Forging International Networks Strengthens Your Business

At any stage of one’s executive career or education, the phrase “global network” can be used so many times as to almost feel like a buzzword, rather than a valuable, concrete topic. When researching EMBA programs, you’ll find globalism as a consistently mentioned topic but few programs actually span the globe. London Business School offers an Executive MBA program with an international focus. They have also partnered with Columbia University to create the Global Americas and Europe Executive MBA. Both EMBA programs are internationally diverse and bring together executive students from a variety of businesses and backgrounds. With their strategic geographical locations and connections, from New York City to London to Dubai, both the London Business School and their Global Americas and Europe EMBA program foster international networks and pride themselves on welcoming students from a wide variety of backgrounds.

International Networks

The Global Americas and Europe EMBA program brings together two leading financial cities: New York and London. The EMBA gives students access to networks and connections in both cities, and valuable dual degrees representing both areas, no matter which city students are based in during their studies. Combined with the diverse peer networks and the corporate partnerships, student executives will have valuable connections to the international market during and after their time in the program.

Additionally, the London Business School has a partner school in Dubai, with opportunities for its EMBA participants to travel and study between the two locations.  This strategic partnership between business hubs in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East expands a prospective student’s networks from day one. Each program also allows students to maintain their executive roles at their given companies, all while being able to apply their studies immediately to their current roles.

In either program they choose, whether the London Business School EMBA or their joint program with Columbia University, The Global Americas and Europe EMBA, students are linked to at least two different business cities, offering immediate international perspectives in an increasingly global economy.

Scholarships and Investments

Both the London Business School EMBA program and the Global Americas and Europe EMBA program offer scholarships for select students to offset tuition costs. In addition to funding, the schools also offer advice on how students can reach out to their current companies to sponsor their EMBA studies.

Both programs advise prospective students to pitch their studies as a mutual investment. Not only do EMBA students remain in their executive capacities during their studies, but they are able to apply their newfound knowledge to their companies. This makes EMBA students more valuable to their given employers even early on in their studies.

In addition, if an employer sponsors an executive, it opens up the employer to the valuable network of companies connected to their employee’s program. Rewarding executives through sponsorship shows dedication and a willingness to invest in growth, and the mutual opportunities can grow companies and their executives at the same time:

“By presenting sponsorship as a reward, a firm can enhance loyalty among its best and brightest employees. Companies can also become associated (through the student) with the schools and benefit from the networks and events they offer.”

Diverse Student Bodies

Through international, interconnected programs, students in both programs come from a wide array of backgrounds and business fields, from countries all across the world.

The students and alumnae in both programs remark on how their studies have both professional and personal benefits. Not only do the EMBA programs put students in contact with international peers, but also introduces them to areas and cultures that they may not be familiar with, and strengthens understandings of how different cultures and business worlds work.

Fortunate Masiye, a student in the Global Americas and Europe EMBA program, wrote about how her studies impacted her knowledge of international business, and how her studies inspired her to apply her knowledge to helping students from Africa move up in the business world. The program allows her to interact with a diverse peer group, with an emphasis on entrepreneurship, applied management techniques, and the opportunity to travel internationally, both for business and personal development:

“I have had enlightening encounters with peers from an array of professional sectors, industries, geographical locations, and professional and personal backgrounds, yet all of these differences were diminished by our common goals, interests, and pursuits in the programme and beyond it. My study group of just five members, ranging from financial experts to operations managers, provided a microcosm of global diversity, representing the collaborative milieu of the world’s future.”

Bridging Business and Social Consciousness

As the student profiles attest, the modern EMBA program supports students in a variety of ways. Not only does it give them more business skills on an international level, but the schools are also aware of students who want to do business with socially responsible values.

Both schools foster and support women, LGBTQ+, and Black students in their professional and personal development. The management and entrepreneurial courses have strong value returns for businesses, all while strengthening a global, diverse world. The students, with their own respective backgrounds, combine their goals and values to make positive impacts on their companies, both financially and socially.

By giving motivated international students an education with access to global networks,  the London Business School EMBA and their partnership program with Columbia University, the Global Americas and Europe EMBA, offer an education that has positive global effects: executives with diverse peers, an understanding of complex international business relationships, and a mission to provide education and access through ripple effects as graduates apply their knowledge to programs and institutions that benefit and assist others.