上海日报—中国首个中外合作EMBA十周年

10th Anniversary of the first Joint EMBA Program

by Liang Yiwen

The Chinese mainland's first joint Executive MBA program, the Washington University – Fudan University EMBA Program, celebrated its 10th anniversary at the end of last month. Since 2002, the program has been preparing China's best executives for global leadership positions.

The program, co-launched by Fudan University's School of Management and Olin Business School of Washington University in St. Louis, has achieved outstanding success in China's high-end business education sector and has made a great contribution to the country's economic progress by providing world-class training to Chinese executives and managers.

Over the past decade, the program has prepared more than 600 talented professionals for leadership, equipping them with both domestic knowledge and global vision.

The majority of the program alumni are now high-ranking leaders and one-fourth of the graduates are top executives, CEOs and presidents in leading companies of various industries including fast-moving consumer goods, energy, industrial equipment and biotechnology.

"I had a dream that our school alumni could thrive, work and become leaders in every corner of the world," said Lu Xiongwen, Dean of Fudan University’s School of Management.

"The joint EMBA program has provided a demonstration effect to realize the dream," he said.

The Financial Times ranked the program among the top 20 EMBA programs worldwide in each of the past six years and first in Chinese mainland in 5 of those years.

"The joint program is based on commitment to world-class quality", said Mahendra Gupta, Dean of Olin Business School.

"The ranking reflects the contribution of our two schools, but more importantly it reflects success of our students and alumni," he said.

Taught entirely in English and targeted to Chinese and expatriate executives in Greater Asia, the program provides an intensive personal development and growth experience.

The program's students come from all over the world, and bring new perspective and ideas to the program. About 8 percent students came from North America and 8 percent from the Europe and middle-east area.

The two schools provide their most distinguished faculty members to teach in the EMBA Program. Over the past ten years, the curriculum of the program has evolved in response to developments in the local and global business environments and the two schools have continuously strived to provide the highest quality of teaching.

Students enrolled in the 18-month program attend courses once per month at the School of Management at Fudan University in Shanghai.　 The program culminates with a two-week capstone session at Washington University's Charles F. Knight Executive Education and Conference Center in St. Louis.

The program awards the same AACSB-accredited MBA degree from Washington University in St. Louis that is awarded to its US EMBA graduates. Moreover, the degree is recognized by the Chinese Ministry of Education and students receive a certificate from Fudan's School of Management that makes them full-fledged alumni of one of China's top universities.

Pan Qiusheng, an alumnus of the first session class and current the Chinese marketing director of a global beverage company, said the program improves students' knowledge and vision via a great deal of cutting-edge examples, which students couldn't find in other EMBA programs.

The two schools outlined their future cooperation plan in the celebration ceremony.

In the future, the two schools will strengthen the cooperation and exchange between the students and faculties from the two parties to develop more collaborative research, according to Lu.　

Gupta said they would explore the opportunities to develop innovative education methods in the future by attracting the engagement of more researchers and companies.