[photopress:Tsinghua_1.jpg,full,alignright]Insead, one of the top European business schools, has introduced an executive MBA program in China, offered jointly with Tsinghua University, of Beijing.
Hellmut Schütte, the dean of the Insead Singapore campus, said, ‘The Chinese believe very strongly that China is unique and therefore they should learn something on China in China. That is understandable. American business schools are dominating the field with their way of business thinking, which is all very interesting but is not always applicable back in China’s state-owned enterprises. But at the same time, students appreciate they need to learn about global practice. This is why many local schools are now offering joint programs with international business schools. Students can get the best of both worlds.’
The program may make life easier for Steve Mullinjer, a recruiter in Shanghai for Heidrick & Struggles, an international executive search firm based in Chicago. He said, ‘Foreign-trained executives that can prove they can adapt their learned skill sets to the local market are in rare supply, but in great demand.’
The management consulting firm McKinsey estimates that Chinese companies, given the global aspirations that many nurture, will need 75,000 leaders who can work effectively in global environments over the next 10 to 15 years, compared with the 3,000 to 5,000 that they have now.
Jevan Soo, McKinsey’s manager of Asia-Pacific recruiting, in Shanghai, ‘When you add on top of that the hiring needs of multinationals doing business in China, you can imagine the vast demand for executive talent in the country. The long-term solution will require a shift in the Chinese education system to increasingly emphasize the practical skills and the English language skills that global companies require.’
Insead’s partner in its executive MBA program, Tsinghua already offers an international MBA program in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management. Graduates of the program earn a Tsinghua MBA and a Sloan certificate.The Insead-Tsinghua qualification would be the first dual-degree executive MBA offered by top international and Chinese business schools in China.
Source: International Herald Tribune and Insead.