Executive Education

The Mannheim Business School is expanding the offer of Executive Education it initially started in 2009. More than 20 English-language programs on various topics will be offered until July 2010.

Applications to Executive MBA programs have increased in the past year in spite of the crisis, according to a survey of US-based Executive MBA Council among its members.

Travel, top-class restaurants, even taxicabs. Discretionary expenses have been hammered in the last 18 months as companies look to cut costs and claw their way back to profitability. The chastened boards of AIG and others are forgoing their luxury retreats and private jets, and analysts estimate that such spending has been trimmed by as much as 30% in some sectors, and even higher in the financial services industry. But what about training?

Over the past 30 years, management education has been one of the fastest growing segments of the higher education market. Although the current economic crisis and ethical lapses of some major business leaders have tarnished the MBA, B-schools have done extraordinarily well in the past few decades, increasing in number, stature and influence within the business community.  And, within B-schools, the Executive MBA (EMBA) has been one of the fastest growing and most dynamic programmes.

Although the Southeast Asian city-state is also feeling the effects of the financial crisis, the business schools are recording an increase in demand for their Executive MBA programs. Companies may have cut their budgets for continuing education, but managers nonetheless want to complete the Executive MBA as long as they still have a secure job, Nilanjan Sen, Associate Dean of Executive Education at the Nanyang Business School tells “The Straits Times” newspaper.

The Duke Corporate Education managed to successfully defend its first place in the worldwide Financial Times ranking “Customised Programs”. The HEC in Paris came in second place, followed by the Harvard Business School, IMD and Insead.

The Goethe Business School in Frankfurt is expanding its offer in the Executive Education field and is offering open enrolment programs for the first time.

The London School of Economics (LSE) is offering a series of open enrolment executive programs intended to update managers in the latest thinking on various topics. But not everyone can enroll.

For the first time, the IMD in Lausanne is offering prospective Executive MBA participants four different options to earn their degree. Executive Education programs can then be tacked on to the MBA from this basis.

The Mannheim Business School is entering into the field of Executive Education with open enrolment programs in autumn for the first time. In doing so, the school wants to position itself as a full-fledged provider of management education.

The University of St. Gallen is launching a more flexible Executive MBA program and awarding scholarships in the value of 32,000 Swiss francs each.

The HEC has started a new Executive MBA program in cooperation with the Graduate School of Management (GSOM) of Saint Petersburg State University. The program is a key component of the Paris-based business school’s ongoing international development. In contrast, the start of the planned Executive MBA in Germany has been delayed.

The Technische Universität München (TUM – Technical University of Munich) is establishing a center for Executive Education and cooperating with a European business school for it. The full-time MBA will be suspended.

On September 1st, the Zurich business school GSBA announced its new World Executive MBA (Wemba) in cooperation with six renowned business schools, among them the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago. It explained, however, that merely a two-week executive education seminar is offered to participants. Now Chicago is ending the partnership on the grounds of further discrepancies.