An MBA At Your Door – Or At The Most a Short Flight Away

Business School’s Global Outreach

Even with a degree in computer systems engineering and a stint at Microsoft under his belt, Rodrigo Tarrats felt he lacked the key credential to open the doors into a corner office in a global corporation.

So after Tarrats, a 30-year-old native of Mexico, finished up his work on Microsoft’s Office product suite, he began researching possible business schools and hit on the Thunderbird School of Global Management as the best place to study for his Master’s in Business Administration. Then he discovered something even better about the Glendale, Arizona school. The Thunderbird MBA would come to him.

In a program designed for working professionals in the region, Thunderbird and the Tecnológico de Monterrey – by coincidence Tarrats’ undergraduate university – teamed up to offer a joint MBA. The program allows students like Tarrats to study in Mexico, attending weekend classes and receiving coursework by satellite along with fellow students at the campus in Mexico City. At the end of the 21-month program, Tarrats will have a diploma from a school whose name is recognized by corporations around the world. And he will save money because the tuition he pays is less than what it would cost to pursue a degree full time in the United States.

“Thunderbird is amazingly good, especially at diversity and the whole global experience of this MBA,” Tarrats says. “It was a perfect mix.” Thunderbird is not alone in its global outreach or in trying to leverage its name across borders to gain more traction. Besides reaching out to establish campuses in other countries with partners, a number of business schools are teaming up with universities in Latin America in programs that bring students from the region to finish up their business degrees on U.S. campuses. Others have established centers in regional hubs to offer executive programs for participants who are willing to travel regularly to their classes.

Business schools have also boosted their international credentials in domestic MBA programs. According to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, which accredits business schools, there were 129 schools offering some sort of international business degree during the 2001-2002 school year. Six years later, 152 schools offer these programs, according to the association. And these figures do not reflect the number of new alliances that business schools have created to allow students to study at partnering campuses around the world.

Clearly, the demand for global degrees is growing, and schools are racing to meet the demand.

One of the leaders in the field, the Kellogg School of Management, felt its program needed to grow outside of its Northwestern University home. So on top of the full-time program Kellogg offers at its Evanston, Illinois campus, the school has made Kellogg MBA degrees available in a handful of selected world cities to reach executives in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. Executive MBA programs are the way the school hopes to stay competitive.

“When I was in school, a teacher used to tell us that the day would come [when] students could not come to you, you need to go where the students are,” said Kellogg Dean Dipak C. Jain. “That’s what you are seeing today.”

Executives wishing to obtain a Kellogg MBA can study at partnering universities in Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Tel Aviv and Miami, where classes are taught by Kellogg professors as well as by faculty from the local schools at Kellogg’s own campus.

Kellogg selected these cities carefully in a decision-making process that often took two to three years, Jain said.

“We don’t have the bandwidth to be everywhere,” Jain said. But in setting up Kellogg outposts, the school looked at the ease of traveling to the different locations, as well as local competition, language issues and the size of the market. Hong Kong, for example, was picked over Beijing in the 1990s because of airline connections and the complications involved with obtaining visas to study in China.

STUDENTS ARE TRAVELING TO GLOBAL CAMPUSES FOR EXECUTIVE MBA PROGRAMS

The four cities were also chosen because of their roles as growing business hubs. Focusing on Latin America, Miami offered its proximity to the region, which allowed students from the Caribbean and Central and South America to study with MBA aspirants from the southeastern United States.

But even the most careful planning cannot prevent the unforeseen. In 2005, Hurricane Wilma delayed the of the executive education program in Miami, but today the MBA program is up and running.

Students enrolled in Kellogg executive education programs can study in any of the four international campuses if they are willing to travel. Kellogg also allows the executive program students to do some of their coursework with students from other universities in a curriculum called global labs. The idea is to build networks, which Jain says is the key to success even in an increasingly digitally connected world. “There is no substitute for personal relationships,” he said.

Students agree that the global programs not only offer coveted diplomas to advance their careers but also the chance to meet students from other countries – a big boost in today’s business world.

“You are receiving a global education just by sitting in class,” said Christian Petersen, a second-year student at Kellogg, who is focused on marketing, finance and social enterprise.

Petersen is the head of academics for the Kellogg Student Association, the school’s student government, so he had to forego lengthy study abroad. But he has not only rubbed shoulders with foreign students in the same program in Evanston, he also took part in a 10-week course that focused on Latin American business. Students spent two weeks in Brazil and Argentina, meeting with business leaders and looking at specific issues, such as the experience in privatizing state-run companies. He and other class members took the lessons learned from the Brazilian and Argentine privatization experiences and tried to consider how these could be applied around the world.

“Not only was it a great experience and lesson in Latin American business, but also it kind of gave us some benchmarks [for] some of the things that were done effectively or maybe could have been done differently and apply those to other areas of the world,” said Petersen.

Florida International University has taken a different approach. FIU, which has two campuses in Miami, has added a Master’s in International Business to the traditional MBA. The university’s full-time MBA program tends to attract students in their twenties, while the executive education programs cater to older students trying to progress in their chosen careers. Students can earn dual degrees, combining the Master’s in International Business or MBA with other programs or even a law degree.

“In order to be successful today you have to understand international business,” says Tomi Mandakovic, the associate dean of FIU’s Chapman Graduate School of Business.

In contrast to those U.S. business schools offering degrees to students studying in foreign countries, FIU brings international students to its Miami campus through partnerships with 33 universities around the world, including 16 schools in Latin America. These partnerships allow students to obtain degrees from the participating university and FIU. Not only do students obtain duel degrees, but they also study the last part of their education in Miami, giving them U.S. exposure and possibly helping them with obtaining U.S. work papers when they graduate.

The program has broadened the student mix at the Miami campus and provides local students with exposure to classmates from numerous places across the globe. For FIU this is key. Almost half of the school’s full-time MBA students are international, which is central to the university’s strategy of boosting its global appeal. And some students come from unexpected places.

“We have people from Iran,” Mandakovic said.

THUNDERBIRD SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT PUTS THE EMPHASIS ON THE INTERNATIONAL FOR ALL ITS PROGRAMS

The Thunderbird School of International Management was a pioneer in the field of global business education. Nestled in the Arizona desert, Thunderbird offers nothing but degrees in international business.

“There are business schools that say ‘we have a good MBA and we’re going to make it global by adding a course on international business,’” said Thunderbird Dean Angel Cabrera.

“But at the end of the day, the entire MBA is about business, but not about international business,” Cabrera said.

The philosophy at Thunderbird is different, he said. “Every subject at Thunderbird is taught from a global perspective.”

The subject matter is not the only aspect of the Thunderbird education that is global. Cabrera said that in the full-time program, half of the students are from outside the United States.

“That’s not by accident,” he added. “You cannot help anyone grow as a global leader if they don’t have that environment.”

The school runs executive education programs and offers an online degree, on top of managing operations in Latin America, Europe and Asia that allow MBA students like Tarrats to study in partner institutions and receive distance learning.

Tarrats took advantage of one of the partnerships, the one between Thunderbird and the Tecnológico de Monterrey. He is slated to receive his Thunderbird MBA in June.

His program, the Global MBA for Latin American Managers, combines professors from Monterrey, who cover mostly finance and accounting, with faculty from Thunderbird, who deliver distance learning lectures on global communications, negotiations and other specialties.

Besides giving him a world-recognized MBA degree at a better price, the nearly two years of study in Mexico allowed Tarrats to discover his “inner entrepreneur.”

Although he originally planned to try to leverage his MBA into landing a decision-making job at a technology corporation, he is now considering opening a gourmet restaurant in Mexico City or Monterrey in a partnership with a classmate who trained as a French chef before deciding to study for the Thunderbird degree.

“That’s the plan,” said Tarrats, adding the one thing the global MBA program had taught him was to be flexible in such a competitive world.

Corporate recruiters say they pay attention to credentials. So for students, the business school name recognition can make a difference in finding a job later.

“Certainly some schools are better recognized than others and many times this gets you in the door,” says Francia Baez, head of human resources at Visa’s Latin American and Caribbean region in Miami. “However, at the end, what gets you the job is proving yourself regardless of where you received your education.”

Particularly now with the current global financial instability, understanding and experience with international business can be a key asset in the recruiting process, said Dominique Virchaux, an executive recruiter at Korn/Ferry International in Miami. “You can tell with someone who has had those [international] programs, the mindset, the way they are able to guide their career internationally, the ability to go from Brazil to China via the U.S. as an example,” Virchaux said.

A ROUGHER ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT COULD DAMPEN GROWTH IN EXECUTIVE MBA PROGRAMS

But will the current economic turbulence affect this expansion of advanced business degrees?

Educators acknowledge the current economic conditions will have an effect on business schools. Thunderbird performed well in 2008, according to the school’s Cabrera, but he said the executive MBA programs might feel the squeeze in the future.

“Eventually we will get hit,” Cabrera said. “We do a lot of work with executive education with companies, companies that if they are not doing well, eventually some may, perhaps, postpone a program or two.”

While schools have been working to leverage their name across borders and students are always alert to saving money on their education, experts insist that the key to success lies in providing a good education.

Jerry Trapnell, the executive vice president of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, said the main motivation for offering global programs must be “that it makes good educational sense.”

“Obviously, you’ve got to make it financially viable,” Trapnell said. But the bottom line cannot be the only motivation, he believes. “If a school is so motivated on the economics, I think they will be challenged and at many times be disappointed.” Trapnell said.

Throughout Latin America, universities recognize the importance of training business managers in the modern practices pioneered by American business schools. Even business schools in the small countries are competing for students by turning to exchange programs and pooling resources with other institutions.

The INCAE Business School in Costa Rica was founded in 1964 with help from Harvard Business School and still receives technical supervision from the Cambridge, Massachusetts school. INCAE Business School Dean Arturo Condo said the school not only partners with other schools via exchange programs but is also hoping to bring more students from abroad to its campuses in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. In a reverse of the tactic of big name MBA programs extending their programs into the region, INCAE Business School, which is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, is hoping to attract students from the United States and elsewhere to its MBA program. Classes are in English and, for the most part, staffed by U.S.-educated professors. There is also a bottom-line benefit.

“It’s an option that should be considered due to its much lower costs,” Condo said.

This list is compiled from Latin Trade’s 2009 MBA Online Survey. The schools are listed alphabetically by country and some include comments from former or current students, faculty and staff.

Argentina

Universidad Argentina de la Empresa

Libertad 1340

Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina

(54-11) 4000-7370

www.uade.edu.ar/bs/

“The relationship between the school, its founders and the Chamber of Commerce, guarantees good business ties.”

Brazil

Business School São Paulo of International Business BSP

Av. Roque Petroni Junior 630

São Paulo, SP CEP: 04707-000

(55-11) 5095-5650

www.bsp.edu.br

Fundação Getulio Vargas EAESP

Av. 9 de Julho, 2029 – Bela Vista

São Paulo, SP CEP: 01313-902

(55-11) 3281-7777

www.fgvsp.br

Colombia

Universidad Externado de Colombia

Calle 12 No. 1-17 Este

Santafé de Bogotá, Colombia

(57-1) 342-0288 or 341-9900.

portal.uexternado.edu.co

“It pleases me to participate with an institution that orients its resources to the betterment of its students, employees and clients worldwide.”

Chile

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile MBA-UC Escuela de Administración

Alameda 440, 4th Floor

Santiago, Chile

www.mbauc.cl

“MBA-UC’s program starts off with a strategy of individual development by giving each student a coach that offers support during the MBA process.”

Universidad del Desarrollo

(MBA-UDD Facultad de Economía y Negocios)

Ainavillo 456

Barros Arana 1735

Av. Sanhueza 1750, Pedro de Valdivia

Concepción, Chile

(56-41) 233-1158

www.udd.cl

“I think the seal of entrepreneurism this university offers makes a difference in the personal and professional life of MBA students. It’s also vital that the university and its students maintain contact with one another to create new options and to continue to grow and create new networks.”

Distance

Walden University MBA

Distance

www.waldenu.edu

“A very comprehensive program.”

Germany

HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management

Jahnallee 59

04109 Leipzig, Germany

(49-341) 9851-60

www.hhl.de

“HHL is one of the best business schools in Germany with an appealing mix of a well-established name and modern innovation. One of the big strengths of HHL is its excellent contact to companies. Almost all top companies in consulting, banking, and industry come for presentation and recruiting. Rather than applying over a `website´ one can contact people or alumni. This helps to stay away from the crowd that applies over recruiting websites of companies.”

Mexico

EGADE Tecnológico de Monterrey

Ave. Eugenio Garza Sada 2501 Sur Col. Tecnológico

Monterrey, Nuevo León C.P. 64849

(52-81) 8358-2000

egade.itesm.mx

Multi-Country

Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez Escuela de Negocios

Chile, U.S.

Av. Diagonal las Torres 2640

Peñalolén, Santiago, Chile

(56-2) 331-1000

www.uai.cl/mba

“It’s an excellent school of business. I recommend further strengthening its recruitment program internationally and that it maintain a better database of graduates who are active.”

Hult International Business School

U.S., U.K., U.A.E, China

1 Education Street

Cambridge, MA 02141

(1-617) 746-1990

www.hult.edu

“With a campus in Boston, another in Dubai, a satellite campus in Shanghai and one in London next year, Hult will soon stand out strong from the competition.”

INCAE Business School

Latin America

Campus Francisco de Sola, Montefresco

Km. 15 1/2 Carretera Sur

Managua, Nicaragua, Apartado Postal 2485

(505) 265-8141

www.incae.com

“INCAE has some of the most qualified professors and one of the best-designed MBA programs in Latin America.”

Peru

Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú

Jr. Daniel Alomía Robles 125-129 (antes calle 9)

Urb. Los Álamos de Monterrico – Santiago de Surco

Lima, Perú

(511) 313-3400

www.pucp.edu.pe/centrum/

“CENTRUM is a school that teaches practical application of business and administrative theories. Those are themes they touch on with great depth.”

Escuela de Postgrado Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola

Av. La Fontana 750, La Molina

Lima, Peru

(511) 518-3333

www.epg.usil.edu.pe

“The combination of professors with experience as business managers, executives or highly placed directors in their fields, plus practical application of theory and personalized coaching, allows students to develop solid competencies to face the challenges of the market.”

Spain

IESE Business School

Barcelona, Madrid

Avenida Pearson, 21

08034 Barcelona, Spain

(34-93) 253-4200

www.iese.edu

Fundesem Business School

C/. Deportistas Hermanos Torres, 4

03016 Alicante, Spain

(34-965) 266-800

www.fundesem.es

“Fundesem offers a program totally focused on the realities faced by entrepreneurs. It’s a school of business that was created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, and its programs respond to the needs of today’s business world.”

United Kingdom

London Business School

Regent’s Park

London, NW1 4SA, U.K.

(44-020) 7000-7000

www.london.edu

University of Warwick School of Business

Coventry CV4 7AL, U.K.

(44-024) 7652-3523

www.wbs.ac.uk

United States

Florida International University College of Business Administration

11200 S. W. 8th Street—CBC 301

Miami, Florida 33199-0001

(305) 348-2751

business.fiu.edu

Harvard Business School

Soldiers Field

Boston, MA 02163

(617) 495-6000

www.hbs.edu

Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management

Kellogg School of Management

2001 Sheridan Rd

Evanston, IL 60208

(847) 491-3300

www.kellogg.northwestern.edu

Pepperdine University Graziadio School of Business and Management

6100 Center Drive

Los Angeles, CA 90045

(310) 568-5500

bschool.pepperdine.edu

Rice University Jones Graduate School of Management

6100 Main Street

Houston, TX 77005-1892

(713) 348-4918

jonesgsm.rice.edu

Rollins College Crummer Graduate School of Business

1000 Holt Ave.

Winter Park, FL 32789

(407) 646-2405

www.crummer.rollins.edu

“This school offers phenomenal opportunities for its students to develop personally, professionally and academically. The career management, leadership development and alumni support services are among the most impressive and dedicated I have ever seen. Staff and faculty are second to none. The students of the Crummer School are, without a doubt, poised for success because of the remarkable program they attend.”

Saint Louis University John Cook School of Business

John and Lucy Cook Hall,

Suite 132

3674 Lindell Blvd

St. Louis, MO 63108

(314) 977-6221

www.slu.edu/x13227.xml

“Saint Louis University John Cook School of Business has a challenging, one-year, full-time MBA program, which is an excellent value for qualified students.”

Thunderbird School of global Management

1 Global Place

Glendale, AZ 85306-6000

(602) 978-7000

www.thunderbird.edu

University of Miami School of Business Administration

P.O. Box 248027

Coral Gables, FL 33124-6520

(305) 284-4643

www.bus.miami.edu

University of South Carolina Moore School of Business

1705 College Street

Columbia, SC 29208

(803) 777-2231

“The Moore School of Business’ International MBA (IMBA) is a comprehensive master’s program with a global focus. The program prepares students for today’s competitive business world through a blend of academic and real-world experience. In addition to experiencing an internationalized core curriculum, students gain practical experience during a required four-and-a-half to six-month internship with a global company, typically overseas. IMBA students study in the Global Track or a Language Tracks (Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese or Spanish).”