What makes THESEUS unique amongst business schools ?

A unique combination of specific characteristics: its location, its hi-tech focus, its faculty and its student body. THESEUS Institute is part of the Sophia Antipolis science & technology park, famous for pionneering in Europe the concept of gathering business and academic institutions in the virgin and magnificent lands of the French Riviera countryside. Over the past 30 years the park has attracted major public and private institutions, including universities, engineering schools, R&D facilities or corporate headquarters, mainly for the health sciences, telecommunications, or IT industries. THESEUS Institute was founded 14 years ago by a group of forward-looking business and educational organizations to bridge the gap between technology and management. The MBA program has evolved from an IT to a more global “Hi-Tech” focus encompassing topics such as knowledge management, innovation management, entrepreneurial leadership, new business venturing and customer centric management.

I understand that your school has a strong emphasis on the information age. How does the information age affect business education?

The information age affects all areas of our society and our daily lives both at the professional and at the personal levels. Business education has been affected on two main levels, delivery and content. Delivery methods have integrated new technologies such as distance learning tool. We use distance learning tools mainly in our part-time program. Our students are asked to bring a laptop which they will use throughout the program, laptops connected to the student network, via cable or via our wireless network. The “Business Game” module of our curriculum also uses technology in an academic context. In terms of content only a few Business Schools in the world have gone as far as Theseus in the degree of integration of the effects of the information age on business in its curriculum. The Theseus MBA is designed so that our students become efficient managers in the “digital age” ; this implies that the specific characteristics of the hi-tech environment are taken into account in all the Theseus MBA courses, even the “traditional” ones such as economics, marketing or finance.  

How is your full-time MBA structured?

The full-time MBA program combines academic studies, personal development activities and team consulting projects. The first part of the year is structured around modules addressing the fundamentals of management & technology. Subjects include accounting, finance, marketing, economics of information, industry analysis, operations management, technology trends, human resources management and strategic management and information systems.

Four thematic clusters, two core and two elective, focus on the essentials of leading in a hi-tech environment such as Entrepreneurial Leadership, Knowledge & People Management, Customer Centric Management, Innovation Management, and Managing Alliances & Partnerships. Team consulting projects under the supervision of a faculty member, are carried out at clients' sites worldwide. Participants apply the skills they have acquired to a strategic customer issue. Consulting project sponsors have included Ericsson, IBM, ICI, Swiss Life, SEMA Group, and Hewlett Packard.

What is the profile of your participants?

THESEUS attracts entrepreneurial professionals from around the world and from a range of industries. Highly motivated and hardworking, participants have, on average, eight years of professional experience and their average age is 32. Classes are small with about 45 students typically representing over 18 nationalities. Although about half of the student population comes from a technological sector, the other half comes from a variety of sectors (marketing, law, finance, health sciences…).  

Is it possible to combine the completion of an MBA at your institute and a full-time job?

No, the program is too intensive. Classes are held from Monday to Friday and often on Saturday.

What business areas do your students generally enter after graduation?

Most students enter firms involved in the hi-tech industry, either vendors or manufacturers. Management and/or technology consulting, and the venture capital sector are also attractive areas for our graduates. In these firms our graduates have management level positions, often in the strategy or business development areas.