Sharpening the executive mind: the continuing education of top executives has become a priority for Latin American corporations as they grow in the global marketplace. A review of top programs

Latin CEO: Executive Strategies for the Americas, July, 2001 by Rochelle Broder-Singer

University of Navarra IESE Business School

(Barcelona, Spain)

Combining US and European perspectives and faculty, IESE (ranked No. 13 by the Financial Times) offers a Global Executive MBA and non-degree courses. Both attract Latin American managers with 7-8 years of experience; the EMBA also requires high test scores. The EMBA focuses on globalization and e-business issues through eight two-week residencies in Barcelona, Shanghai (China) and Silicon Valley (California, US). Distance learning occurs between the modules of the two-year course through chats, online discussions, bulletin boards and video-conferencing. The US$50,000 (tuition and lodging) program is conducted in English, and most of the 26 students are from outside Spain, including Brazil, Mexico and Chile. In a joint international program with Harvard Business School (US), IAE (Argentina) and IPADE (Mexico), IESE also offers a one-week course called Achieving Breakthrough Service in Miami, Mexico and Toronto. The Spanish-language course costs US$6,500 for tuition and lodging. It explores how improving servic e quality can improve profitability Huete says all of IESE's executive programs focus on both the social and economic aspects of business, but operational improvements are the goal. "[Make] participants think in very operational terms so they can go home with a to-do list that is very specific and allows them to have a relatively fast impact on their operations," he says. "If somehow you add more than just an economic dimension, you are making executive education a very exciting experience in which you get a little bit of a transformation of the participant."