benchmarking executive education

FTbusiness education

Report

Whatwomenwantfromshort courses

Dear Lucy…

LucyKellawayoncolleagues’ feedback

Column

Domanagers needaHippocratic oath?

May 12 2014

Executive educationrankings 2014

www.ft.com/business-education/execed

PHOTOS:TIM

FRANCO;TOM

PIE

TRASIK

contentsMAY 2014 03

CONTRIBUTORSKATE BEVAN is a freelance

technology journalistNICK BINEDELL is dean of the

Gordon Institute of BusinessScience, Johannesburg

EMMA BOYDE is the FTbusiness education reporter

DELLA BRADSHAW is the FT’sbusiness education editorSIMON CAULKIN is a

management writerWAI KWEN CHAN is editor of

FT NewslinesCHARLOTTE CLARKE is theFT’s business education online

and social media producerEMMA JACOBS writes for

FT Business LifeLUCY KELLAWAY is an FT

associate editor andmanagement columnist

RENEEMYERS is directorof operations for SDI

in PennsylvaniaSARAHMURRAY is a

freelance journalist.LAURENTORTMANS is the FT’s

business education statisticianSIMONRABINOVITCH is theFT’s Shanghai correspondent

Special reports editorMichael Skapinker

Business education editorDella Bradshaw

Head of editorial contentHugo Greenhalgh

Magazine commissioning editorJerry Andrews

Head of production Leyla BoultonProduction editorGeorge Kyriakos

Art director Sheila JackPicture editors

Michael Crabtree, Andy MearsSub-editors

Liz Durno, Patrick StilesGlobal sales director

Dominic GoodGlobal director of

FT CareerManagementSteve Playford

Head of business education salesSarah Montague

Account managersGemma Taylor, Ade Fadare-Chard

Publishing systemsmanagerAndrea Frias-Andrade

Advertising productionDaniel Lesar

on the coverIllustration by Neil Webb

OPENINGS

4 from the editorWhat might “Moocs” mean for thefuture of lucrative short courses?

6 upfrontBusiness education movie style; thetop 50 providers; learning online

8 introductionThe executive education market isfinally picking up after the financialcrisis – but it looks very different

10 meet the deanIvey’s Robert Kennedy’s drive to restorethe Canadian school to the top flight

12 onmanagementManagers could do worse than adoptthe doctors’ motto: “first, do no harm”

14 dean’s columnNick Binedell of Pretoria’s Gordon

Institute on Reuel Khoza

FEATURES

16 interviewHow Edward Zhu tookChina’s CHIC Group fromprecarious beginnings to aheavyweight performer inthe global food market

20 dear lucy…Do I really have to ask random

people for 360-degree feedback?

RANKINGS

24 analysisWhat the rankings tell us about thestate of executive education

26 rankingsThe top 70 open-enrolment andtop 80 customised programmes

31 methodologyHow the 2014 executiveeducation tables were compiled

REPORT: WOMEN

34 Getting onboardHow can executive education helphigh-flying female executives get tothe very top levels in business?

38 Emerging talentLooking at the business educationavailable to female entrepreneursin the developing economies

ENDINGS

41 booksExploring the delicate balance of powerbetween management and boards

43 technologyAre the new wearable devices such asGoogle Glass really ready to wear?

46 hopes& fearsRenee Myers discovered she had morein common with her high-flying

Wharton classmates thanshe had imagined

Interactiverankings and

more atwww.ft.com/rankings

38

12

46

16

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klowndes

from the editordella bradshaw

fraction of that for open enrolment programmes – andthat is before you factor in time saving and convenience.

at the lower level, online training for specific skills– reading a spreadsheet, say – is widespread. onlineprogrammes for junior management training have alsobeen mooted for at least a decade. when duke corporateexecutive was established in 2000, part of its philosophywas to cascade material throughout businesses usingdifferent teaching styles depending on the level. Forthose in junior management roles, online courses wereseen as the way forward even then.

what is increasingly clear is that there is plenty of freematerial out there as the number of Moocs relating tobusiness and management rockets. in september 2013,when the Ft started its Mooc tracker, there were fewerthan 30 such Moocs; today there are more than 100.

how will business schools counter this threat? somewill not need to. a programme such as harvard businessschool’s advanced Management Programme has thebrand to guarantee longevity. in developing economies,harvard’s aMP has probably more kudos than its Mba:it is the programme of choice for the corporate elite.

others are not so lucky. so, what added value canbusiness schools offer? a network of contacts in othercorporations, plus knowledge of working practices acrossdifferent sectors is clearly one advantage. but onlinenetworking techniques are developing all the time. andlet’s face it, junior managers who cut their teeth onFacebook know how to do online networking.

i can also envisage a situation in which learningand development managers set up online networks sothat participants can exchange ideas, helping createfriendship networks across the company.

of course, open enrolment courses have far fewerparticipants than Moocs. this means students will be

better placed to interact with professorsand take advantage of mentoringopportunities and corporate visits. thisclearly has a value. but what value?

what business schools will obviouslybet on is that some Moocs will so impresscompanies that they will decide touse that school for other managementdevelopment and customisedprogrammes. but it may prove adangerous bet.

the issue for me is whether businessschools, which have just seen the businessfor their open enrolment programmesreturn, may have already sown the seedsof their own destruction.

AMooc point

f t. com / BU S i n e S S edUc at i on

b

➔ Business schools hope ‘massive openonline courses’will lure newclients – but it is a gamble

04

In2013 therewere fewer than30businessandmanagementMoocs; todaytherearemorethan100

Just one-thirdof thosewho responded toaFinancial Timespoll hadheardofMoocs – and29percent of thosehadtaken suchacourse.The531 respondentswere executiveeducation clients andparticipants

In February the Ft business education teamlaunched the business school challenge, a quiz inwhich teams of Mba students pit their witsagainst each other in aid of the Ft’s annual charity– this year it was world child cancer.

i was impressed by what students knew aboutbusiness, as reported in the Ft. they knew how muchtwitter shares soared on their market debut in 2013 (73per cent) and that london-based trader bruno iksil, whoworked for JPMorgan, had the nickname londonwhale.but the one question that completely stumped them was:what does the acronymMooc stand for?

it brought home to me that while academics obsessabout Moocs – massive open online courses – mostbusiness school students have barely heard of them.

at the moment most of those who enrol onMoocs are educated professionals who wantto study topics that interest them or areuseful at work. these Moocaphileslive in developed economies andmany are business managers andcorporate executives.

this demographic is ratherembarrassing for providers,who espouse Moocs’ potentialfor social good – that they willdeliver high-quality educationto students in developingeconomies who cannot affordthe cost of university study.

but it could also proveembarrassing for business schoolsthat are developing Moocs, especiallythose that rely on short executivecourses for revenues. there is a theory thatMoocs might threaten the take-up of degree leveleducation. what seems more alarming to me is the ideathat schools could spend millions developing Moocs, onlyto find that these free courses cannibalise their money-spinning open enrolment short courses.

in a time of recession, one of the first things thatcompany bean-counters cut is executive short courses.but even in times of economic growth it hardly makessense for companies to sponsor students on businessschool courses if they can get the same training free.

so, in the next few years, what are the chances of thelearning and development people in large corporationsdeciding that for junior managers to make it to middlemanagement level, they must complete a prescribedlist of six or eight Moocs? even if corporations requirecertification at the end of courses, the cost will be a

Stumped

➔ Surveyhighlights benefits anddrawbacks of online learning

upfront

F T. COM / BU S I N E S S EDUC AT I ON

It is difficult to imaginemore than a rippleof discord at a luxury chocolate companyknown for adverts set at an ambassador’sdiplomatic parties. Butmanaging conflictis among the topics on a course designedfor seniormanagers at Ferrero, developedwith Spain’s Iese Business School. Other

subjects include changemanagement, leadinganddevelopinghigh-performing teams and“self-leadership”, alltailored to thecompany’s culture- Charlotte Clarke

Just how much is onlinelearning on the rise inexecutive education?In 2011, 42 per cent ofrespondents to an FT

poll of open-enrolment courseparticipants said that none of theteaching and related assessmentswas conducted online. That figurestays the same in this year’s poll ofmore than 470 respondents.

Fifty-one per cent of thosewhose programmes includedonline elements said that theseaccounted for less than 25 percent of the course. Some 80 percent of respondents wantedonline content in future courses.

The main benefits ofonline learning cited in therecent survey are flexibility,convenience, cost and timesavings. The main drawbackswere a lack of interaction withother participants and teachingstaff and fewer networkingopportunities. Other concernswere quality of teaching, lack of

learning supportand the level of self-discipline required.

One respondent wrote:“I can see the potential for onlinelearning for some types of skillsand knowledge. However, muchof the value of executive educationis learning from other participantsand training staff, for example inrole play and interactive exercises.I struggle to see how thiscould be delivered in an onlineenvironment.” -Wai KwenChan

06

Thebiggest challenge facedbyglobal companies in thenextthree years is their leadershipcapabilities, according to thelatest annual surveybyHenleyBusiness School.

Seventy-oneper cent ofthe 359 respondents saidleadershipwas a challenge,comparedwith 57 per centwhowere concerned about

managing costs and just 36 percent about global competition.

There is also an increasingsenseof collective leadership,says SteveLudlow, headofexecutive educationatHenley,part of theUniversityofReading.“Theorganisational culture isdevelopedby leaders at all levelsof the company,” he says.

-DellaBradshaw

➔Leadership tops companies’ concerns

41%of executive educationparticipants polled by theFT said theywould bewilling to study in their owntime for aMooc (massiveopenonline course) inbusiness ormanagement

PHOTOS:DREAMSTIM

E;GETTY

EMAILALERTSKeepuptodatewithbusinesseducationnews:www.ft.com/bized-alert

➔Topof the class

Femaleparticipants(Open ranking)ThunderbirdSchool of GlobalManagement, US

Overseasprogrammes(Customised ranking)Cranfield, UK


Welcome to Baruzia!Where?Baruzia, a fictional countrymodelled on the rapidly

developing economies in Asia or Africa.But this is not the latest Hollywood

sci-fi movie, fantasy TV blockbusteror shoot-em-up video game franchise.Baruzia will be home for five daysto a group of 24 up-and-comingexecutives enrolled on the latestdevelopment programme from DukeCorporate Education.

Baruzia has been developed ona film set in San Diego (picturedabove). Ironically, this extremefantasy world, where some 50 actorspopulate the offices, marketplace andgovernment buildings, is intended toimmerse course participants in a “reallife” environment.

But as Mike Canning, presidentof Duke CE, explains, Baruziahas been created to takeexecutives out of theircomfort zone to help them

deal with the challenges business nowfaces. “Challenges are less familiar,knowledge is less reliable. We need tocreate a place for people to practice sothey can change the business.”

Traditional executive courses nolonger fit the bill, he says. “The leveland type of change that is occurringis not what we have trained people for.We can’t sit people down and teachthem a few things and everythingwill be OK.”

The Baruzia simulation is justone week in an 18-week programmedeveloped by Duke CE and knownas Quest. In the programmeparticipants will combine onlinestudy and a company project withtwo immersions: the fantasy world ofBaruzia and the real world of KualaLumpur, in Malaysia. Duke CE hasworked with cultural anthropologists,neuroscientists and negotiationspecialists to develop theprogramme. - Della Bradshaw

TOP50

07➔ EXECUTIVE EDUCATION

The top 50 schools in 2014

➔ Sets and the city: fake townbuilt for training

FootnotesThis table is compiled from the scores underlying the Financial Times ExecutiveEducation 2014 open enrolment and custom rankings, rather than the printedrankings. Schools must feature in both rankings to qualify for this table. Both setsof data are given equal weight, but the overall result is therefore not equal to theaverage of the two printed igures for each school.

Rank SchoolCustomrank

Openrank

1 HEC Paris 2 3

2 Iese Business School 3 6

3 IMD 5 1

4 Center for Creative Leadership 4 9

5 Esade Business School 6 9

6 University of Chicago: Booth 15 2

7 Stanford Graduate School of Business 8 8

8 London Business School 9 13

9 Harvard Business School 18 6

10 Insead 21 5

11 University of Virginia: Darden 32 3

12 Cran ield School of Management 7 26

13 Thunderbird School of Global Management 22 14

14= University of Oxford: Saïd 23 15

14= Essec Business School 25 12

16 Washington University: Olin 24 17

17 University of Michigan: Ross 33 11

18 Northwestern University: Kellogg 28 16

19 SDA Bocconi 11 31

20 UniversityofPennsylvania:Wharton 26 19

21 Fundação Dom Cabral 27 23

22 IE Business School 14 35

23 Ashridge 16 33

24 UCLA: Anderson 36 20

25 University of Toronto: Rotman 42 20

26 Columbia Business School 37 25

27= ESMT - European School of Mgt and Technology 51 18

27= Western University: Ivey 45 22

29 Ceibs 34 29

30 Edhec Business School 19 46

31 MIT: Sloan 31 30

32 University of St Gallen 43 27

33 Stockholm School of Economics 29 37

34 Vlerick Business School 38 36

35= Henley Business School 50 31

35= Universidad de los Andes 47 34

37 Melbourne Business School, Mt Eliza 40 43

38 IAE Business School 39 47

39 Insper 52 38

40 EMLyon Business School 41 50

41 York University: Schulich 57 39

42 University of Pretoria, Gibs 53 42

43 ESCP Europe 56 41

44 Incae Business School 55 43

45 Católica-Lisbon School of Business and Economics 61 40

46 Xiamen University School of Management 46 53

47 Australian School of Business (AGSM) 59 50

48 Aalto University 54 52

49 NHH 71 45

50 Eada Business School Barcelona 66 57

See keys (p27&29) andmethodology (p30) for criteria

Aims achieved(Open ranking)IMD, Switzerland

Faculty(Open ranking)

UniversityofVirginia:Darden, US

Value formoney(Customised ranking)

HECParis, France

‘[In LatinAmerica] companiesare like theywere in theUS10years ago. They are beginningto look at corporate universitiesand leadership programmes’CAMELIA ILIE, INCAE, PERU (LEFT)

ILLUSTRATIO

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introduction

Back in business➔…but thepost-crisismarket looksverydifferent. ByDella Bradshaw

75suppliers ofcustomised coursesare ranked for thefirst timeby the FT in2014, highlighting thegrowth in educationtailored to individualcompanies’ needs

08

➤

The figures tell the tale:after seven years of gloomand despondency, thebusiness of executiveeducation

short courses, the cashcow of many businessschools, is lookingbuoyant once more.

This is a far cry frommost of the past decade,when schools had to layoff staff and diversify intoother sources of revenue.But as activity returns, itis clearly very differentfrom a decade ago.

Customisedprogrammes, designedspecifically for individualcompanies, have shown the strongestgrowth – 75 suppliers are ranked forthe first time by the FT in 2014. Someschools have been overwhelmed bynew business.

At the Saïd school at the Universityof Oxford, revenues from custombusiness have risen from $9m to $15min a year, according to AndrewWhite, associate dean forexecutive education.

“We were turning awaybusiness left, right andcentre,” he says.

Open enrolmentprogrammes are nowshorter and incorporate agreater use of technology.“Blended” learning, whichcombines online and face-to-face, is commonplace.These days, thedemand is forprogrammeson socialmedia, bigdata andtechnologyratherthangeneral

management. Coaching is increasinglyrequired as an integral part of theprogramme.

There are changes in geographicaldemand, too. Over the past two yearsthe growth in executive programmes at11 top US business schools has risen byalmost 5 per cent, according to a surveyby Chicago Booth. In Europe the risewas 3.2 per cent. But the 10 schools inLatin America that participated in theFT rankings in 2014 had an increasein revenues of more than 17 per cent in2013, on top of growth of more than 13per cent in 2012.

For many companies in the regionit is a case of playing catch-up, saysCamelia Ilie, dean of executiveeducation at Incae Business School inPeru. In Latin America “companiesare like they were in the US 10 yearsago,” she says. “They are beginningto look at corporate universities andleadership programmes.”

The market is dominated by localsuppliers, because as Prof Ilie pointsout: “The prices are not as high as inEurope and the US, so it is difficult forUS and European business schools tocome into the market.”

TheMiddle East has proven lucrativefor many European business schools –hEC Paris is strong in Qatar, Inseadhas a foothold in Abu Dhabi, whilein November, London BusinessSchool won a $38m contract totrain top managers at the KuwaitPetroleum Company, the largestexecutive education programmein the school’s history.

Meet the dean➔ Ivey’s Robert Kennedy says hi

introduction10

In Asia there is also substantialgrowth, in Singapore, Japan, Malaysiaand Indonesia, as well as China,says Michael Pich, dean of executiveeducation at Insead. Asia is nowa mature market, he says. “They[managers in Asia] want to know whatthe global standard in management is.”

Business schools that fly into theregion often underestimate this, ProfPich adds. “I think a lot of people’sattitude to China is old-fashioned. Forus the colonial market is dead.”

In particular, Asian companiesare looking for managers who canoperate in a global context, accordingto Greg Campbell, who is in charge ofexecutive education in the Asia Pacificregion for Melbourne Business School.“Companies are becoming much morestrategic and the global mindset isrepeatedly coming up in requests forcustomised and some open enrolmentprogrammes.”

The global mindset resonatesacross all regions. “More and morepeople come to us because they wantprogrammes in different Europeancities,” says Delphine Manceau, dean ofEuropean executive education at ESCPEurope, which has campuses in Paris,London, Berlin, Madrid and Turin. She

cites the example of Indian Railways,which has selected ESCP to teach aprogramme on its campuses in Londonand Paris. “We really feel companies onother continents are interested in thecomplexity of Europe.”

But it is in online courses thatschools are seeing the real changesand the explosion in numbers, saysMichael Malefakis, associate deanfor executive education at ColumbiaBusiness School. The school now runstwo open enrolment programmesand one customised programmeexclusively online and is planning tolaunch a technology-based consortiumprogramme for a handful ofco-operating companies later this year.

These programmes arecomplementary to their equivalent

classroom programmes,says Malefakis. “Oneof our fears prior tolaunching the onlineprogramme was thatwe would cannibaliseour face-to-faceprogrammes. It didn’thappen.”

These lower costonline courses arechanging the structureof the market, hebelieves, with online

programmes proving increasinglypopular with individuals, who payfor the courses themselves. Malefakissays he senses a shift from a business-to-business market to a business-to-consumer market.

As costs are pushed down andtechnology becomes increasinglyprevalent, Malefakis believes executiveeducation suppliers could be pushedout of the market altogether by Moocs(massive open online courses). “Myquestion is, when will people feel thecompletely free Mooc is good enough?”he says.

At IMD in Switzerland, presidentDominique Turpin disagrees. “Soon themarket is going to be saturatedby Moocs, but Moocs are notgoing to solve everything,”he says. “You can sit onlinewith people in Afghanistanand Peru, but it doesn’tmake you a good manager.”

17%increase in revenue in2013 at the 10 schoolsin LatinAmerica thatparticipated in thisyear’s FT ranking –on topof 13 per centgrowth in 2012

RobertKennedy

seesparallelsbetween IveyandHarvardB

Globalmindset:MichaelMalefakis, aboveandDelphineManceau, below

Therehavebeen a lot of changesrecently at Ivey, theCanadianbusiness school, not least ofwhich

is that for the first time innearly 20years,the school has an academic as dean. AndRobert Kennedy,who succeeded formertelecomexecutiveCarol Stephensonasdeanof the business school inOctober2013, certainly knowshiswayaroundmanyof theworld’s topuniversities.

Before joining Ivey, the business schoolofWesternUniversity – formerly knownas theUniversity ofWesternOntario – theaffable Prof Kennedy spent a decadeatMichiganRoss andbefore that eightyears atHarvardBusiness School. Of thetwo schools, Ivey ismost likeHarvard,he believes, and that is becauseof theschool’s “unbelievable network” of alumni.

“In theCanadian context, Ivey is a lotlikeHBS,” he says. “When I go and talkto alumni here [at Ivey], they talk aboutsupport. AtMichigan they asked about thefootball team.”

In goodmanagement speak thedeandescribes the support as a “multi-dimensional engagement”,which includesalumnimentoring students, employinggraduates and speaking in class, aswell asgivingmoney – the traditional definitionof an active alumnus. “It’s a resource thattakes decades to build,”he points out.

Ivey’s powerfuland loyal alumninetwork stemsfrom the fact thatuntil 10 yearsago, Ivey, locatedin London,Ontario,was theundisputedleader inbusiness

education inCanada andoneof the topplayers in theworld – in 2002 theFTranked the school’sMBAprogrammeasoneof the top 20 globally.

But the school has paid theprice forincreased competition at homeaswell asshifts in theCanadian economy.

Prof Kennedyhas clear ambitions toreverse that situation. “I tellmy faculty –number one inCanada, top 10 inNorthAmerica, top 20 in theworld.”

Andhe intends todo that throughthequality of the school’s research.“For a great business school youneedthree things: strongprogrammes, astrong community and strong faculty,governance and research.”

Theschool alreadyhas thealumninetworkandastrongsuiteofprogrammesonwhich tobuild.

Theundergraduate degreehasincreased in size from200 to600students over recent years and Iveyhaslaunchedamasters inmanagementdegree in co-operationwithCems, theParis-headquarterednetwork. In 2006 theIveyMBAdegreewas reduced in length,andnow runs over three semesters ratherthan four, effectivelymakingit a one-year degree.

The changes reflect thosein the industry. “Businesseducation is very global.Wecompete globally for facultyand students and the sectoris shifting away from the full-timeMBA to themasters inmanagement,” says thedean.

“Inmymind, the growthof the schoolwillbe in executivedevelopment.Or itwill

s high-quality academic researchwill lift the Canadian business school back into the global top 20

11

OnvideoRobert Kennedy talkswith FTbusinesseducation editorDella Bradshaw.Go toft.com/bized-video

Biography1962Born inNebraska andwent on to study at bothStanford andMIT1991Becameapartner inEnterprise Investors inPoland1995Graduatedwith a PhDfromHarvard and joined the

Business School as an assistantprofessor.Went on to becomeanassociate professor atHBSin 2000

2003Moved toMichiganRoss asexecutive director of theWilliamDavidson Institute,which focusesonbusiness andpolicy issuesin emergingmarket economies.Taught on the school’sMBA,EMBAandexecutive courses2013Appointed as theninthdeanof the Ivey school atWestern

University inCanada

come fromgeographic expansion.”With 105 faculty, up from just 65 a few

years ago, Ivey is still a relatively smallschool by international standards, butthedeanbelieves his appointmentwasall about creating newknowledge. “Theopportunity for Ivey is to reinvest in theknowledge creation side.”

Thiswill beapplied researchaswell asthepurelyacademic, he says,mostnotablyin thecreationof case studies.

Ivey iswedded to the casemethodofteaching andhas oftenbeen referred toas theHarvardof Canada for this reason.Prof Kennedy, too, is a great believer in thispedagogy, saying that 90per centof his teaching sinceleavingHarvardhas beenusing thecasemethod.

“I’mabigbeliever incasemethodteachingbecause itmakes iteasiertodoreal life

problem-solving,”hesays. “Process-typelearning is justas importantas thetoolkit.”

LikeHBS, Ivey is a casepublisher, butunlikeHarvard it has a particular strengthin cases about companies inAsia. In total,Ivey’s publishing armdistributesmorethan 500cases centredonAsia Pacificcompanies anda further 300oncentralAsia and the Indian subcontinent.

Manyof those come from Ivey’s ownprofessors – the school has a secondcampus inHongKong –while somecome fromprofessors at other businessschools in the region.What ismore, Iveydistributesmore than 750cases that aretranslated intoChinese.

Della Bradshaw

‘The futuregrowthof theschoolwill bein executivedevelopmentand research’

FT LExICONSearching foradefinition?Look ituphere :lexicon.ft.com

PhOTOS:ROSIE

hALLAM

onmanagementsimon caulkin

When companies weresmall, people did notbother much aboutmanagement as such.It was a pragmatic

question of how to organise to get thingsdone. “Management” as a standaloneconcept emerged only as companiesgot bigger, and initially much of it wascommon sense. As late as the 1970s,for instance, although there were fiercearguments about the proportions,sharing the benefits of corporate growthamong all the stakeholders just seemedfair and normal.

But as companies ballooned in sizewhat no one foresaw – and many stilldo not understand – was that it wasnot only economies that accrue to scalebut also the returns from being right orwrong. The reach of technology intoevery corner of life raises the stakesstill higher.

The destructive powerof management wrongnessmultiplied by size is amplydemonstrated by the Great Crashof 2008. From where we are now– stuttering recovery, stagnatingor falling real incomes, soaringinequality, banks still too big to fail– it seems clear that we are sufferingthe consequences of an era of ragingmanagement overconfidence.

As Alan Greenspan, formerchairman of the US Federal Reserve,lamented in 2008: “I made a mistakein presuming that the self-interestsof organisations, specifically banksand others, were such that they werebest capable of protecting their ownshareholders and their equity in thefirms… I discovered a flaw in themodel that I perceived as the criticalfunctioning structure that defines howthe world works.”

The £66bn by which taxpayerscontinue to subsidise UK banks andthe $100bn in penalties and fineslevied on US financial institutionssince the crisis are a tiny part of the

damage perpetrated by managers andpoliticians who overestimated theirunderstanding of how the world works.

Even now, faith in grandmanagement visionsand projects lives on,whether in Google’smission to digitise all theinformation on earth,the UK government’sattempts to “transform”the benefits system andthe National HealthService, or big data, asin: “Let the data decide.”

Of course, as this newspaper’sTim Harford has pointed

out, big data will yieldimportant insights.But seeing whathas been donewith smalldata, dataintelligenceis at least asimportantasmagnitude.Intelligentdata means

interpretation,and

interpretationmeans judgment,

with all the possibilitiesof fallibility and bias that

introduces. And that is before wedecide how to use theresults.

That faith needsto be challenged. Itis not just that theexperiment witha model based onabstraction andideology has been adisaster to everyonebut the fraction of1 per cent who runlarge banks and hedgefunds. Even more

Medical advice


B

➔ The mistakes of recent years suggest that managers, like doctors, should ‘first, do no harm’

12

fundamentally, it is time to recognisethat given the multiplier effects of sizeand technology, management needsto be handled as gingerly as rocket

fuel, equally capable ofpropulsion to the stars orblowing the traveller tosmithereens.

A more humbleapproach to running ourorganisations is needed.It should take a leaf frommedicine’s Hippocraticoath: first, do no harm.That means recognising

that starting from a big outcome –like a reorganised NHS – as a planfor change is epistemological andpractical nonsense. Change is possiblebut it begins at the other end, withsmall-scale trials to get knowledgeabout what works on the ground andhow that can be scaled while avoidingunintended consequences. Change is aresult, not the starting point.

If that looks like muddling throughto those who want to change the worldovernight, fine. But done scientifically,small changes in practice can havemomentous consequences without theunwelcome surprises. A recent reportby Locality, a network of social andcommunity enterprises, and Vanguard,a consultancy, claims billions could beknocked off the bill for British publicservices by jettisoning conventionalcost- and scale-driven approachesand instead working to understandindividual need in its context.

Working like this, UK councils suchas Stoke and the London Borough ofCamden believe they can reverse thepublic-sector narrative of doom inwhich ever-increasing demand collideswith ever-declining resources and notonly improve lives and communitiesbut also reduce demands on the system.In this way, modest management canrecast the welfare state for the 21stcentury – from the bottom up, oneperson at a time.

We are todaysufferingthe resultsof ragingmanagementincompetence

Mutual benefits‘There is no necessarytrade-off… betweencommunity andefficiency; those who payattention to communitymay indeed become themost efficient of all’– Francis Fukuyama,Trust (1995)

ILLUSTRATIO

N:ANdREW

BAKER;PHOTO:Ed

ROBIN

SON

dean’s columnNick BiNedell

Abusinessman, aprominent thinker onbusiness leadershipand African values, adistinguished speaker,

author and Africanist, Reuel Khoza isthe embodiment of the values-drivenleadership he espouses.

I first met Reuel in the late1970s, at a time when South Africa’sgovernment was increasingly undersiege and starting to recognisethat its apartheid policies were notonly immoral but also no longersustainable. We worked togetherduring the 1980s engaging with SouthAfrican companies in the fields oftransformation and strategy.

As our paths crossed over the years,we became colleagues and continuedto collaborate as members of a robustinformal group that met for some 20years to debate business and politics inSouth Africa.

I have come to know Reuel as aman of integrity and as an advocateof effective and ethical leadership,particularly the philosophy of ubuntu,or African humanism, and what it cancontribute to leadership today. Hehas a commanding presencetempered with a sense ofhumility.

Reuel has received agreat deal of recognitionduring his career, andhas been the recipient ofmany awards. He holds anumber of degrees and hasheld directorships at many of SouthAfrica’s top-drawer companies suchas Vodacom and Standard Bank. He ispresident of the Institute of Directorsof South Africa, the major shareholderin Aka Capital, the investmentcompany, and the current chairmanof Nedbank, one of South Africa’s fourbig banks.

Reuel is one of South Africa’spre-eminent corporate leaders andone who has always sought to give

back and make a contribution tobroader society. A man of intellectand dignity, in many ways he is thetype of “attuned leader” that he writesabout. Both an academicand an entrepreneur, hestraddles the domainsof insights and practicalservice – essential in aleader who asks others tofollow his actions as well ashis words.

That is what I respectabout Reuel; he lives hisphilosophy. His mostrecent book, Attuned Leadership, isin my view his most substantive work

and explains how theethic of ubuntu (avalue system basedon traditional Africanvalues which means “Iam what I am becauseof who we all are”) cantransform business,statecraft and globalleadership.

Reuel’s viewson transformationand change are wellbalanced. He is aproponent of values-

driven leadership,a stance whichhas, from timeto time, led toscrapes with theruling AfricanNationalCongress. Buthis willingnessto articulate his

views broadly wasimportant as South

Africa prepared to goto the polls last week,

20 years after our country’sfirst democratic election.

Blessed with an abundance ofmineral wealth and natural resourcesand a growing population, South

Walk the talk


B

➔Reuel Khoza lives by a blendof traditional SouthAfricanphilosophyandbusiness acumen

Viewprofilesof topdeans atwww.ft.com/

deans

➔

14

Africa is a turbulent and fascinatingcountry. We have made significantprogress since 1994, but there is a hugetransformation agenda for the future

that demands leadership ofa calibre that can managein a fast changing, complexand competitive globalenvironment.

It is clear from thestudents passing throughour doors at the GordonInstitute of BusinessScience that the youngergeneration of corporate

leaders, managers and entrepreneursbring a different attitude to businessand to life in South Africa. Lessobsessed with race and our history,this new generation is more intenton improving performance and theirrelationships with each other.

The South African dynamic is movingon. What the country needs is morestatesmen like Reuel to mentor the nextgeneration of leaders, preparing themto help South Africa take its rightfulplace in the global economy.

Over the years, I have seen Reuel inaction, facilitating groups about SouthAfrica’s political dynamics in a highlyeffective manner, building consensus,summarising his ubuntu emphasisand marking the way forward. But hisfirst step is always to listen, an art helearnt from his father, a lay-preacher-cum-teacher who taught him to listenbefore acting.

Perhaps with the kind of attunedleadership Reuel has to offer, the nextgeneration of South African leaders willfind their own pattern of ethical globalleadership, one equipped to combinethe warmth and humanity of Africanculture with the culture of modernityand competitiveness.

For Reuel, guiding future leaderscapable of unlocking this potentialmay be central to his philosophyof ubuntu – but it is also just goodbusiness sense.

Heexplainshow ‘ubuntu’can transformbusiness,statecraft andleadership

About thecolumnistNickBinedell is deanof theUniversityof Pretoria’sGordon Institute ofBusiness Science inJohannesburg

Reuel Khozaoffers a rolemodel to the

next generationof leaders

Photos:getty


16

Amatterof tasteAfter early difficulties, Edward Zhu’sShanghai-based CHIC Group grewinto an international food business.Along the way, business educationand Buddhist philosophy helpedhim meet the changing demands.By SimonRabinovitch

Photo:tim

franco

interview


17

Clear focus:after years

concentrating onglobal growth,

Zhu is nowlooking to the

Chinesemarket

Small things sometimes makeor break a career. for edward Zhu, it was a rubber hose.

asked by Del monte foods in 1995 to see if he couldsource some cans of mandarin oranges as a trial, Zhudelivered the fruit. But on checking the product, his Delmonte contact said the taste was off. the rubber hoseused to pump syrup into the mixture had been cookedalong with the fruit. the mandarins were ruined.

it could have been the end of the road for Zhu’s forayinto the fruit processing industry. instead, he turned themistake to his advantage. he asked Del monte to sendtechnicians to china to help identify the problem and fixhis canning plant, winning their trust in the process.

By 2000, within five years of that first tainted batchof mandarins, Zhu’s chic group had become one ofthe world’s biggest exporters of canned fruit, selling tocustomers fromWal-mart to coca-cola. for a man whohoped to be an investment banker, it was an improbablebut welcome twist of fate. “i had never thought aboutgoing into the food business. it’s amazing how thesethings happen,” says Zhu, speaking in his airy office.

Picking fruit, cooking them in syrup and canningthem is a very straightforward business proposition. Butthe curved glass façade and sky bridges of chic group’snew shanghai campus – designed by the architects whomade google’s global headquarters – serves notice thatZhu wants chic, a privately held company, to outgrowits earthy beginnings.

already chic has developed into an organisation ofsome 10,000 employees, with plants in thailand, spain,the Us and of course china, where about 90 per cent ofits staff are based. as the company has grown, Zhu hasdrawn both on Buddhist philosophy and formal businesseducation to meet the changing demands.

his full head of grey hair – a rarity in a country whereblack dye is de rigueur for business and political leaders– is the first thing that marks Zhu, only in his mid-40s, asdifferent from the mainstream of china’s corporate elite.

Zhu is also unusual in having started by going global;he is just now looking to the chinese market as the nextfrontier. it is the opposite of the conventional routein china. most of his peers, from banks to propertydevelopers, established themselves domestically first.

“china used to not be able to afford the price wewanted to sell our products at. that’s changed and nowchina’s price can be higher than other markets,” he says.

Zhu got his start in the fruit trade at a cocktail party incalifornia in the early 1990s. at the time he was shuttlingbetween shanghai and san francisco, trying to brokercross-border investment deals. a Del monte buyer at theparty was intrigued to find a man who could move easilybetween the two countries – far less common back then –and gave Zhu that first pivotal order for mandarins.

the boiled rubber hose was one of a catalogue ofproblems that Zhu faced initially. Workers often left cansof fruit in the open gathering dust. he needed to find away to impress upon them the importance of keeping thecans clean, since overseas customers expected to be ableto open a box and put them directly on store shelves.

in those years, it was customary in china to get newclothes once a year for the chinese new year festival.after one holiday, he told his workers to bring their prizeddresses and suits to the packing plant and place themwhere they had stacked the cans, and then leave them fora week to accumulate dust. “after that they rememberednot to put the product out in the open,” he says.

Zhu has applied similar ingenuity to address adeficiency that persists in china to this day: an absence oflarge-scale farming. most land is divided into tiny plotsfor individual farmers, making it hard for food companiesto make big orders and harder to ensure consistentquality, since there are so many producers to supervise.

Zhu reckons that chic buys fruit from hundreds ofthousands of growers. his approach to managing them?“We call it peer pressure.”

he circles an area of, say, 10 acres with as many as20 growers. “if we find out one grower’s product hasa pesticide issue, we will then put the whole 10 acresof land on the blacklist. so everyone keeps an eye oneverybody. they help us guard our interest,” he says.

if that sounds crude, chic is now at the forefront ofusing technology to monitor its products. every piece ofland feeding into the supply chain is assigned a barcode-like Qr code. every basket of fruit, truck and palettein every packing plant also receives a code. the casethat arrives on a customer’s doorstep is assigned a codeas well. these are linked together, creating a detailedhistory for each can. “the customer can trace the productall the way from his shelf to the farmer,” Zhu says.

Zhu has, to a certain extent, lived his entrepreneuriallife backwards: building up businesses first and only thenlearning about business. in 1999 he attended a fast- ➤

interview

19

track diploma in management programme at the chinaeurope international Business school (ceibs), the firstchinese business school to crack the top 10 in the ft’sglobal mBa rankings. (Zhu says the school has “reallyclosed the gap between china and the world”.) then in2006 – after also dabbling in the fashion industry, textileproduction and logistics – he obtained an executive mBafrom ceibs. and in recent years, he has honed his skillswith short-term executive courses.

“i created value but i didn’t ‘get’ it. somebodyneeded to help me explain why,” he says of his businesseducation. “i was there trying to understand why i mademoney, to come up with an idea of how systematically icould make more money and build a bigger company.”

But while Zhu learnt a lot at business school, he says,it cannot compare with what he learnt from Buddhism.he does not practice on a daily basis but makes timeto go to temples for study sessions every year. Buddhistteachings on being happy even in the face of sufferingunderpin his philosophy on life. “any success i havetoday is all related to that,” he says.

Much as the chinese governmentis now trying to guide theeconomy up the value chain,from being a producer oflow-end goods to a fulcrum ofinnovation, so is Zhu aiming fora similar evolution at chic. ifhis earlier success was guided

in part by intuition and good luck, his strategy nowis informed by his two decades of experience and hisbusiness school studies.

Reverse angle: Zhubuilt up businessesfirst and thendecidedto learn aboutbusiness afterwards

“traditional thinking is that people think about whatproduct you’re in, but this is actually wrong. if you lookat apple, steve Jobs never thought of himself as beingin the computer business. he was not bound by thecomputer business,” Zhu says. “it’s really about what mycustomer wants, but my consumer probably doesn’t evenunderstand what he needs. that’s the area i’m going[into],” he says. “i don’t want to position us as a processedfood company. if we were just a processed food company,i think we’d be dead already.”

canning fruit for Del monte and yum Brands, theparent of fried chicken chain Kfc, is still an essentialpart of chic’s business. But Zhu is also shifting thecompany into its own branded products, sold directly toconsumers. chic makes a coconut water drink underthe invo label, sold in the Us. for the first time, he is alsotrying to sell directly to the chinese market, producing afreshly-squeezed fruit juice.

at his google-esque shanghai campus, he is investingheavily in research and development, hoping to makehardier, safer, better-tasting and more profitable food.

and with the chinese government pushing anambitious urbanisation agenda, Zhu has also got chicinvolved in a pilot project in the southwestern city ofchongqing to transform small plots of farm land into azone of intensive, large-scale agriculture.

Politically, it is without question a good thing forchic to be backing. But Zhu is unreserved in sayinghe sees money – big money – in it. “there is huge, hugepotential return on investment in this. i have never seena better business opportunity.” high praise from a manwho, starting with cans of oranges, has seen his fair shareof business opportunities over the years.

‘I don’t want to position ourselves as aprocessed food company. If we werejust that, I think we’d be dead already’

BPhoto:tim

franco


20 Dear Lucy...FT readers consultLucyKellawayonwhether to put their foot downwhen short-changed,who to ask for360-degree feedback andwhat to doif approachedbya rivalmid-course

My company has previously sent colleaguesof similar seniority to Harvard Business

School for short courses. I was lookingforward to this but have instead beentold my next course will be at a lessprestigious local school. Should Iinsist on HBS – and does it makeenough of a difference to be worthrocking the boat?Yes, it does make a difference. And,yes, you should definitely stamp yourfoot. However I’m not sure that youcan “insist” on Harvard, as it will be your

employer who pays and who will thereforechoose where you go. The beauty of the lessprestigious school is that it will be far less

expensive; if your employer has decidedto give expenses a drastic haircut,screaming from you is not likely

to make much difference. However, you have nothing tolose by trying. By publicly protesting about being short-changed, you make it a little harder for anyone to short-change you next time – they know you’ll make a fuss.

I am to take an advanced management programmelater in the year and will be required to provide360-degree feedback from colleagues beforehand.Am I genuinely expected to ask a random selection ofpeople? This could prove awkward, given the ratherfractious environment where I work.No, of course you aren’t expected to ask a randomselection. You are expected to ask a carefully handpickedselection that you can just about pass off as random.You should skew your choice towards the least fractiouselements of your workforce, but not so outrageouslythat it looks as though you’ve picked your best friendsand mother. These 360-degree feedback exercises are acharade; it is depressing that this course begins with one.For your sake, I hope it gets better from here.

QPHOTO:DANIE

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Having reached management level, I was intending todevelop my skills with some short courses at businessschool. But is it really worth the money when someof the big-name schools offer Moocs – massive openonline courses – free?It depends on who is paying. If you can persuade youremployer to pay, then go for the most expensive course.

If you are paying, then it depends on what you want toget out of it. If what you really want is to make

friends and influence people then you needto sign up for a proper course. But if youthink you have specific holes in yourknowledge that you want to fill, then aMooc is a great place to start. As you say,you get a slice of some great professors

from great schools. And if you decideit isn’t enough, then you can pay for

more when you feel like it.

We have always used arespected (and expensive)

management consultancyto review company

strategy, but we areconsidering bringing

in a business schoolprofessor instead.He’s a leader in

his field andhas done someconsultancywork – butcan anacademicwithlimitedpractical

experiencereally deliver in

the real world?If you are already

feeling disillusioned withyour ruinously expensive

consultancy firm, ditch it at once.Give the other guy a go. He will cost far less

and his insight might be just as good – or atleast no worse. On the question of whether

an academic with precious little experienceoutside his ivory tower could ever help you, the

answer is maybe, maybe not. I have another, evenmore radical idea: save even more money and come up

with the strategy yourself. Strategies are two a penny –the hard bit is the implementation. And as it is you who isgoing to have to implement it, it might be a good idea if itwas also you who drew it up.

My employer paid the bill for a very good shortcourse I attended recently. However, I hit it off witha classmate from a rival company that has sincesounded me out about an appealing role on herrecommendation. Would it be unethical to take it?Unethical from what point of view? Do you mean thatas your employer has been generous in sending you onthis course, it is not very nice to repay that generosityby using the training as a springboard to a better job? Ifthat’s what you mean, I don’t agree at all. These thingshappen. All is fair in love and war. Or are you worriedthat the job offer has been as a result of a friendship,rather than a cool assessment of your skills? If so, youshould stop worrying at once. This woman you havehit it off with is probably a better judge of what you aregoing to be like as an employee than any HR person who

would be appraising you cold. So give your overactiveethical gland a rest. Take the job if it appeals. And do sowith an easy conscience.

As a training and development manager, I’m alwaysasked if the expense of executive education coursescan be justified. Do you think it is?If you are a tiny organisation with no spare cash, theanswer is clearly no. If you are large, rich company thatpays vast executive salaries, the marginal cost of a fewbusiness school courses is tiny. If your managers learnanything at all on them they are probably worthwhile.The real cost is whether the course makes peoplefeel more loyal towards the company and thereforemore likely to stay. Or whether it makes them moremarketable, gives them more contacts (see above) andtherefore encourages them to leave. There are no data onthis; but my gut says it’s worth it. Good employers investin their people. Good employers are harder to leave.

Lucy Kellaway is an FT associate editor andmanagementcolumnist and writes the weekly Dear Lucy advice column

If you are already feeling disillusionedwithyour expensive consultancy firm, ditch it atonce. Give the academic a go. Hewill cost farless andhis insightmight be just as good.

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rankingsAnalysis, p24

What the 2014surveys reveal

Rankings, p26-31

Full tables of theleading schools

Methodology, p31

How the listswere compiled

Executive education 2014➔ The top open enrolment and customised programmes, plus sector trends and analysis

23

➔

illustratio

n:neil

webb

rankings

The Financial Timesexecutive educationrankings, now in their16th year, include a recordnumber of programmes.

The FT ranked the top 80 customisedand the top 70 open programmes in2014. For the third year running, thesame schools top the rankings: DukeCorporate Education in the customisedcategory and IMD in the open table.

Executive education offers non-degree programmes to corporationsand working managers. Programmesare open (available to all) or customised(tailor-made for an organisation). Therankings are based on participants’and clients’ satisfaction, the diversityof participants and faculty, and theschool’s international exposure.

Duke Corporate Education topsthe customised ranking for the 12thconsecutive year. HEC Paris is secondfor the sixth year running, and Iese ofSpain is third for the third year. HECParis was fairly close behind Duke,coming first in four of the criteriajudged by customers.

Duke’s corporate customers praisethe school’s relationship with clients.Suzanne McAndrew, vice-presidentin charge of talent management atAmerican Express, says: “Duke ensuredthat we deliver the right return oninvestment on this programme andcontinues to evolve the design tomatch our short-term and long-termleadership needs.”

In the open ranking, IMDSwitzerland improved further itsperformance in the participantsurvey. It is ranked first in three of thecorporate criteria and within the topfive for another six criteria. The schoolis also ranked in the top five for thediversity of its participants and faculty.

Chicago Booth climbed three placesto second, while Darden BusinessSchool at the University of Virginiarose furthest, climbing 11 places to rankjoint third with HEC Paris.

Executives who attended IMD’sprogramme went through an intensive


24

Bigger and better: the 2014 rankingIn their ownwords –what theparticipants thought

Participant and corporate customer ratings (out of 10)

Source: FT executive education rankings 2014

Preparation

Course design

Teachingmethods&materialsFaculty

Newskills and learning

Follow-up

Aims achieved

Facilities

Value formoneyn.a.

8.99.09.09.18.98.29.18.9

8.99.08.99.18.78.38.9

8.69.1

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different

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world

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open

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relevant

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fantastic

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teachers

recommend

amazing

academic

curr

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highlyrecommend

exceeded

interaction

lecturers

worldclass

improve

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attending

challenging

challenges

truly

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helpfulinsights

ideas

critical

positive

unique

interesting

insight

changing

wonderful

change

exceptional

professionallyunderstand

absolutely

position

corporate

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25

self-assessment process, which oneparticipant compares with “brainsurgery”. The quality of the teachingand participants is particularlyappreciated: “The programme provideda stimulating, energetic, and positiveenvironment with [similar] fellowstudents in which you can get the bestout of yourself,” says Rob de Vries, vice-president of Europe Marine Control, anelectrical engineering company.

Some 41 per cent of customers areconsidering increasing their spendingon executive education over the nextthree years –up 4 percentage points onthe last ranking. Revenues from openprogrammes are also up on average,

with three in five schoolsperforming better in 2013than in 2012.

A high level ofsatisfaction in both groupsencourages loyalty to theirtraining providers. Ninetyper cent of corporatecustomers are likely toreuse the same school forthe same programme and

95 per cent are likely to contact theschool for new programmes. Openprogrammes have on average morethan 50 per cent of repeat business.

The quality of professors is ratedhighest of the categories by open andcustomised course participants, withan average score of 9.1 out of 10. Bothgroups also agree that follow-up is thepoorest-performing aspect of executiveeducation, giving it a rating of 8.2 and8.3 respectively.

Client companies, which are possiblymore demanding than individuals,rated “aims achieved” at 8.9, slightlylower than open participants at 9.1.“New skills and learning” also scoresslightly lower at 8.7 compared with 8.9.

Comments on both types ofprogramme also reflect a high levelof satisfaction. Many participantsreported the course as a life- or career-changing experience, while corporatecustomers also praise their impact.

LaurentOrtmans

Thequalityoffaculty is ratedhighestbybothopenandcustomisedparticipants

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three years(%)

Schools' percentage changein revenues fromopenprogrammesNumber of schools

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RANKINGSInteractiverankingsatwww.ft.com/rankings

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rankings

26


Financial Times Executive Education 2014

➔The top 70openprogrammeprovidersParticipant Survey

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1 1 1 1 IMD Switzerland 4 4 2 3 2 1 7 1 5 12 5 6 4 University of Chicago: Booth US/UK/Singapore 1 1 4 2 13 2 8 5 3 33= 7 9 6 HEC Paris France 7 10 6 14 15 3 5 10 24 113= 14 5 7 University of Virginia: Darden US 3 2 1 1 14 6 23 2 2 25 6 10 7 Insead France/Singapore/UAE 11 6 5 7 3 13 17 6 23 46= 2 4 4 Iese Business School Spain 21 17 21 21 28 11 4 12 12 96= 4 2 4 Harvard Business School US 8 15 3 4 4 7 15 3 9 78 8 11 9 Stanford Graduate School of Business US 5 12 15 6 1 12 16 4 1 59= 9 12 10 Esade Business School Spain 25 19 27 26 32 15 1 27 14 129= 16 14 13 Center for Creative Leadership US/Belgium/Singapore/Russia 13 5 7 5 16 9 9 8 16 1011 10 16 12 University of Michigan: Ross US 12 8 10 8 6 10 12 9 6 812 19 7 13 Essec Business School France/Singapore 16 18 13 25 18 4 2 16 43 1513 12 8 11 London Business School UK 17 27 22 16 7 21 19 13 13 1914 3 3 7 Thunderbird School of Global Management US 18 13 16 11 11 23 30 22 36 2515 12 15 14 University of Oxford: Saïd UK 26 24 20 17 10 19 14 14 19 1416 18 22 19 Northwestern University: Kellogg US 19 7 9 13 12 20 31 17 8 1317 26 - - Washington University: Olin US 2 3 8 9 17 8 13 7 4 1818 16 13 16 ESMT - European School of Mgt and Technology Germany 14 28 14 18 20 40 11 15 15 619 11 20 17 University of Pennsylvania: Wharton US 20 23 24 19 5 25 22 18 7 1720= 15 19 18 University of Toronto: Rotman Canada 6 11 18 10 24 5 25 11 28 5920= - 26 - UCLA: Anderson US 24 9 12 15 19 16 34 23 35 3122 22 18 21 Western University: Ivey Canada 15 14 25 12 26 37 35 20 11 2423 23 17 21 Fundação Dom Cabral Brazil 10 21 19 30 44 17 21 19 18 2024 28 28 27 Kaist College of Business South Korea 9 20 17 28 40 14 3 26 38 1625 21 23 23 Columbia Business School US 31 16 23 22 9 30 20 28 45 3826 25 24 25 Cranfield School of Management UK 27 25 26 24 22 26 6 25 21 2227 20 30 26 University of St Gallen Switzerland 22 33 11 20 29 27 32 21 20 2328 24 27 26 Queen's School of Business Canada 35 29 29 29 31 41 18 29 10 2129 29 29 29 Ceibs China 23 30 35 36 33 22 28 37 40 2830 27 21 26 MIT: Sloan US 36 39 30 23 8 43 59 36 26 2631= 30 32 31 SDA Bocconi Italy 43 31 37 34 51 36 10 35 39 2731= 40 39 37 Henley Business School UK 40 22 28 27 25 28 49 30 37 5833 31 35 33 Ashridge UK 32 40 36 32 21 48 29 34 27 4234 35 32 34 Universidad de los Andes Colombia 28 36 32 40 42 18 43 32 47 3235 32 24 30 IE Business School Spain 42 38 56 46 30 32 37 53 32 2936 41 41 39 Vlerick Business School Belgium 37 35 33 41 45 34 24 33 44 3937 36 42 38 Stockholm School of Economics Sweden/Russia/Latvia 30 37 34 37 56 29 26 24 30 5038 38 32 36 Insper Brazil 38 34 31 38 61 31 63 42 34 4339 45 36 40 York University: Schulich Canada 33 32 41 35 27 49 65 48 42 4140 42 51 44 Católica-Lisbon School of Business and Economics Portugal 34 43 44 43 50 50 42 47 25 4041 34 37 37 ESCP Europe France/UK/Germany/Spain/Italy 54 45 49 49 35 42 40 40 51 3442 43 47 44 University of Pretoria, Gibs South Africa 29 47 40 42 41 44 41 50 31 3043= 33 31 36 Melbourne Business School, Mt Eliza Australia 46 42 42 31 34 51 38 44 46 5343= 43 46 44 Incae Business School Costa Rica/Nicaragua 55 58 51 52 23 39 62 46 50 4645 37 40 41 NHH Norway 53 26 38 39 64 35 46 31 17 5146 47 49 47 Edhec Business School France 50 55 46 53 48 38 33 39 59 3347 38 38 41 IAE Business School Argentina 41 52 57 47 52 59 48 51 22 3548 48 50 49 Nyenrode Business Universiteit Netherlands 44 48 43 50 58 33 36 41 49 4449 51 61 54 University of British Columbia: Sauder Canada 47 46 50 44 36 62 39 52 29 5650= 45 44 46 Australian School of Business (AGSM) Australia 51 41 39 33 38 57 56 43 41 4750= 50 52 51 EMLyon Business School France 48 51 52 48 43 46 45 45 64 3652 49 42 48 Aalto University Finland/Singapore 39 44 48 54 55 45 54 38 52 5553= 63 - - Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore India 49 49 45 45 63 24 60 55 33 3753= - - - Xiamen University School of Management China 45 59 55 63 39 54 27 63 54 4555 55 54 55 Lagos Business School Nigeria 56 54 62 59 62 58 53 57 53 4856 60 59 58 Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management Belgium 52 50 47 56 37 60 58 49 57 5757 61 65 61 Eada Business School Barcelona Spain 64 57 64 57 54 53 50 60 56 4958 59 58 58 Grenoble Graduate School of Business France 69 64 63 62 49 61 51 62 66 5259 54 - - Saint Paul Escola de Negócios Brazil 58 53 53 51 65 47 55 54 67 6960 58 53 57 Nova School of Business and Economics Portugal 60 56 58 55 59 55 44 58 48 6761 56 62 60 USB Executive Development South Africa 57 60 54 58 47 52 67 56 62 6562 62 55 60 Wits Business School South Africa 61 61 59 64 60 56 70 59 60 6263 57 56 59 Tilburg University, TiasNimbas Netherlands 62 62 60 60 67 67 68 61 55 7064 68 - - Porto Business School Portugal 59 63 61 68 69 65 52 64 58 6365 66 62 64 Centrum Católica Peru 70 70 70 67 68 63 64 68 65 6066 - - - University of Alberta Canada 66 65 67 61 46 69 61 66 63 5467 70 - - Kedge Business School France 63 69 66 69 53 68 57 65 68 6168 70 - - American University in Cairo School of Business Egypt 67 68 68 65 57 64 47 69 69 6669 - - - Fundação Instituto de Administração Brazil 68 67 65 70 66 66 66 67 70 6470 69 - - BI Norwegian Business School Norway 65 66 69 66 70 70 69 70 61 68tables:CaIt

lIN

ClaNCY


Key: open enrolment programmes

27

the course encouraged new waysof thinking.Follow-up (7.3): level of follow-upoffered by the school after participantsreturned to their workplaces, andnetworking opportunities with fellowparticipants.Aims achieved (8.6): extent towhich personal and professionalexpectations were met, and thelikelihood that participants wouldrecommend the programme.Food and accommodation (6.6): ratingof their quality.Facilities (7.5): rating of the learningenvironment’s quality and convenience,and of supporting resources andfacilities.Female participants (2.0):percentage of female courseparticipants.International participants (3.0):amalgamation of the percentageof participants from outside thebusiness school’s base countryand region.Repeat business and growth (5.0):amalgamation of growth in revenuesand percentage of repeat business.International location (3.0):extent to which programmes arerun outside the school’s base countryand region.Partner schools (3.0): quantity andquality of programmes taught inconjunction with other businessschools.Faculty diversity (4.0): diversity ofschool faculty according to nationalityand gender.Open-enrolment revenues: incomefrom open programmes in 2013 in$m, provided optionally by schools.Revenues are converted into Us$ usingthe average dollar currency exchangerates for 2013.

Footnotes†These data are provided for information only. For schools whose main headquarters are outside the US, figures are basedon average dollar currency exchange rates for 2013. *Includes revenue from food. **Includes revenue from food andaccommodation. ***Aggregate total for open and customised programmes.Although the headline ranking figures show changes in the data year to year, the pattern of clustering among the schools isequally significant. Some 300 points separate the top school from the school ranked number 70. The top 11 schools, from IMDto University of Michigan: Ross, form the elite group of providers of open enrolment programmes. The second group runsfrom Essec Business School to Eada Business School Barcelona, ranked 57. Some 150 points separate these two schools. Thethird group is headed by Grenoble Graduate School of Business.

the first 10 criteria are supplied byprogramme participants; the nextsix from each business school. thesecriteria are presented in rank form, withthe leading school ranked number one(apart from women participants, whichare shown as a percentage). Revenuedata are provided for information onlyand do not inform the ranking.

Figures in brackets show the weighteach criterion contributes to the overallranking, as determined by participantson the programmes. the weightingaccorded to the first 10 criteria, frompreparation to facilities, accounts for 80per cent of the total ranking’s weight. Itis determined by the level of importanceparticipants attach to each.

Preparation (7.7): provision ofadvance information on programmecontent, and the participant selectionprocess.Course design (8.6): flexibility of thecourse and appropriateness of classsize, structure and design.Teaching methods and materials (8.3):extent to which teaching methodsand materials were contemporary andappropriate, and included a suitablemix of academic rigour and practicalrelevance.Faculty (8.7): quality of the teachingand the extent to which teaching staffworked together to present a coherentprogramme.Quality of participants (8.0):extent to which other participantswere of the appropriate managerial andacademic standard, the internationaldiversity of participants, and thequality of interaction among peers.New skills and learning (8.7): relevanceof skills gained to the workplace,the ease with which they wereimplemented, and the extent to which

Business school survey

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21% 2 20 40 34 2 - 121% 20 22 44 42 39 - 244% 5 13 3 25 6 - 341% 39 7 63 60 45 5.1** 319% 1 25 18 8 4 - 546% 17 12 1 2 1 - 622% 4 40 28 11 22 147.0*** 626% 7 43 51 32 29 - 836% 21 9 2 1 8 - 938% 24 32 12 38 41 - 932% 13 61 5 39 47 - 1146% 28 44 11 26 21 - 1226% 6 29 38 9 12 - 1359% 23 24 7 37 5 - 1427% 3 36 14 14 25 - 1538% 22 14 42 47 59 - 1648% 45 70 60 60 70 - 1725% 35 30 59 40 3 - 1828% 18 45 44 19 40 - 1949% 49 41 39 50 24 - 2046% 33 57 44 41 17 - 2032% 44 11 8 52 37 - 2240% 31 49 26 4 32 - 2323% 67 38 16 17 69 - 2435% 8 53 34 57 20 - 2527% 37 56 69 60 31 - 2630% 40 67 27 20 23 18.4 2734% 59 31 20 58 35 - 2829% 42 48 21 12 9 - 2918% 11 27 65 44 50 12.1 3038% 38 62 56 23 19 - 3140% 32 33 32 60 42 - 3137% 25 42 62 60 34 7.4** 3340% 30 64 36 6 57 - 3436% 16 26 25 21 10 - 3533% 53 37 53 33 28 10.8 3644% 55 23 51 48 57 - 3738% 47 3 68 22 36 - 3843% 41 52 30 15 7 - 3947% 26 35 29 30 33 5.9 4048% 9 47 17 24 27 - 4142% 50 54 41 49 49 - 4233% 34 46 47 31 30 - 4345% 12 10 4 18 10 - 4336% 51 58 9 60 54 - 4516% 10 8 6 60 51 - 4627% 15 28 15 5 43 - 4728% 61 17 61 53 52 11.1** 4849% 64 16 56 60 15 - 4945% 52 55 66 60 38 - 5037% 27 51 19 13 13 - 5056% 43 59 37 35 53 4.1* 5217% 63 69 55 46 61 4.5** 5332% 62 18 22 16 68 7.6* 5331% 56 1 49 27 48 5.5* 5534% 29 39 56 54 55 - 5641% 14 34 31 29 26 - 5743% 19 6 10 7 16 9.1 5837% 69 2 69 55 60 - 5943% 36 68 24 60 46 2.2* 6044% 65 50 23 45 67 - 6142% 58 5 63 36 17 4.7* 6239% 46 19 35 60 65 - 6345% 48 65 54 55 63 - 6449% 60 21 13 3 14 - 6545% 68 66 43 43 56 - 6643% 57 60 49 28 44 - 6736% 70 63 33 51 62 - 6846% 66 15 67 10 64 19.9* 6949% 54 4 48 59 66 4.5* 70

rankings


28

➔ The top80customisedprogrammeproviders (cont. over)


tables:CaIt

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Top for international clients

Rank Business school

1 MIT: Sloan

2 Insead

3 Thunderbird School of Global Mgt

4 Iese Business School

5 Harvard Business School

6 IAE Business School

7 Incae Business School

8 Esade Business School

9 Henley Business School

10 Duke Corporate Education

Top for international participants


1 Center for Creative Leadership

2 Ashridge


4 ESCP Europe

5 IMD



8 Insead

9 Cranfield School of Management

10 London Business School

Top for overseas programmes



2 Ashridge

3 London Business School


5 EMLyon Business School


7 Aalto University


9 Mannheim Business School

10 Essec Business School

Corporate survey


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1 1 1 1 Duke Corporate Education US/UK/South Africa 1 2 1 1 4 13 3 4 2 52 2 2 2 HEC Paris France 2 1 2 3 1 2 1 18 1 63 3 3 3 Iese Business School Spain 4 3 4 5 7 9 4 2 7 34 5 6 5 Center for Creative Leadership US/Belgium/Singapore/Russia 5 6 3 11 3 10 8 5 15 105 6 7 6 IMD Switzerland 15 15 6 8 10 22 10 6 13 306 4 4 5 Esade Business School Spain 21 25 22 23 20 12 26 10 20 127 8 15 10 Cranfield School of Management UK 9 8 10 14 21 7 16 36 10 248 10 20 13 Stanford Graduate School of Business US 3 7 9 2 8 80 2 9 4 29= 8 13 10 University of North Carolina: Kenan-Flagler US 8 4 8 4 5 31 6 8 3 89= 17 27 18 London Business School UK 12 13 15 6 16 27 13 49 22 2011 15 23 16 SDA Bocconi Italy 11 14 11 21 9 3 18 20 9 1712 - - - Mannheim Business School Germany 20 22 5 7 17 6 11 65 6 113 12 18 14 Ipade Mexico 7 5 7 9 2 76 5 1 5 414 14 10 13 IE Business School Spain 6 20 14 17 13 1 37 69 12 915 17 21 18 University of Chicago: Booth US/UK/Singapore 13 9 17 20 11 23 22 11 11 1416 11 11 13 Ashridge UK 25 23 19 25 32 15 24 17 38 3217 34 - - Georgetown University: McDonough US 14 19 16 27 12 47 27 14 21 3618 13 9 13 Harvard Business School US 19 33 12 12 23 66 7 12 17 2319= 7 13 13 Babson Executive Education US 17 17 21 16 22 18 25 34 18 1619= 23 26 23 Edhec Business School France 10 12 13 10 6 33 15 3 8 1821 22 16 20 Insead France/Singapore/UAE 32 36 26 19 30 48 20 16 32 3922 19 21 21 Thunderbird School of Global Management US 22 30 20 22 27 30 12 30 27 3323 19 12 18 University of Oxford: Saïd UK 16 10 18 18 18 40 9 50 25 4124 41 - - Washington University: Olin US/China 18 11 23 15 15 52 14 13 16 725 32 - - Essec Business School France/Singapore 34 21 35 32 14 25 23 29 28 2526 21 17 21 University of Pennsylvania: Wharton US 48 50 28 26 28 39 19 25 42 2727 16 8 17 Fundação Dom Cabral Brazil 24 16 30 31 25 17 36 23 43 2228 40 36 35 Northwestern University: Kellogg US 30 18 48 30 19 74 17 26 35 2129 31 34 31 Stockholm School of Economics Sweden/Russia/Latvia 35 27 41 43 43 42 21 41 31 2630 51 - - Carnegie Mellon: Tepper US 27 31 29 44 38 49 39 46 14 1531 55 60 49 MIT: Sloan US 23 26 25 36 24 67 28 22 45 5432 24 32 29 University of Virginia: Darden US 29 28 24 24 33 43 31 27 23 5333 53 55 47 University of Michigan: Ross US 51 57 32 13 42 26 30 42 41 1934 - 39 - Ceibs China 26 41 38 40 34 45 50 53 29 2935 35 34 35 Kelley Executive Partners at Indiana University US 42 29 33 41 29 11 34 54 19 4736 26 33 32 UCLA: Anderson US 46 42 39 45 36 24 48 37 34 4337 28 19 28 Columbia Business School US 39 24 46 33 39 41 33 39 48 4538 43 45 42 Vlerick Business School Belgium 45 38 49 42 46 36 32 58 44 3139 29 25 31 IAE Business School Argentina 40 55 40 39 55 69 54 7 54 1340 39 46 42 Melbourne Business School, Mt Eliza Australia 33 40 34 35 44 8 40 44 46 65


29

the first 10 criteria are supplied bycompanies that commissioned courses;the last five by business schools. thesecriteria are presented in rank form,with the leading school ranked numberone. the final two criteria are forinformation only, and do not informthe ranking. Figures in brackets showthe weight each criterion contributesto the overall ranking. the weightingaccorded to the first nine criteria,from preparation to value for money,accounts for 72 per cent of the totalranking’s weight. It is determined bythe level of importance that clientsattach to each.

Preparation (8.3): level of interactionbetween client and school, the extent towhich clients’ ideas were integrated intoprogrammes, and effectiveness of theschool in integrating its latest research.Programme design (8.4): flexibilityof the course and the willingness ofschools to complement their facultywith specialists and practitioners.Teaching methods and materials (8.0):extent to which teaching methodsand materials were contemporaryand appropriate, and included a mixof academic rigour and practicalrelevance.Faculty (8.5): quality of teaching and theextent to which faculty worked togetherto present a coherent programme.New skills and learning (8.4):relevance to the workplace of skillsgained, the ease with which they wereimplemented, and the extent to whichthe course encouraged new thinking.Follow-up (6.8): extent and effectivenessof follow-up offered after the courseparticipants returned to theirworkplaces.

Aims achieved (8.6): extent to whichacademic and business expectationswere met, and the quality of feedbackfrom individual participants to coursecommissioners.Facilities (7.0): rating of the learningenvironment’s quality and convenience,and of supporting resources andfacilities.Value for money (8.0): clients’ rating ofthe programme’s design, teaching andmaterials in terms of value for money.Future use (8.0): likelihood that clientswould use the same school again forother customised programmes andwhether they would commission againthe same programme from the school.International clients (5.0): percentageof clients with headquarters outsidethe business school’s base countryand region.International participants (3.0): extentto which customised programmeshave participants frommore thanone country.Overseas programmes (4.0):international reach of the school’scustomised programme teaching.Partner schools (3.0): quantity andquality of programmes developed ortaught with other business schools.Faculty diversity (5.0): according tonationality and gender.Total responses: number of individualsurveys completed by the school’sclients. Figures in brackets indicate thenumber of years of survey data countedtowards the ranking.Custom revenues: income fromcustomised programmes in 2013 in$m, provided optionally by schools.Revenues are converted into Us$ usingthe average dollar currency exchangerates for 2013.

Key: customisedprogrammes

Footnotes† These data are provided for information only. For schools whose main headquarters are outside the US, figures are basedon average dollar currency exchange rates for 2013. ‡ The first figure refers to the number of individual surveys completedby clients of the school. The figure in brackets indicates the number of years of survey data included in this ranking. Dataare retained for schools that participated in 2013 or 2012 but did not make the final ranking. *Includes revenue from food.**Includes revenue from food and accommodation. ***Aggregate total for open and customised programmes. Although theheadline ranking shows changes in the data year to year, the pattern of clustering is also significant. About 365 points separatethe top school from the one ranked 80th. The top 13 business schools, from Duke CE to Ipade, form the top group of customproviders. The second group is led by IE Business School and the third by USB Executive Development. The top and bottomschools in the second group are separated by 160 points; in the third group there is a 100-point gap between top and bottom.

Top for partner schools





4 University of Pennsylvania: Wharton

5 Stockholm School of Economics

6 SDA Bocconi


8 Porto Business School

9 Rotterdam School of Mgt, Erasmus Uni

10 Babson Executive Education


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10 3 6 2 14 45(3) - 121 11 16 47 4 46(3) - 24 6 8 3 1 46(3) - 346 1 31 28 27 25(3) - 415 5 29 25 2 54(3) - 58 7 4 1 8 35(3) - 624 9 1 7 44 50(3) - 720 40 67 71 37 15(3) - 874 51 51 74 49 22(3) 19.5** 912 10 3 18 6 56(3) - 932 38 45 6 20 46(3) - 1170 26 9 74 74 6(1) - 1240 74 76 49 77 34(3) - 1339 24 58 67 11 45(3) - 1413 17 30 74 66 40(3) - 1530 2 2 19 12 42(3) 34.3** 1611 33 17 15 18 19(2) 5.4* 175 22 47 50 26 66(3) 147.0*** 1823 61 41 10 47 31(3) - 1979 69 53 74 76 24(3) - 192 8 25 20 3 39(3) - 213 35 24 63 15 37(3) - 2233 28 18 68 33 49(3) - 2368 70 50 52 78 11(2) - 2443 25 10 24 28 22(2) - 2516 14 19 4 57 41(3) - 2667 47 65 37 32 36(3) - 2736 31 23 13 62 20(3) - 2847 16 12 5 56 26(3) - 2926 20 36 51 55 17(2) - 301 37 32 48 59 29(3) 18.8* 3156 52 39 27 65 49(3) 11.7** 3216 59 36 39 63 30(3) - 3325 66 72 38 7 31(2) - 3476 42 20 31 50 28(3) - 3535 36 21 33 22 33(3) - 3614 34 76 23 37 23(3) - 3751 13 11 16 30 46(3) 8.1 386 12 57 58 54 39(3) - 3978 57 27 40 39 46(3) - 40

rankings


30

➔ The top80customisedprogrammeproviders (continued.)


Methodology➔ How the executive educationprogramme rankingswere compiled. ByLaurent Ortmans

For the 16th year, the Ft hasranked the world’s leadingproviders of executiveeducation programmes,non-degree courses for

companies and working managers.the first ranking (pages 26-27)

evaluates the top 70 open-enrolmentcourses: courses on specific topicssuch as leadership that are directedto all professionals regardless of thecompany they work for. the secondranking (pages 28-31) is of the top 80business schools that offer customisedprogrammes tailored to the needs of

the organisations that commissionthem. a third ranking (Upfront, page 7)combines the two to appraise the top 50schools in the executive education fieldthat feature in both the other rankings.

Participating schools must beinternationally accredited and haveearned revenues of at least $2m in2013 from their open or customisedprogrammes, respectively. this year, atotal of 95 schools took part.

the open-enrolment ranking iscompiled using data from providersand individuals that completed theirnominated management programmes

in 2013. schools submit one or twogeneral courses of at least three days inlength, and one or two advanced coursesof at least five days.

at least 20 per cent of theseprogrammes’ participants must completethe Ft survey, with a minimum of 20responses, for a school to feature in thefinal ranking of 70 providers.

about 6,500 participants answeredthis year’s survey, a 40 per cent responserate, rating elements of their programmeon a 10-point scale. Responses byadvanced and general-level participantsare collated separately and then

Corporate survey


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41 27 28 32 EMLyon Business School France 56 51 44 50 48 59 42 68 61 1142 46 58 49 University of Toronto: Rotman Canada 36 34 31 34 45 34 29 60 26 5843 49 51 48 University of St Gallen Switzerland 31 43 51 46 40 60 43 15 57 5544 24 5 24 Boston University School of Management US 41 45 50 38 37 78 38 33 47 5945 33 30 36 Western University: Ivey Canada/China 50 35 45 28 47 64 52 32 33 4046 - - - Xiamen University School of Management China 28 32 27 47 35 5 49 47 30 6947= 56 - - Emory University: Goizueta US 52 58 47 29 26 53 35 35 36 6047= 58 - - Universidad de los Andes Colombia 43 48 37 49 31 32 60 28 37 3549 - - - Renmin University of China School of Business China 47 59 36 52 57 4 45 57 24 7250 44 38 44 Henley Business School UK 53 37 43 48 52 14 51 63 50 5751 30 24 35 ESMT - European School of Mgt and Technology Germany 38 44 54 37 56 55 41 21 51 4652 36 29 39 Insper Brazil 44 54 60 60 59 37 57 19 40 4953 52 42 49 University of Pretoria, Gibs South Africa 55 52 52 54 58 56 46 38 58 3454 41 50 48 Aalto University Finland/Singapore 60 49 42 53 41 54 44 55 39 6455 63 54 57 Incae Business School Costa Rica/Nicaragua 63 56 55 55 53 75 61 31 64 4256 38 31 42 ESCP Europe France/UK/Germany/Spain/Italy 64 60 63 59 54 70 53 52 55 5157 37 40 45 York University: Schulich Canada 54 53 56 57 49 16 47 61 52 7058 48 40 49 University of Texas at Austin: McCombs US 62 46 58 56 50 62 55 43 49 5659 45 42 49 Australian School of Business (AGSM) Australia 37 47 53 51 51 19 56 79 53 7660 - - - Imperial College Business School UK 49 39 59 64 62 77 59 56 69 3761 54 48 54 Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics Portugal 61 68 61 58 60 51 58 51 59 4462 - - - Manchester Business School UK 57 65 62 73 66 38 62 40 63 6663 59 64 62 Porto Business School Portugal 59 61 66 61 67 21 67 64 70 4864 65 65 65 University of Cape Town GSB South Africa 58 64 72 72 61 57 74 67 67 2865 50 37 51 Politecnico di Milano School of Management Italy 65 66 73 62 63 20 63 70 56 6166 66 62 65 Eada Business School Barcelona Spain 67 70 57 67 68 46 71 72 65 5067 47 46 53 Tilburg University, TiasNimbas Netherlands 68 63 65 63 65 44 66 75 60 3868 64 57 63 USB Executive Development South Africa 76 74 71 76 74 28 68 24 62 5269 68 63 67 Irish Management Institute Ireland 74 69 67 69 73 35 73 59 73 6370 - - - QUT Business School Australia 69 71 69 65 64 50 64 48 78 7371 67 69 69 NHH Norway 70 72 68 66 71 63 65 n/a 66 6872 56 51 60 Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Netherlands 73 62 70 68 69 71 72 77 68 7573 - 48 - Nova School of Business and Economics Portugal 71 67 64 71 75 79 69 62 74 6274 60 53 62 Grenoble Graduate School of Business France 77 76 76 74 70 68 70 73 75 7475 62 56 64 Universidad Adolfo Ibañez Chile 72 75 74 75 76 61 76 74 79 6776 - 70 - Nyenrode Business Universiteit Netherlands 75 73 77 77 72 29 75 76 76 7177 - - - University of Alberta Canada 66 78 78 70 79 58 78 71 72 7978 - - - Wits Business School South Africa 78 77 75 80 78 73 79 78 71 7879 70 66 72 BI Norwegian Business School Norway 79 79 79 78 77 65 77 66 77 7780 - - - Skema Business School France 80 80 80 79 80 72 80 80 80 80


31

design type: strategic – deliveredto top management and designedto influence a company’s direction;General – delivered to managementon operational aspects of a company;or Functional – related to a specificfunction, such as marketing.

Client responses are weightedaccording to programme type. strategicprogrammes have the highest weightingand so the greatest impact on theranking. Responses are also weightedby the seniority of the individualresponsible for specifying the course,the size of the client organisation, andthe number of schools with which thatclient has commissioned customisedcourses in the past three years.

the survey was completed by 1,100business school clients thisyear, 55 per cent of thoseinvited. each ratedtheir programmeon a range ofindicators using a10-point scale.

their answersdirectly informthe first 10 ofthe ranking’scriteria – fromcourse preparationto value for moneyand future use – whichaccount for a combined80 per cent of the ranking’sweight. the last five criteria,calculated from information providedby schools, evaluate the extent towhich they are internationally diversein terms of course provision andnationality of clients and participants,as well as faculty diversity.

For both rankings, informationcollected in the preceding two years

is used, where available, to calculatecriteria informed by client andparticipant responses. If a school hasparticipated for the past three years,the weighting is 40:33:27, with 2014data counting for 40 per cent. If twoyears of information is available, theweighting is 55:45, with 2014 datacarrying 55 per cent.

the weights accorded to the firstnine criteria in the custom and first 10in the open rankings are determinedby the level of importance clients andparticipants attach to each in their2013 surveys. Ranking weights forthese criteria thus vary slightly fromyear to year. the weights of criteriainformed by school surveys remainunchanged from year to year, however.

Z-scores – formulae thatreflect the range of scores

between the top andbottom school – arecalculated foreach criterion.these scoresare weighted,as outlined inthe keys, andaggregated.schools areranked according

to these finalaggregated scores for

both rankings.schools that feature in

both rankings are eligible for thecombined overall ranking. the top 50schools are calculated according toan equal weighting of the total scoresachieved in both rankings, rather thanan average of ranking positions.

Judith Pizer of Jeff Head Associatesacted as the FT’s database consultant

Footnotes† These data are provided for information only. For schools whosemain headquarters are outside the US, figures are basedon average dollar currency exchange rates for 2013. ‡ The first figure refers to the number of individual surveys completedby clients of the school. The figure in brackets indicates the number of years of survey data included in this ranking. Dataare retained for schools that participated in 2013 or 2012 but did not make the final ranking. *Includes revenue from food.**Includes revenue from food and accommodation. ***Aggregate total for open and customised programmes. Although theheadline ranking shows changes in the data year to year, the pattern of clustering is also significant. About 365 points separatethe top school from the one ranked 80th. The top 13 business schools, from Duke CE to Ipade, form the top group of customproviders. The second group is led by IE Business School and the third by USB Executive Development. The top and bottomschools in the second group are separated by 160 points; in the third group there is a 100-point gap between top and bottom.

combined with equal weighting tocalculate the first 10 ranking criteria.

these criteria, which include thequality of course design and teachingand the extent to which expectationswere met, inform 80 per cent of theranking. school data are used tocalculate the remaining criteria.

the ranking of customised courseproviders is compiled using data fromthe business schools themselves andfrom organisations that commissionedcourses in 2013. these clients,nominated by the school, completean online questionnaire about theirprogramme. For a school to remaineligible for the final ranking of thetop 80 providers, at least five of theirclients must complete the Ft survey.

Clients select one of three optionsto categorise their programme’s

OnlineViewaninteractive tableof this year’sresults alongwith pastFTbusinesseducationrankings . Go towww.ft.com/rankings


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34 15 5 42 13 32(3) - 4158 79 76 46 42 20(3) - 4250 27 14 62 36 42(3) 5.8* 4321 19 36 29 43 29(3) - 4448 53 76 74 23 28(3) - 4580 80 76 35 80 8(1) 3.4 4640 30 56 65 75 11(2) - 4753 72 69 45 67 25(2) - 4757 65 61 30 46 7(1) 9.6 499 43 43 73 64 40(3) - 5063 23 44 70 34 53(3) - 5154 76 39 14 25 29(3) - 5245 45 26 17 61 46(3) - 5365 39 7 74 71 32(3) 5.7 547 54 47 66 5 21(3) - 5529 4 15 41 17 46(3) - 5660 50 75 53 16 33(3) - 5718 77 55 22 69 25(3) - 5872 44 70 12 9 28(3) - 5937 29 32 21 10 12(1) - 6038 46 47 56 34 47(3) 4.9 6119 58 68 72 48 17(2) - 6264 63 62 8 70 82(3) - 6328 62 59 11 41 22(3) - 6431 68 35 60 79 39(3) - 6559 32 74 36 21 46(3) - 6675 48 46 34 60 37(3) - 6742 60 66 74 52 30(3) - 6844 49 42 32 45 43(3) - 6952 73 60 55 31 22(2) 5.5* 7066 75 64 54 73 31(3) - 7162 18 34 9 51 43(3) - 7248 55 63 69 53 26(2) 2.6* 7355 41 22 44 29 46(3) 3.6* 7427 21 52 57 58 27(3) - 7569 67 73 59 68 56(3) 8.9** 7677 78 71 61 40 9(1) 4.0* 7761 71 13 26 18 7(1) 3.6* 7873 64 27 43 72 53(3) 16.7* 7971 56 54 64 24 31(3) 2.9 80

tables:CaIt

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reportWomenonboards, p34

Taking thenext stepup

The gender agenda

33

Ashort coursehelpedDivya

KeshavkeepherDelhi company

on track

photos:tom

pie

trasik

;rosie

hallam

Developing economies, p37

Pushing theboundaries

➔ Fromexecutive education’s role in gettingmorewomen into senior positions to giving smallbusiness owners and entrepreneurs in developing economies the skills theyneed to thrive

PHOTOS:ROSIE

HALLAM

report

Getting women on board


34

➔Business schools havea role toplay in thedrive to get female executives to the top. ByEmmaBoyde

Susan Vinnicombe isexasperated. The professorof women and leadershipat Cranfield School ofManagement in the UK is

tired of hearing that women lack theconfidence to make it to the very top.

“Women do not lack confidence.I get angry when I see it framed in thatway. What they lack is leadership self-efficacy,” she says.

This lack of belief in their suitabilityfor specific senior leadership roles– and reluctance to put themselvesforward for them – is what manybusiness schools are trying to addresswith their provision of training forwomen on boards.

There is a tangible sense that thingsare on the move. More than 10 yearshave passed since Norway made waveswith the introduction of an ambitiousmandatory quota of 40 per cent forwomen on the boards of its largestcompanies. While its move sparkedfurious debate, Norway has also gainedquite a few imitators, especially inEurope where a 40 per cent quota hasbeen proposed for the whole of theEuropean Union.

“Europe continues to be a leaderon this issue,” writes law firm PaulHastings in its annual report on thisissue: Breaking the Glass Ceiling:Women in the Boardroom. “2013showed the highest year-on-yearchange recorded to date in the averagenumber of women on boards of largecorporations in EU member states.”

Its latest report, published inSeptember last year, also notesincreasing activity elsewhere in theworld. By 2013 more than 50 citiesin mainland China had adopted localrules implementing 2011 legislationrequiring an increase in representationof women on boards of public andprivate companies.

India was also addressing the issuewith legislation, while Australia andNew Zealand had adopted reporting

Early start:(below) SusanVinnicombehas runCranfield’sprogrammefor 25years

requirements on gender parity. Andeven in the US and Canada, wherethere was only marginal growth inthe percentage of women on companyboards, the issue was more oftenbeing discussed.

It is no surprise that the pastfew years have seen a flurry of newprogrammes being offered by business

schools aimed at preparing women forbeing on boards. One of the newest isDuke Corporate Education’s WomenLeading Africa.

It is a five-day programme whichlaunches in Namibia this month butwill also be run in Kenya and SouthAfrica in June. The experientialcourse will feature structures such

35

“This is being drivenat a government level,”explains Christine Robers,director of marketing forDuke CE.

Also about to launchis Wharton’s Women’sExecutive Leadership:Business Strategiesfor Success, a five-dayprogramme that will run in July.

“This is something we thoughtabout for a long time,” explains NancyRothbard, professor of management atWharton in Philadelphia. “We felt thatnow it’s the right time, because thereseems to be some kind of momentumaround these issues.”

Ruth Sacks, a senior lecturer atWestminster Business School in theUK, is also testing the waters.

Women for the Board, a six-daycourse aimed at women who are nomore than two steps away from theboard, is in its inaugural year.

She says the decision to launch thecourse was partly inspired by the 2011release of the UK’s first government-sponsored report called Women onBoards by Lord Davies.

The report led to the UK’s adoptionof a target for female representationon boards but also noted that barriersprevented women from rising to thehighest ranks in business.

Sacks says her marketing activitiesfor Westminster Business School hadalso revealed a need. “I asked womenwho are on boards what they wishedthey had known and that is where thecourse came from.”

Incae Business School, whosemain campuses are in Costa Rica andNicaragua, launched its Women’sExecutive Leadership Programme inDecember 2013 and is marketing thecourse, which runs at its Miami hub, towomen across Latin America.

All this must seem like old hat toProf Vinnicombe. “I was probably oneof the first. I have been running thisfor 25 years,” she says of Cranfield’sWomen as Leaders Programme.

Like the more recentprogrammes dedicatedto improving women’schances of getting on toboards, Women as Leadersis a women-only course.

“A lot of women do feelambivalent about comingon a women-only course,”says Prof Vinnicombe,

but she adds that they do appreciate itafterwards.

Nuria Chinchilla, professor ofmanaging people in organisations atIese in Spain, also canvasses womenon whether they want to be trainedin a single-sex environment beforethey begin the Mujeres en Consejos deAdministración, a women-onlyexecutive training course,in Spanish, that launchedthree years ago.

Prof Chinchilla saysshe can get more donemore quickly if nomen are present.

“At the end of everysession I ask them, wouldyou have preferredto be in a mixedsession or not.Usually, onlyone or two sayso at the end,although alarger groupvoice thatpreference atthe beginning.”

Whilebusinessschools haveobviouslyspotted anopportunity

‘A lot ofwomen feelambivalentabout comingon awomen-only course’

➤

MBAGYMIsanMBAright foryou?Findoutwithour interactiveworkouts atmbagym.ft.com

Newcourse:aWomen for theBoard sessionatWestminsterBusiness Schoolin theUK

as a simulated board room, an auditcommittee and a social and ethicscommittee. It starts in Namibiabecause the country has adopteda 50 per cent quota for women onboards, says Sharmla Chetty, regionalmanaging director for Africa for DukeCE. Its partner in delivering the coursewill be Namibia’s 50% Club.

Administración, a women-only

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RuthSacksaskedwomenonboardswhat theywished theyhadknownearlier

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it should be ensuredthat they all have equalinfluence on decisionmaking.

There has been alot of progress, butthere is clearly a longway to go.

“Most of thesewomen on the levelthat we’re workingat are working inmale-dominatedenvironments andthey begin to wonderif the reason they

are not being promoted is becausethey’re a woman,” says Cranfield’s ProfVinnicombe.

But Prof Van der Heyden believesthere is no excuse: “I’ve never met aboard that was looking for a femaledirector that couldn’t find a good one.”

in providing dedicated programmesto help more women get on to boards,some think women should participatein general leadership and boardprogrammes with men because it moreclosely mimics the real world.

Ludo Van der Heyden, who headsInsead’s International DirectorsProgramme, says: “I think you have totrain people in their real environments.If you want people on boards you needto train women with men.”

He says about 10 per cent ofprogramme participants were womenwhen he started running it in 2011.About a third of the latest cohort of 40participants are women.

“Research shows that women areover-mentored but under-sponsored.So this is the big frustration forwomen,” Prof Van der Heyden says.

“They go to courses. They network,but if people are not going to sponsor

Effective: NuriaChinchilla of Iesesays single-sexcourseswork

them, they will notsucceed.”

JimWestphal, chairof strategy of the RossSchool of Business inMichigan, which doesnot at present offer anywomen-only executivetraining courses,agrees. He thinksbusiness schools havea role to play educatingboards in general sothat male members seethe value in appointingmore women.

“There needs to be more training onwhat is effective decision making onboards,” he says, adding that an efficientboard should be representative of acompany’s market.

Board members, he believes, shouldbe selected for their expertise and then

Moreonwomenin businessFor a graphic on theprogress of seniorwomenaround theworld, go to:ft.com/women-globalFor general FTWomeninBusiness coverage,visit: ft.com/womenFor theWomen inBusiness – EmergingMarkets report, go to:ft.com/women-business

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When Divya keshavtook over the smallDelhi companyfounded by her fatherto prevent it from

closing, she did not feel fully preparedfor the responsibility.

krishna printernational, whichmakes self-adhesive labels, was atrisk because her father did not wantto continue investing in it when hisdaughters were pursuing other careersand there was no successor. Loath to lethis years of effort go to waste, keshavleft her job in 2008 and took the reins.

“When i took over the company,i did not have the business skillsor confidence to allow it to reachits potential,” she recalls. so shedecided to take a short executiveeducation programme developed byhyderabad’s indian school of Businessin partnership with the Goldmansachs 10,000 Women initiative, whichsupports female entrepreneurs indeveloping economies.

on the course keshav learnt skillssuch as creating a branding strategy fora small business and how to negotiatewith vendors and customers. she saysrevenues have since grown by morethan 100 per cent a year and she hasincreased her workforce by 25 per cent.

part of the appeal of the programmewas that classes were in Delhi. “oneof the reasons i chose the course wasbecause it was locally based,” keshavsays. “i didn’t have much time when icould travel away from the business.”

For those who can afford it, shortprogrammes overseas can also beworth the investment. Gigliola aycardi,Colombian co-founder of Bodytech, achain of gyms in Colombia, peru andChile, chose a leadership programmedeveloped by stanford Graduate schoolof Business and endeavor, a globalnon-profit organisation that supportsentrepreneurship.

For aycardi, the appeal was accessto technology expertise and the chance

to join a global cohort of like-mindedentrepreneurs. “it was good for meto do something new and to find outabout trends in management andleadership,” says aycardi. “and doingthis at stanford was great because ofthe it connections the school has.”

rena shalimar riyanto, managingher family’s logistics enterprise inindonesia and planning to start arestaurant business, also looked for acourse that would offer business skillsand a global network. she chose theentrepreneur’s Boot Camp offered byBabson College in massachusetts.

“so many industries andnationalities were represented,” shesays. “and what was really valuable was

Emerging talents


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➔Howcanwomen indeveloping economies get training in business skills? By SarahMurray

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first-hand tips from the experiencedentrepreneurs, investors and academicsthey brought into the programme.”

however, for millions of femaleentrepreneurs in emerging markets,the fees, travel costs and time awayfrom the company mean these kinds ofcourses are out of reach.

it was to help fill the gap for local,short executive programmes thatGoldman sachs launched the 10,000Women initiative used by keshav.the idea is to promote economicdevelopment by giving femaleentrepreneurs in emerging marketsaccess to management educationand mentors. While Babson Collegedeveloped the global curriculum,

report

Localknowledge:DivyaKeshavattended classesinDelhiwhilerunningher labelprinting business

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schools can customise the emphasisplaced on different topics, deliverymethods and programme length.

in some regions, business skills areonly part of what female entrepreneursneed – it can be difficult for women tobecome accepted as businesspeople atall. in the middle east and North africa,fewer than one third of early-stageentrepreneurs are women, according tothe Global entrepreneurship monitor,compiled by Babson. even once theyhave broken through cultural barriersand created a business, womenmay findit hard to see themselves as leaders.

“one of the most important thingssomeone could get out of an executivecourse is confidence – because womencan sometimes hold themselves back,”says Linda rottenberg,co-founder and chiefexecutive of endeavor.“Confidence buildingtranslates into peoplethinking bigger about theirbusiness.”

Nicole stubbs, chiefexecutive of First access,which creates risk scoresfor microfinance clientsin emerging economies,agrees. “it’s aboutconfidence and finding best practicesfor framing what you’re doing, so familymembers and others can understand.”

But for borrowers in low-incomecommunities, even local courses may beout of reach. this can hinder economicdevelopment, as female entrepreneursmake important contributions to theseeconomies – and women tend to investreturns in the education and healthcareof their children.

often women are “necessityentrepreneurs” – their decisiondriven by circumstances – rather than“opportunity entrepreneurs”, sayselaine eisenman, dean of executiveeducation at Babson College. “they arethe sole support for their family anddon’t set out to become entrepreneurs.”

some argue that for these womenwhat is needed is not formal classroomtraining but on-demand contentaccessed via mobile devices.

“i’m not sure the standard executiveeducation programme is what i’d focus

on,” says Guy pfeffermann, founder andchief executive of the Global Businessschool Network, a non-profit thatsupports management education in thedeveloping world. “the main issue interms of scaling up business educationfor women is to make it easy for extra-busy women to absorb – and even twodays at a school may be too much.”

several organisations are developingprogrammes that can be accessedonline or via mobile phones. acumenFund, a non-profit venture fund thatinvests in social entrepreneurs, workswith a range of partners to offer onlineleadership programmes. the africanmanagement initiative is working withbusiness schools to develop online andmobile content for regions with lowbandwidth. participants support eachother through virtual communities, and

online training is supplemented withface-to-face workshops to make contentavailable from top african institutions.

“We’re currently targeting both menand women but we’re thinking about acourse designed specifically for womenat some stage,” says rebecca harrison,the programme director. she adds thatthere is likely to be a community forwomen entrepreneurs on the sociallearning platform under development.

pfeffermann believes online coursesthat can be accessed anywhere mayprove the most useful tools for femaleentrepreneurs. “Women have no time,and it’s worse in developing countries,where it’s hard to get things done andwomen spend a lot of time stuck intraffic,” he says. “if you can reach themthere [with mobile technology], thenyou’re on to something.”

‘I didn’t havemuch timewhen I couldtravel awayfrom thebusiness’

Necessity:Elaine Eisenmansays womenoften do notset out to beentrepreneurs

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Fit for purpose:Gigliola Aycardichose Stanford

for its globalcohort and IT

reviewTechnology, p43

Why ‘wearables’are a poor fit

Hopes&Fears, p46

Howonewomansteppedupa level

41I

n 2002, Warren Buffett made an admission that hehad not been as vigilant as he should have been inhis role as director of the various subsidiaries of hisholding company, Berkshire Hathaway.In a letter to shareholders he wrote:

“Too often I was silent when managementmade proposals that I judged to be counterto the interest of shareholders… In thosecases, collegiality trumped independence[and a] certain social atmosphere presidesin boardrooms where it becomes impolitic tochallenge the chief executive.”

Later, Kevin Sharer, chairman of Amgen,the US biotech company, portrayed a very differentrelationship between board and chief executive: “Workingwith the board is vital, complex, and beyond your priorexperience… It is among the most complex humanrelationships, especially if you’re the chairman, when you’retheir boss, and they’re your boss. Get the relationship right,or it will hurt you.”

These two very different experiences open a new book,Boards that Lead: When to Take Charge, When to Partnerand When to Stay Out of the Way. The centralpremise of this book is a plea: “Governing boardsshould take more active leadership of theenterprise, not just monitor its management.”

In recent years, government regulatorshave sought to make boards oversee theircompanies through checklists and tighter rules.Mercifully, the dry subject matter of regulationsis of little interest to the authorsof this book. Instead they insistthat the difference betweena well-runboard andone thatmerely standsby or worse,

Who is the boss?➔The relationshipbetweenboardandchief executive is complex andcrucial. ByEmmaJacobs

books

runs roughshod over the chief executives’ plans, comesfrom “human dynamics, social architecture and businessleadership of the board itself ”.

The growing complexity of markets and strategy, theauthors say, is one of the biggest challenges for boardmembers. It also means that they cannot afford to sit backand rubber stamp executives’ plans.

Boards often fail to do their job, they point out, forexample failing to do their due diligence. They cite theexample of Yahoo’s chief executive Scott Thompson. After afew months in the post, it was discovered that he had listeda degree in both accounting and computer science, but hadactually earned only the first. It later transpired that therewas also a discrepancy in the qualifications listed by thedirector in charge of Thompson’s recruitment. A few monthslater, the board recruited Marissa Mayer as chief executive.

The writers know their stuff: Ram Charan is a businessadviser; Dennis Carey is vice-chairman of Korn/FerryInternational, the executive search firm; and Michael Useemis professor of management and director of the centre forleadership and change management at the Wharton school atthe University of Pennsylvania.

The pace is brisk and the examples bring to life whatcould be an arid subject. They mix anecdote with pragmaticchecklists of what to look for when recruiting a boardmember, how to avoid members becoming bombastic andrendering the board dysfunctional, when to take charge,when to stay out of the way, how to define a company’scentral idea, how to select a board leader and how to root outdysfunctional directors.

The authors know their audience: people consideringboard positions or those already

in them. They identify thetrait that binds their readerstogether: lack of time. So, at the

end of the book they suggest analternative to reading the full 200-

plus pages: an 18-point checklist.


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Boardmemberscannot afford tosit back andrubber stampexecutives’ plans

Asadirector,WarrenBuffettregrettednotchallengingchiefexecutives

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VIDEOInterviewwithauthorMichaelUseemwww.ft.com/bized-video

technology

If you were travelling UpperClass with Virgin Atlantic fromHeathrow this spring, youmight have been checked in bystaff wearing Google Glass. The

airline says it was trialling Glass as an“innovative pilot scheme”. “Trial” may bean overstatement, as Glass is nowherenear ready to go mainstream: it isprobably more accurate to say that thiswas a stunt to raise brand awareness –something Virgin is very good at.

Glass is probably the most visibleand best-known of the currentcrop of “wearables” – which includesmartwatches, biometrics monitoringdevices and wearable cameras – whichis quite an achievement for Google,given that it is available only to a smallcoterie of early adopters who havebeen prepared to shell out $1,500 forthe privilege of being beta testers andwalking adverts for Google.

Glass has had a lot of coverage sinceit was launched last year – not all of itgushing. The most common epithet forthe self-conscious tech pioneers whowear them in the wild is “Glasshole”.

While Glass has attracted attention,wearables are not taking off. They are

Nothing to wearNothing to wear➔Makers ofwearable gadgets haveyet to designdeviceswe reallywant,writesKate Bevan

43

remains to be seen. There are tworeasons for this: nobody seems to needthem. As Carolina Milanesi, chief ofresearch at Kantar Worldpanel, theresearch company, politely puts it:“The value proposition of wearables isunclear to consumers.”

So, wearables are really devicesmanufacturers hope we will purchasebecause they need us to buy moregadgets as smartphones cease to be cooland increasingly become unexcitingcommodity devices.

“Wearables started as a need forthe vendors – not the consumers,”Milanesi says. “As with tablets, they’repushing them to see if they can makeup for lost revenue.”

Mike Bell, vice-president andgeneral manager of new devices forIntel, echoes Milanesi when he saysthat “part of what we’re trying to do ishelp create the market”. Intel of coursehas a very big interest in wearablesif their developers can be persuadedto use Intel’s chips. To that end, Intelis busy hooking up with unlikelybedfellows in the fashion industry.Which brings me to the second reason:most look dire, others ridiculous.➤

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Agood look?SergeyBrin anddesignerDianevonFurstenberglaunchGoogleGlass at her show

CCleaner, Android (free)This old faithful PC tool hasjust arrivedonAndroid,where it is just as useful:

itwill clear your cache, call logs andbrowsinghistory anduninstall apps,freeing up a surprising amount of space– Imanaged to get rid of 116MB fromtheChromebrowser onmyNexus 10tablet. The catch is that is still in beta, soyouneed to join the beta programme–youwill find the link for that on thedeveloper Piriform’sAndroidCCleanerpage – before you can install it.Morefunctionalitywill be coming soon.

Fantastical, iOS (£6.99)Avast improvementonthenative iOScalendar,this apphasa thoughtful

design thatmakes themostof the iPad’sscreenand leverageshowyouuse thedevice: things suchasa thumbswipebringup remindersandsearch. It looksabit overwhelmingat first, butonceyouget thehangof it, the threeelementsofthecalendar – theday ticker,whichyoucanexpand foramoredetailedview, thescrolling list and themonthlycalendar– are incrediblyuseful.And there is aniPhoneversion, too.

➔App-grade: tools formaintenance, organisation and fun

2048, all platformsThis fiendish game looksvery simple: you slide tilesaroundona four-by-four

grid and combine them todouble theirvalue, andyouwinwhenyou create atilewith the face value of 2048. In factit is ridiculously hard, and infuriatinglycompelling. 2048was created byGabriele Cirulli and takes the bestbits of the equally popular Threes! tocreate a game that’s bothmore simpleandmore elegant. There aremyriadversions in all the app stores, includingaDoctorWhoversion.

a classic example of businesses tryingto create a market where none exists.Apple got away with it by kick-startingthe tablet market with the iPad, butwhether anyone else will be able topull off the same trick with wearables

technology

“Most are really ugly,” says Bell.Milanesi concurs, adding: “Design isabsolutely crucial.”

It is striking that the only wearablesthat have found a foothold areunobtrusive fitness wristbands suchas the Fitbit, Nike’s Fuelband andthe Sony Smartband. A report fromconsultancy Endeavour Partnersthis year said that one in 10 USconsumers over 18 now owns afitness-tracking device.

Such devices are at leastuseful and low-key. Bycontrast, smartwatchesare chunky, prone to runout of juice and tetheredto your smartphone.

Samsung, whichdominates the smartphonemarket, stumbled badlywith its first attempt at asmartwatch, the Galaxy Gear,

eventually givenaway for free with theSamsung Galaxy Note3. Even this could notentice people to wearthem – eBay has seena surge in the devicesbeing offered for sale.

For a device to win hearts – andwallets – it must find a place in people’slives and cultures. At present, wearablesare jarring rather than somethingpeople want to embrace. You do nothave to look hard to find stories of barsbanning Glass and concerns aboutprivacy. Milanesi puts her finger onthat unease when she says that “you aresubjecting others to something you’vechosen” with Glass and similar devices.

And in many cases, wearables arejust plain flaky. At the end of March,owners of Pebble smartwatches foundthemselves wearing just a rather

For anydevice towinhearts – andwallets – itmustfind aplace inpeople’s lives

expensive watch whenan update temporarilyrobbed the devices ofall functionality excepttelling the time. Thefollowing weekend,the musician Will.i.am– who moonlights as

Intel’s “director of creative innovation”– demonstrated to a live audience thata smartwatch can make you look daftwhen his attempt to call Cheryl Coleduring the final of the BBC’s The Voicetalent show using his own self-brandedsmartwatch did not go as planned.

Wearables need to be useful,beautiful, reliable and not maketheir user look like an idiot. But fornow, they mostly seem to be aboutmanufacturers trying to wring moremoney out of bored consumerswho have yet to be convinced that awearable is a must-have.

Calling time:Will.i.amuseshis smartwatchonTheVoice

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hopes & fearsRenee myeRs

Iremember thinking: “this is way out of myleague.” it was the first day of my advancedmanagement programme and we were dividedinto small teams to prepare a presentation.

My group, which had to launch a businessinitiative, included the senior vice-president of a largepharmaceutical company, the president of an electricsupply company, the president of a russian investmentmanagement company, and the managing partner of aswiss global wealth management firm. i was not surethat i could fit in with such a high-powered group.

it was october 2010 and i was beginning a five-weekprogramme at the Wharton school of the Universityof Pennsylvania that brought me together with 45executives from 25 countries. only six of us were women.

i thought my fears were a result of 18 years at onecompany. i worked at a New Jersey finance company,and did it all – human resources, sales, operations, clientservices and portfolio management, eventually becomingthe only female executive. While my male peers and iembraced each other’s differences, i had no female rolemodels, because our parent company had no womenexecutives. Mentoring was important in mycareer and i enjoyed helping other women.Female employees, managers and emergingleaders would say: “You’re my role model.”

it was my mentor, the company presidentrich Palmieri, who suggested i attend anexecutive education programme ratherthan pursue an MBa. i wanted to learnhow leaders outside my industry overcameprofessional or personal obstacles.

at Wharton, i soon found that these high achievershad the same fears about measuring up. our bond wasinstant; we were cut from the same cloth. the lessonswe learned during a rowing activity helped us work as ateam and also fostered our unity as a group. We learnedthat none of us needed to have all the answers – ourstrength was in our diversity. My strength is bringingpeople together and getting them to believe in a vision.

after Wharton, people said i was different, moreconfident. this extended to my personal life: i took oncommunity leadership roles, starting an organisation forresidents in the New Jersey town outside Philadelphiawhere i live with my husband and two daughters.

i needed to continue to learn and grow and inDecember 2013, sDi, a third-party supply chainintegrator in Bristol, Pennsylvania, hired me to overseeinside operations. coming to a new industry, i focus onleveraging the skills of the people around me. Wharton

was transformative and gave meconfidence in the collective ability ofpeople to overcome challenges.

Women at my old companycontinue to reach out to me and it isexciting that we have maintained aspecial relationship but sad that theyaspire to leadership roles but do nothave mentors to guide them.

i often wondered what keepswomen from progressing up theladder. i believe it is not a lack oftalent but more a lack of mentorswho can give them confidence andteach them to navigate and move up.Women bring so much to the table

– but they have been taught from a young age that thosequalities are weaknesses. in reality, they are strengths.Male leaders tend to go strictly with fact and not takeinto account perceptions and emotions. Women havestronger interpersonal skills and are more in tune withinformation around facts and use it to persuade and takerisks. Mentors can also assure women that they need notrepress assertiveness if it makes others uncomfortable.

i was blessed with mentors in the small group ofwomen in my class. they taught me how to reinvest inmyself and in my family. too often, people think you haveto choose between being an executive or being a wife andmother – that you cannot be all three. that is not true.You can be an executive without sacrificing a personal andfamily life – that is where mentoring becomes so critical.the women i met at Wharton taught me that.As told to Anne Wainscott-Sargent

The next step

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Mentoring wasimportantin my careerand I enjoyedhelping otherwomen

➔How one woman found she had a surprising amount in common with high-flying classmates

Made in AmericaRenee Myers is director ofoperations for SDI, a providerof integrated supply servicesfor maintenance, repair andoperations in Pennsylvania.She worked for 20 years at aNew Jersey finance company,where she held severalexecutive roles includingdirector of client services andportfolio management.

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