Could you explain what the Global Executive MBA is about?  

Quite simply, the Global Executive MBA is a sixteen-month program made up of seven, 12-day residential modules, which take place at IESE's Barcelona and Madrid campuses, the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai, and in Silicon Valley in cooperation with several leading high-tech companies. When not meeting in session, participants are linked virtually to the school and each other through a state-of-the-art technology platform that was designed together with Duke Corporate Education. Participants share ideas and interact with faculty and classmates in an interconnected global community through live chats, online case discussions, asynchronous bulletin boards and the latest video-conferencing techniques.

Why did IESE decide to create the Global Executive MBA?

The Global Executive MBA program has been designed to meet the needs of senior managers looking to earn a world-class MBA degree but who don't want to put their careers on hold. We wanted to avoid simply compressing a full-time MBA into a tighter time frame and instead opted for a modular organization of the program. The use of distance learning technology has made this possible.

What is the profile of your participants?

Participants on the GEMBA come from more than 15 countries, with 75 percent of them from abroad. The average age is 35, and they have around ten years experience at management level. So far, around one in four are women. Some of the companies represented by our participants are Amex, Apple, BASF, Johnson & Johnson, Mattel Europe, and Volkswagen.

What other Executive Education programs does IESE offer?

IESE has long been a leader in executive education. This year, the Financial Times ranked us first in Europe and fourth in the world. We also came first for open programs and second for custom programs in Europe. In terms of open programs, our most recent innovation has been the launch of our new international Advanced Management Program (AMP) in November. This is aimed at senior executives (CEO and Managing Director level). We have 25 participants from 13 countries in the pilot program. The feedback from participants has been very positive so far. Part of IESE's uniqueness is also its ability to bring programs abroad. In 2001, we offered a similar program called the Senior Executive Management Program (SEMP) in Brazil. Its enormous success encouraged us to launch the Management Development Program this year. We are also looking into starting programs in China, Germany and the Arab world, strategic areas for our international expansion. IESE also has a proven record of providing custom programs for global senior management teams of some of the world's leading corporations. An interesting custom client is Visteon, one of the world's largest automotive suppliers, a company spunoff from Ford. IESE will be offering executive education programs to the company on an on-going basis. We created the Visteon Leadership Program, a blend of leadership concepts and solutions to real-life business problems. This summer, we also launched the Visteon-IESE Exchange Program with the objective of increasing mutual knowledge and understanding between the two organizations.