News > 2008 > Senior Executives Go Back to School

Senior Executives Go Back to School

New McGill - HEC Montréal EMBA off to a great start

         

September 24, 2008

A total of 36 senior businesspeople have started the new 14-month part-time Executive MBA (EMBA) program. Specifically designed for practising senior managers, the McGill – HEC Montréal EMBA consists of eight modules centred in part around the Managerial Mindsets made popular by renowned professor Henry Mintzberg, and a final integrative project.

“Instead of teaching the conventional business silos, so common in management education, our two institutions use an integrated, multidisciplinary vision of management and focus on the actual practice of participants and the issues they face,” explains Louis Hébert, Management Professor at HEC Montréal and one of the program’s two Academic Directors.

“The structure and culture of the program create a synergy that encourages participants and professors to share their very valuable and diverse experience and knowledge,” says Alain Pinsonneault, Professor with the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University and the program’s other Academic Director. “The varied and complementary learning platforms create bridges between theory and practice and encourage reflection and a wider view, letting them step back from the hectic pace of day-to-day management.”

Although they come from many different backgrounds, all the participants in this first cohort share the desire to compare and contrast their experiences with those of practised colleagues and professors. They come prepared to rethink their assumptions, attitudes and ways of doing things.

Annick-Isabelle Marcoux, Regional Director, Business Development with BMO Harris Private Banking, agrees completely and sees going back to the classroom as a natural extension of her work experience. “In our twenties, when we enter the labour market, we very quickly learn to deliver short-term results. What with all the demands linked to performance and day-to-day emergencies, we rarely have the time to step back and take the broader perspective needed for wise decision-making. The EMBA program will provide me with new tools to refine my strategic thinking and develop new angles for introspection and observation and innovative approaches to problem solving,” she says.

For Jean Langlois, National Campaign Director with Sierra Club Canada and recipient of the first program scholarship for non-profit organizations, embarking on the program is a way of opening up to new resources. “As an experienced manager, I was looking for a program that would let me share the knowledge I have acquired in my sector with other executives and managers, but also learn from their experience. This will let me better integrate my business strategies and decisions in a much more global framework.”


About the EMBA

McGill – HEC Montréal EMBA participants are experienced managers with a minimum of ten years’ work experience, including at least five in management.They are action-oriented, thoughtful people interested in creative, responsible, motivational management and committed to playing an active role in their own development and that of their co-participants. The first cohort of 36 is starting the program in September 2008 and will complete it in November 2009.


The 36 participants of the first cohort are: