What's different

1.Our Executive MBA programme is designed for managers who have a rich practical experience in business and aim for executive carrier growth. Its main goal is to help the participants to structure their experience. That is why our programme - Executive MBA - is shorter than a standard MBA and lasts 1.5 (not 2) years.
2. We aim at "de-specialization" and preparing "generalists". No matter from which functional field of company management the participant has come: marketing, finance, HR or logistics. After graduating from the programme he/she should be ready to become the Head of the company, to understand the functional managers and to synthesize their opinions (which often differ) for making strategic decisions.
This leads to a more integrated approach to business education.

Our programme

• consists not of 40 little separate courses, but of 11 integrated modules, each corresponding to one of the basic functional fields of company management;
• ends not with a Master's Thesis but with teamwork of 3-4 participants on Master Project - a business plan of a real project or venture, assessed by a jury of professors,
• playing the part of investors which are to be persuaded to put their money in the project;
  contains more integrated and less formalized examples and case-studies; to analyse them requires continual appeal to practical experience of the participants;

3. МВА generally and Executive MBA specifically is a western invention. A western partner in MBA programme serves a quality guarantor of business education. This means the latest breakthroughs of management science and the best contemporary hands-on management practices, high-quality course books, new cases and methods of teaching, experienced business professors and consultants. Finally, this means a prestigious European Degree and Diploma. But in contrast to the MBA programmes of other western business schools operating on the Russian market where the Russian partner bares simply the organizational functions, in our programme the Russian component brings independent added value. Russian business professors, consultants and experts, engaged in our programme, are certified by the Antwerp Management School, follow Belgium syllabus and use books recommended by the Belgium side. Nevertheless, being in close and informal contact with their Belgium and American colleagues, Russian professors are able to influence the contents of the programme as well as the methods of teaching, taking into account Russian economic, business and cultural peculiarities and thus make education more effective for Russian managers.

4. The programme exists on the Russian market for more then 13 years. During this period we created a unique international team of professors. Besides Russian and Belgium professors it comprises our colleagues from the Babcock Graduate School of Management of Wake Forest University (NC, USA). This business school has agreements of long-term cooperation with the Institute of Business Studies (IBS-Moscow) and is ranked among the "top 30" according to 5 world most famous international ratings of business schools. The Wake Forest University is ranked among the 20 leading universities in the USA. During the last years the participation of Babcock Graduate School professors has been continually growing. In the year 2003/2004 four professors of this school were engaged in our programme. The participation of our American colleagues will increase in the future. Practically, this means that our programme is evolving into a three-centre global Executive MBA.

5. Learning is a two-way process. It's impossible to achieve high quality of business education without active collaboration with the participants. Our participants are people who seek knowledge and want to structure and generalize their practical experience and are ready to work hard for that. We stand for forming small homogeneous groups (not larger than 20-25 people) by carefully selecting those candidates who have large practical experience in business, a serious motivation, high intellectual and educational level. Our participants are ready to share their experience and learn from each other, thus incarnating the basic principle of western business education: "Enrichment through sharing". Wherever it is possible (even on the stage of the final Master Project) we practice teamwork. One of the questions which our Belgium partners like to ask during the interview is "What could you bring to a team? What part of your practical and professional experience could be interesting for the other participants?" Teamwork helps the participants to establish strong and productive connections, which (as the participants themselves say) help them not just on the stage of learning at the programme, but also in their business and everyday life after the graduation.