The EMBA  – from the Perspective of Companies

You are an HR manager at a company. One of the employees you are responsible for is interested in the University of Zurich’s Executive MBA program. This wish demonstrates an exceptional level of commitment and should therefore be honored. The program is challenging from both a time and a financial perspective and means that your company will have to “share” the employee with the University of Zurich for one and a half years. So why should you support this endeavor?

Do you expect your employees to demonstrate flexibility and a will to further their own professional development and do you stipulate general management skills as a prerequisite for promotion to management positions? If you do, then you should also help your staff to meet these requirement.

The Executive MBA program is consistently designed so that it can be completed alongside work. Depending on which program you chose you have two different modes of teaching. The EMBA with focus on International Management has classes twice a month from Thursday to Saturday. The EMBA with focus on Digital transformation has classes once a month for a whole week and the rest of the time your employees can concentrate fully on their work commitments.

You only have to release your employee from his or her duties on Thursday and Friday of every other week, as the modules are held every two weeks from Thursday to Saturday.

Although the program is run by a university, it goes without saying that practical relevance is ensured throughout. Our professors have strong ties to the world of business and some teaching is carried out by guest speakers from business and administration. Theory is illustrated by means of case studies, simulations and company visits, and the final thesis will also have a clear link to your company.

The breadth of the network that becomes available to your employee will be of great benefit to your company. At higher management levels, a cross-sector network is particularly important as a means of successfully overcoming new challenges.

The understanding of other economic and cultural regions will increasingly develop into a core skill that could also be very useful to your company. In addition to business etiquette and cultural rules, students also develop a more in-depth understanding of essential aspects such as hierarchies and decision-making processes in other cultural regions. In a globalized world, it is advantageous to boost these skills within a company.

The two trips to Yale University in the US and Fudan University in Shanghai in the EMBA with focus on International Management  and the learning expeditions to the US (MIT), Israel (Tel Aviv University) and Shanghai (Fudan) will broaden your employee’s horizons and give him or her an opportunity to experience international management and digital transformation in a local context and come into contact with people who already have a lot of practical experience in this environment.

Finally, we would like to stress that supporting your employees with ambitious continuing education projects will be an impressive demonstration of your company’s attractiveness. You will also be providing fringe benefits that can be documented and cited in your communications

«Our employees are our main asset. When they come to a point in their career to take on more leadership responsibilities, we recommend they take a scientifically grounded Executive MBA program like the EMBA UZH. This program has a strong practical orientation, an intercultural management dimension and allows them to combine their studies with their work responsibilities.»
Irene Haag, EMBA UZH alumna, Head of Human Resources EMEA, Sika AG