposed Reza Pahlavi's regime found themselves in this predicament as dealings of the old government were not recognized by the new government. Also before, some companies were banking on investing on a foreign country just because no other rivals have a presence yet on the intended market. Adopting the philosophy of the early birds did not always proved wise as there might be anti-western sentiments or there ware just no other basis except the opportunity to be the first to have foothold.
Now, a Global MBA program would teach executives to make use of complicated financial analysis tools where everything are expressed or rather can be expressed in scores and points providing tangible basis before major decisions like opening a branch somewhere is indeed viable. Right now, Heads of International Operations are usually good candidates for the top post of any multi-national company as they have the advantage to learn all aspects of the business than any other post in the company.