Executive education in Jordan has yet to become a staple of academic institutions, but the country’s accelerating integration into the global economy means that ambitious Jordanians increasingly have to be on the lookout for the competitive advantages offered by focused higher degrees. Faced with more competition, one way for the young Jordanian executive to keep up is through a mid-career boost from a small but growing number of master of business administration (MBA) and similar courses. Particularly innovative is the new MBA degree offered by the German-Jordan University (GJU) at its Talal Abu-Ghazaleh College of Business (TAG CB) in Amman. Established in 2006 as one of the faculties of the new university, TAG CB represents an education partnership rare in the Arab world between academe and the region’s private sector, bringing the expertise of the Abu-Ghazaleh business consulting and services group to the GJU. The latter, a public university jointly launched in 2004 by the German and Jordanian governments, is headquartered in Amman and plans to open branches in various other Arab cities.

Designed as a passport to a higher management career for ambitious young executives, the GJU MBA program enforces the concept of transferring knowledge from classes into real-world workplaces. Normally, students in this program will have qualified some three to five years previously with a Bachelor’s degree and then gone on to perform well and show leadership at work. In a sign of the times, GJU points out that its MBA graduates could go on to serve as effective managers not only in the private sector, but also in business aspects of government or other public agencies. Though not at the level of Dubai and other high-flying economies where state offices often function as smoothly as private business, Jordan’s public sector is nevertheless moving in that direction — helped by a growing number of bright young graduates of executive education programs. In particular, GJU allows its MBA students to specialize in such areas as finance, statistics, marketing, or international business, not to mention the Abu-Ghazaleh specialties of Intellectual Property and Accounting.

More specialized, but still aimed at the executive, is the MBA offered by Jordan’s Queen Nour Civil Aviation Technical College. Established in 1973 and recently privatized, the college meets Jordanian and regional civil aviation needs through a two year program leading to a community college diploma, as well as by special training. However, in the process of upgrading and revamping its offering, eight years ago the college started an MBA in Aviation Management. Designed for high-flyers, as it were, Jordanians and students from elsewhere in the region have benefited from this course, helping their respective airlines compete an increasingly sophisticated and vital sector.

Finally, for Jordan’s finest young executives, the Queen Rania Global Leader Scholarship is offered annually by the famed Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona. The scholarship goes to Jordanian business leaders interested in pursuing an MBA in global management. Candidates for the award must have a minimum of two years’ work experience and they have to be motivated by factors other than personal advancement. In fact, applicants for this MBA scholarship must submit an essay on how they intend to use their education to make a positive contribution to their nation, region and/or the world community. Jordan’s Queen Rania promotes the award saying that empowering women is, “perhaps, the single greatest legacy we can bestow upon our children.” Although in the age of gender equality, men are also eligible for this prestigious MBA scholarship. Look for more of these initiatives in Jordan, as well as an expansion of home-grown MBAs, over the next few years.

“Every degree becomes obsolete five years down the line, so you have to renew your knowledge,” said Assaad Raphael, chairman and general manager of Porsche Center Lebanon. This is why Raphael returned to his Alma Mater, the American University of Beirut (AUB), for the Executive MBA (EMBA) program last year. The 20-month program meets every three weeks for a three-day weekend: Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings.

“I know that this program added value to my role at my company,” Raphael said. He was quick to point out that a major benefit was the ability to learn from the experiences of his classmates, who came from all over the region. “Fully 50 percent of my classmates were commuting in from outside of Lebanon,” he added. According to AUB’s Olayan School of Business (OSB), which hosts the program in addition to their MBA, typically half of EMBA students are residents of Lebanon. Of the others 14% are Saudi, 12% Kuwaiti, 9% Qatari, 5% Emirati and 5% are even residents of Europe.

Student ages vary as well, asserted the EMBA Program Director Riad Dimechkie. “We aim at executives and those aspiring to be executives,” he said. Thus participant age varies from 30 to 60 years, although the average age is 40. The students’ combined and varied experience plays directly into the program. Class sizes of 15-20 students, roughly half that of many EMBA programs in the United States, means that classmates have an intimate setting in which to share their experiences and learn from each other.

From an academic angle, Dimechkie said “the overall focus is on general management” so that all elements of the contemporary business world are covered. This facet allows an executive to speak with an accountant, human resources manager or marketing executive and be able to follow the conversation without a second thought.

Furthermore, the AUB program prides itself on having strong roots in the region. This is also reflected in the academics of the EMBA, which aims to be Middle East relevant in three ways. First, there is a strong focus on the service industry, which is very important to both the Levant and the Gulf. Second, there is an emphasis on small and mid-sized enterprises. This is a nod to the numerous family-run businesses of the Middle East. Finally, there is a specific focus on Arab businesses. The OSB facilitates this by conducting case studies on the Arab world and by bringing in Arab leaders to lecture.

The cost of class

Full tuition for the program is around $35,500, usually paid in one of two ways: either the students cover the cost themselves or their company pays. A common practice when the company pays is that the cost gets amortized over a three-year period. For example, if the freshly graduated employee leaves the company after one year, they must reimburse the company for two-thirds the cost of the program. If they leave after two years they are responsible for one-third the cost and if they leave after three years they owe nothing. This approach helps to prevent a valuable human resource investment from walking out the door.

While AUB’s business school is cheaper than many Western options, there are several other options in Lebanon for the value conscious. One of these is the Ecole Supérieure des Affaires (ESA) in a quiet neighborhood of West Beirut. “Both our MBA and EMBA require 16 months of course work and four months for the thesis,” said ESA Academic Coordinator Jan Schaaper. The MBA is designed for young professionals with less than five years of experience. It is a much more technical degree, while the EMBA focuses on soft skills like employee relations and negotiation. Schaaper suggested the EMBA has value added in that “professionals are coming together, not only for course work, but to share their experiences as well.”

ESA’s graduate business students usually hail from Lebanon, though some come from Syria and Jordan as well. The MBA programs are conducted in cooperation with ESCP EAP European School of Management and are taught in French. But according to Schaaper, the main difference between the American MBA system and French programs like ESA is specialization. “The French system has specialized master’s degrees. We have not only an EMBA, but also four specialized master’s for executives including finance, marketing, hospital management and we will be offering Islamic finance next year,” he said. The MBA program costs some $13,000 and the EMBA is roughly a thousand dollars more.

For young executives involved in the North African market, the American University of Cairo’s MBA might be of interest. “It is the only AACSB accredited program in the country and many prominent Egyptian business people have graduated from the program,” said Mohga Badran, head of the management unit at AUC’s Department of Management. MBA students can choose to concentrate in accounting, finance, international business, leadership and human resources management, information systems management, marketing or operations management.

According to Badran, 90% of these MBA students come from Egypt and the remainder from other Arab countries, Europe and the US. Half of the students are engineers, while the others are physicians, family business owners or from multi-nationals with offices in Egypt. The program is entirely in-house as it has no affiliation with any foreign universities. Regarding the cost of tuition, students who complete the minimum 33 semester credit hours pay $52,000. Students coming from the sciences, however, may qualify for the full-ride Gameel Fellowship.

Learning in the GCC

There are also several options for MBA programs in the Gulf. The United Arab Emirates boasts several business schools such as the American University of Sharjah (AUS). “Diversity is one of the attractions of AUS. Our MBA students come from the UAE (28%), Iran (21%), Syria, Jordan, Palestine and throughout the GCC,” said Rob Bateman, acting dean of the Business Management School.

The program’s core courses often require practical projects involving actual business situations, preparation of business plans or resolutions of leadership problems, added Bateman. Most students enroll part-time as they have full-time employment at corporations based in the Emirates. It is possible to complete the degree in one year, although three to four years is more common. Starting tuition for the program is $39,000.

Also in the Gulf is Qatar University (QU) in Doha. “The Qatar MBA curriculum presents students with a cross-functional approach to business education that leads to a better understanding of real world challenges in the current business environment,” according to Mohammad Najdawi, dean of the Business and Economics College. The average age of MBA students is 27 years and the average undergraduate GPA is 3.3. As for foreign affiliation, QU has relationships with Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and it will soon have a relationship with Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. The degree costs a minimum of $9,900 for non-Qataris with a business background. Non-nationals who have not previously studied business are required to take 12 foundational credits, raising the price to $13,000. Qatari nationals receive a 30% discount.

Finally, for the up and coming professional looking for executive education in Damascus, the Higher Institute for Business Administration (HIBA) offers a solution. HIBA students are predominantly Syrian, but also come from Jordan, Egypt and France. HIBA offers both an MBA and an EMBA.

“There are three main foci for the MBA program,” according to HIBA’s dean Fouad Dib, “communication in business administration, economics, and quantitative methods in business administration.” Students can also specialize in marketing, human resources and finance. All courses are given in English and the MBA program takes 18 months on average. HIBA has cooperation agreements with Universitat Autonoma in Barcelona and with the Bordeaux Business School in France. Tuition for the EMBA costs $11,700 for Syrians and $12,000 for internationals.

Thus there is no shortage of executive education in the region. From North Africa to the Levant and the Gulf, opportunities for professional growth abound, with the MBA is still the most common form of graduate business degree. As long as the regional need for executive talent continues to grow, the number of executive education programs available will continue to grow with it.

Survival in the Arctic tundra requires a certain wherewithal — a variety of aptitudes that differ slightly, one might assume, from what one needs to know to live in, say, a blazing hot desert. Increasingly however, it seems to be that whether one’s walk of life leaves tracks in sand or snow, it’s all in the same stride.

Take for example the barren, wind-blasted coast of the northern tip of Newfoundland where tiny pockets of communities cling to existence. In this region of “The Rock” — as Newfoundlanders wistfully refer to this island off Canada’s east coast — people are not so much the salt of earth as the salt of the sea. Historically, growing up here meant being in a boat with one’s father learning the jigs and reels of fishing cod from the frigid North Atlantic.

Today’s lessons

In the later half of the 20th century, however, fleets of industrialized factory freezer vessels arrived from around the world to pillage the bountiful Grand Banks, dragging nets the size of city blocks across the ocean floor and hauling up cod by the ton with every pass. Today, the fish stocks are decimated beyond commercial viability and the ageing fishermen of these outport settlements are undoubtedly among the last of their kind.

With no future for them at work on the waves, the children of these fishermen are left to learn a new livelihood, a fact that has led may of them to the classrooms of the College of the North Atlantic (CNA) in St. Anthony which, with close to 3,000 residents, is by far the region’s largest town and claims the only traffic light for the next 450 km.

Here, some 100 full-time students pursue college diplomas and trade certificates in fields ranging from health sciences to information technology and business studies to industrial trades. Indeed, the CNA has been a public institution in Newfoundland and Labrador — the province’s official name — for more than 40 years, with 16 other campuses similar to the one in St. Anthony spread through the vast southern expanses of the island, offering training and opening career opportunities for the some 8,500 full-time students who attend. The CNA is often the only locally available institution for post-secondary education, and the role it plays on The Rock today — offering students new skill-sets necessary to adapt to rapid economic change — has resonated in places that couldn’t be farther removed.

Just under a decade ago, in the torrid heat and dust storms of the Middle Eastern state of Qatar, a problem began vexing Her Highness Sheikha Moza Bint Nasser al-Misnad and other members of Qatar’s royal family: despite an economy surging on oil revenues and a GDP per capita amongst the highest in the world, few Qataris were actually engaged in an active role in their nation’s development — they simply did not have the training to be able to do so, and thus most of the skilled technical work was being done by expatriates.   

The education quest

To remedy this situation and encourage greater Qatari participation in national industries like oil and gas, it was decided a “college of technology” ought to be founded in the emirate under the guidance of a foreign partner institution. Deeming the Canadian education model most attractive, the Canadian Bureau of International Education (CBIE) was contacted, which then accepted submission proposals from colleges across Canada and short-listed four for the Qataris’ inspection.

And so on May 2, 2001, some 14 arduous hours drive south of St. Anthony, a plane carrying a delegation of senior advisers to Her Highness landed at the airport outside Newfoundland’s capital St. John’s. The Rock was still frozen in winter’s grip as the royal family’s emissaries stepped from their chauffeured limos at the provincial legislature building, greeted by a massive Qatari flag rippling in the wind above a flagpole half buried in a gargantuan snow bank.

“I think they saw a little of themselves in us,” said Stephen Lee, CNA’s marketing and communications manager, floating the idea of cultural similarities derived from Qatar’s pearl diving past and Newfoundland’s fishing heritage, also noting that Qatar’s oil-fuelled economic revolution is what Newfoundland dreams will come of its own relatively-infantile-but-expanding oil industry. “Really, we’re following in their footsteps,” he claimed.

However dubious this might sound, money talks, and soon after the 2001 visit the two parties signed a 10-year, $500 million contract for the creation of the somewhat-oddly-named “College of the North Atlantic – Qatar.”

In the seven years since the agreement — the largest deal ever for any Canadian university — CNA-Q has grown to be the second largest educational institution in the emirate, worth some $1.7 billion, with 600 employees, 2,500 students, a 75,000 square meter campus with state-of-the-art industrial workshops, laboratories, computer systems, libraries, lounges, swimming pools and cafés. 

In June 2008 Newfoundland’s premier Danny Williams, on his first trip to Qatar to attend graduation ceremonies at the CNA-Q, remarked, “It really was an unbelievable ceremony. This young girl gets up, the valedictorian, and speaks so eloquently without notes… and the energy minister turns to me and says, ‘we owe all of this to Newfoundland and Labrador’.”

And with that a most unlikely of fraternities was affirmed, bonding The Pearl of the Persian Gulf to The Rock of the North Atlantic, with the educational essentials of living in the modern age building the bridge over the oceans between. 

Over the last two years academic specialization regarding the Middle East has moved from the humanities, which produced Arabists and the much maligned moniker of Orientalist, into the field of Islamic finance. This is not overly surprising given the surge in attention the business world has given the region, the Gulf in particular, awash as it is with oil money and jockeying for position as a global finance and services hub. But as always, it has taken time for educational institutions to catch up on the trend and churn out more than oil economists and Middle East policy wonks.

The English salute

In the UK, the rising global stature of Islamic finance has been boosted through Prime Minister Gordon Brown promoting London as a hub for Islamic finance, with three British Islamic banks established and global players Lloyds TSB and HSBC offering Islamic financial products and services.

Such developments naturally require appropriately trained personnel, and British institutions have started to cater to this growing field, albeit with mixed results. Two specialist Islamic masters programs started at the University of Durham and Loughborough University a few years ago were cancelled because of insufficient demand from the “right kind of student,” a professor was quoted as saying.

Durham is still offering a summer school program and is the world’s largest research center for Islamic finance, but over-specialization was seen as excessive in a market that is still primarily focused on traditional banking. Instead, universities are now offering optional modules in Islamic finance as part of MBAs and Executive MBAs, giving students a strong foundation to analyze and work with Islamic products and services.

Lancaster University Business School, the School of Oriental and African Studies’ (SOAS) Center for Financial and Management Studies, and the Cass Business School (CBS) have all started over the past year to offer optional modules as part of postgraduate training. Only Bangor University, in Wales, is offering a fully-fledged Islamic Banking Masters, slated to start this September. Meanwhile, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants is now offering a certificate in Islamic finance that has been developed by a group of sharia experts.

Doing something different

One of the reasons universities are offering modules in Islamic finance and associated fields is to differentiate themselves from other programs due to “MBA inflation” — too many schools offering MBAs and too many students entering the work market waving a MBA diploma around. Differentiation and specialization are the resultant buzz words, along with the reputation of the school and what it offers.

“Global business schools have to be aware of these issues. I’m pleased we can go so far as having specialist electives in Islamic finance, which is an example of the need to adapt,” said professor Stefan Szymanski, associate dean of MBA programmes at the CBS, part of the City University London.

Last year, CBS, located in the capital’s financial hub, became the first institution to offer an executive MBA with two specialist streams in Islamic finance and energy.

“London is very involved in Islamic finance, and the Central Bank launched an Islamic bond a year ago, so there is a lot of demand for training,” said Szymanski.

The Islamic finance stream offers courses in Islamic banking and finance, Islamic economics, and Islamic law of business transactions.

But with other schools offering similar programs, Cass was prompted to offer the two-year part time EMBA in collaboration with the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC).

“One of the reasons we chose Dubai is the potential for the emirate to be a global hub in the same way London is, and they are doing all they can to make that happen,” Szymanski pointed out. “In many ways Dubai is competing with Hong Kong, London, Mumbai… so to keep skilled people there they also need to deliver a high standard of service.”

The program thus benefits both Dubai and London, which is reflected in the multinational make-up of this year’s intake of students, with 25% Emiratis, while other students are from Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Bahrain, Iran, Europe, the US, India and Pakistan.

With a multinational faculty and student body, Szymanski emphasized how universities are adapting to the realities of globalization, with the school planning to hold a symposium over the next year in Dubai for London-based students to spend a week to find out what it is like to do business in the Gulf. “All students are conscious of the need to do business in other parts of the world — to be global you need to be local, so-called ‘glocalization’,” he said.

And with demand quickly rising for personnel specialized in the labyrinth of Islamic jurisprudence — from the Qur’an to the hadith and sharia law — British institutions are hoping this fledgling academic sector will flourish as rapidly as Islamic finance has around the world.

According to a recent McKinsey report, over the next five years an estimated 300,000 executive positions will be created in the GCC. In order to get ahead in the increasingly competitive regional business environment, many of these freshly minted executives are turning to higher education. Executive education, however, can get pricey with many degrees running more than $100,000. This month’s special report provides an overview of executive education to aid potential students with their decision-making. The first half of the report approaches the subject from an international level and considers some of the top business schools in the world, including the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, Wharton Business School, London Business School and INSEAD.

For those who cannot make it all the way to the United States or Europe for a two-year commitment, there are regional options as well. The second part of this special report takes a look at regional executive education. This section presents an overview of some of the Middle East’s best institutions of higher learning, from Morocco to the United Arab Emirates. Interviews with the business schools at the American Universities in Beirut and Cairo, in addition to top business schools in Qatar, Syria and the UAE, round out the research.

Current trends in the executive education industry indicate a dramatic rise in the number of graduate level executive education programs in the region. In North Africa, Morocco has a higher level of enrollment in existing business and management programs than ever before. In the Levant, especially Lebanon, the number and variety of higher-level executive education programs has grown. Meanwhile, the Gulf has seen universities that offer business education crop up in droves. There has been an influx of foreign schools into the region as well. Several Western institutions have established centers for instruction and research, while others have formed strategic partnerships with local schools. One unique example of this is the College of the North Atlantic – Qatar, in which an unlikely partnership has paired the frigid island of Newfoundland, Canada, with the sun-scorched Gulf state Qatar. The imported Canadian educational institution has equipped thousands of Qatari graduates to start doing work previously done by expatriates.

Executive education has also been evolving: 10 years ago the Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree was the benchmark for graduate level business education. Today, older executives are going back to school  to brush-up their skills with the more distinguished Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA). The types of skills being taught are changing as well. Focus on hot topics, like Islamic finance, has skyrocketed. Several schools offering executive education in the United Kingdom have now established Islamic finance specific programs. For example, Cass business school has an EMBA with two specialist streams in Islamic finance and energy, while Bangor University in Wales offers a master’s degree in Islamic banking.

And with the advent of non-degree ‘open program’ courses, even more options are becoming available. Schools such as Wharton and INSEAD are offering open program courses in the Gulf on a variety of topics, including finance, human resources and negotiation. Yet it should be known that despite the big names and high prices, these three or four-day retreats often serve as more of a networking opportunity than a venue for formal education.

Although for different reasons, executive education is growing both globally and regionally. New trends are increasingly blurring the lines between education and high-level corporate networking. It is expected that both of these trends will continue, especially in a region with substantial amounts of human and financial capital. In terms of options, business professionals looking for executive education have never had it so good.