FROM THE CEO
A BALANCING ACT
AMBA & BGA CEO Andrew Main Wilson delves into the statistics on MBA enrolments and women in the workplace, as well as exploring predictions for classroom versus online learning
A
t our mid-May annual Global Deans & Directors Conference in Seville, I was delighted to welcome the largest-ever number of delegates. Almost
MBA enrolments per school. Enrolments per programme were slightly down, at 49 students per programme. The male/female balance of MBA students enrolled also remained the same year on year, at 39 per cent female, 61 per cent male. Encouragingly, the percentage of female MBAs per cohort has grown steadily over the last nine years, up from 32 per cent in 2013. I’m regularly asked by journalists for these statistics and in support of our business schools I point out that AMBA schools are championing women MBAs strongly and that the real problem lies further up the career ladder, at C-suite level. By way of example, 2023 data highlights that among FTSE 100 companies, just nine CEOs and 18 chairpersons are female. The position is similar among US Fortune 500 companies, where just 10 per cent of CEOs are female. As Cranfield School of Management said recently, “For real change to happen, more women must be in the significant decision-making roles of CEO and chairperson.” One of the key themes of the conference was predicting the optimum future balance between 100 per cent classroom learning, versus blended
learning, versus 100 per cent online learning. The research we carried out this February in conjunction with US educational technology provider Cengage asked 155 business school decision makers how they intended to allocate funding for teaching initiatives over the next five years: 52 per cent said funding would be equally split between campus and online, 33 per cent intend to invest the majority on campus, while only 14 per cent intend to invest the majority in online learning. So, while Covid caused a rapid and understandable transformation in many schools towards 100 per cent online learning, it would appear that both student and faculty preference is to optimise a blended learning portfolio of programmes, maintaining a strong face‑to‑face teaching and learning experience. In my opinion, it’s the ‘rest of career’ lifelong learning market, post-graduation, where there is the greatest opportunity and the greatest need for further innovation. We all need to decide if and how stackable certificates can be offered without adversely impacting formal degree programmes – it’s too big a market to leave purely in the hands of online digital learning brands.
400 business school representatives from all over the world arrived to discuss and debate the key issues affecting schools globally and take the opportunity to network with colleagues, many of whom had not seen each other in person for over three years. In an uncertain world, it makes more sense than ever for international organisations to diversify their customer portfolio into as many countries as possible and we attracted delegates from 50 different nations. As you might expect, those sending the most delegates included the UK, China and France. Perhaps more surprisingly, South Africa, Thailand, Colombia and Poland were also in the top ten countries represented. In my keynote presentation, I shared some of the key global MBA statistics from our research projects last year. The MBA market proved robust once again and enrolments were almost identical to the previous year, averaging 185
38 | Ambition | JUNE 2023
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