Insead launches top business courses for busy Asian execs
Insead, a leading international business school, recently launched its new executive programmes for the Asian market at its Singapore campus.
The Global EMBA (GEMBA) and Advanced Management Programme (AMP) are now available to busy Asian executives, especially those in Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, according to Dipak C Jain, the dean of Insead.
Insead was founded in France in the 1950s. It now has three campuses, in Fontainebleau, Abu Dhabi and Singapore.
Besides Asian executives, the new programmes are aimed at those living elsewhere who want to experience Insead’s Asian offerings.
“Insead infuses new research and teaching methods in Asia from a top faculty to help develop exceptional leaders who can deliver real value to their organisations and communities in one of the fastest-growing markets in the world,” said Jain.
The Global EMBA programme is 17 months long, with the majority of coursework done at the Singapore campus. Half of the programme is delivered in modules of three days, essentially over a weekend.
This will allow participants to spend only one day away from the office at a time, so that the programme is attractive to a diverse group of leaders in the region who can complete their executive MBA with the least time off work.
Participants can also complete the other half of the programme at the Insead campuses in France and Abu Dhabi to benefit from a more diverse class.
According to Ilian Mihov, the deputy dean, the Insead programmes are designed to facilitate transformational change among participants.
“In addition to strengthening their understanding of business fundamentals, we offer the space, time, tools and facilitators to help them reflect deeply in a structured fashion upon how their judgement has operated in the past, and changes they would like to make for the future,” said Mihov.
Regarding the AMP, the first intake of participants at the Singapore campus will start in March 2012. The AMP, first introduced in 1968, has been redesigned to help participants learn processes of decision-making that fit their own context and environment.
Candidates include senior executives with an average of 12 years’ management experience and at least five years in a general management position with cross-functional and profit-and-loss responsibility.
The AMP is often seen as a “crash course” for senior executives as it takes only four weeks to complete, while the Executive MBA programme is aimed at middle to senior management who want to earn an advanced degree.
The latter programme is also suitable for busy executives who prefer to take just one day off once a month to study, as they can fly to Singapore from nearby locations and spend the weekend attending classes before returning to work on Monday.
According to dean Jain, the Insead classes and faculty are highly diverse in terms of nationalities, drawing comparisons with the composition of the United Nations, resulting in a diversity of thoughts and ideas that is crucial to success in this era of globalisation.
He also noted that Asian economies, especially China and India, will play a leading role in shaping and defining management education in coming decades.
A growing number of participants from the rest of the world also want to come to Asia to get high-quality management education in regional campuses, he said.
