Sean Rickard, responsible for the development of the executive MBA at Cranfield University School of Management, believes that when there is a good tripartite relationship between the school, student and employer, an executive MBA cannot be matched. At the end of the programme students graduate and then subsequently leave their employer. The real way to do it is for companies to select two or three people they want to nurture, send them on an executive MBA programme and work with the school. Stephen Robinson, programme director of the executive MBA at the school, says that recruitment increased by 30 per cent last year. He believes that the strength of an EMBA lies in the fact that it relates to the real world and ties in to the experiences of its students.
Students contribute with their experience.
Only if you have had some experience do you have something that you can contribute. Mr Robinson predicts that, in the future, more and more MBAs will move towards executive models. An EMBA he says, with its mixture of experience and study is a winning combination that cannot be beaten.