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Calling all BOOTH EMBA Applicants(2015 Intake) Class of 2017

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12 Mar 2015, 11:53

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Just got the call today. I'm in at Chicago Booth for the HK program!

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24 Mar 2015, 19:00

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FROM Booth EMBA Blog: Graduation Time again!

Last Friday the latest cohort of Executive MBA Students
graduated from Chicago Booth at a traditional ceremony held in Rockefeller
Chapel on the main University of Chicago campus in Hyde Park. Graduation is
always a very exciting time in the life of any school or university. There is a
sense of excitement, relief, anticipation about what the future holds and also
some sadness that an important era of people’s lives was coming to an end.

I heard all of these and many other reflections from our
graduating students who had come to Chicago from all around the world. These
graduates had studied in our three campuses Chicago, London and the final group
from our Singapore campus. As they reflected on the past 21 months they had
spent studying, there were a few recurring themes that I heard which I believe capture
the essence of our Executive MBA Program.

First, many of the graduates talked about a sense of relief –
but this relief was almost always combined with a feeling of great accomplishment
and success. Many graduates were relieved for sure that the rigor and hard work
that was required of the program almost non-stop for two years was coming to an
end. But many went on to say that they would not have traded that experience for
anything. They had chosen the Booth Executive MBA specifically because it was
rigorous and tough. They wanted that challenge of pursuing a pure Chicago MBA
degree in the Executive MBA format. So they were relieved – but proud of their accomplishments.

Second, there was a lot of talk of transformation. For many
of the graduating students there was the feeling that they had completely changed
the way they thought and the way they approached their businesses and their
lives. One newly graduated student said
to me, “When I came here I think I was pretty smart. But this program took the
way I think apart completely, and put it back together in a much more organized
and analytical way. I will never be able to go back to my old way of thinking –
and that is a great thing!” This kind of transformation, and the confidence
that comes from it was something I heard students say many times.

-->-->

Finally, the moment was also bittersweet for many. Having
spent such an intense amount of time with their fellow students, many people
were feeling sad that they would not have these powerful class weeks / weekends
to spend together going forward. It was clear, however, that everyone had made
lifelong friends during the program. Some have already begun business collaborations
- both on their own and through the Global New Venture Challenge Business
competition which had its final round during the graduation week. Others are
already planning holidays together and reunions with classmates and their families.
Many of these will take place all over the world – demonstrating that the
global nature of this program does provide students with a broad international
network that will serve them throughout the rest of their careers and lives.

-->-->

The weekend finished off with a Black tie gala dinner at the
Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago which is a long-standing tradition.
Some photos included here!

Congratulations again to all of the Chicago Booth Executive
MBA Class of 2015 (XP84, EXP20 and AXP14)! We look forward to following your
continued success throughout your careers.

Richard Johnson

Managing Director - Asia

Photos by Ryan Bakerink

-->-->

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01 Apr 2015, 21:01

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FROM Booth EMBA Blog: Discover how Chicago Booth helps transfer learning into working life

If you have been wondering what a Chicago Booth Executive
MBA can do for you, check out the story about two recent graduates
here. They come from very different backgrounds – a technical executive and a
parliamentarian – and they have each derived value from their studies in their
own ways.-->-->

“I’m from a purely technical background and previously
that was how I looked at issues. After my studies, I find I have the knowledge
and tools I need to look at the commercial and financial side of things, too.
With this broader understanding, I am able to make better decisions and conduct
better negotiations.” - Raju Goyal, Vice President and board of director member
(EXCO) of PT Holcim Indonesia tbk

-->-->

“The macro-economics courses I took helped me to
understand the reasoning behind economic policy and strategy, and appreciate
developments that are happening in the world today.” - Tin Pei Ling,
Singapore parliamentarian

-->-->

You, too, can benefit your career, knowledge and personal
development at Chicago Booth – one of the world’s best business schools!

-->-->

Sherring Ng

Regional Director, Marketing, Recruitment and Admissions

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30 Apr 2015, 08:01

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FROM Booth EMBA Blog: How Do You Position Your MBA?

‘Leveraging
your MBA.’ What does that mean? We throw around this phrase often in b-school
and what we mean when we say it is a bit ambiguous, subject to interpretation
and rarely ever questioned. What it typically means is how one takes full
advantage of or makes best use of one’s MBA.

A very
related, but far less frequently heard phrase is ‘Positioning your MBA.’ And
what exactly does that mean? Positioning your MBA refers to how
you convey or communicate the
leveraging of your MBA to key stakeholders. Put another way – How do you tell
others what you’re getting out of the MBA program and how will you use your
experience to impact your current or future company?

Students in
executive MBA program frequently ask how they can effectively leverage and position their MBA degree with
various audiences, both within their company and in the external marketplace.

The way I
like to frame the primary benefits of the MBA is to use the analogy of a
three-legged chair or stool. The three legs each represent a way in which you
can leverage and position your degree. These would be the academic experience,
the alumni network and the Booth MBA as a credential itself (and one from a
top-tier institution). Sometimes you will use all three legs of the stool,
sometimes you’ll only use one or two. And again, this depends on the audience.

Let’s look
at the first leg of the stool – the academic experience. The knowledge, tools
and skills that students acquire going through the program are incredible. The
Booth MBA program is an accelerated learning experience. Students gain exposure
to, learn and assimilate information rapidly – first by learning fundamentals
(e.g. Statistics, Financial Accounting, Microeconomics) and then connecting
those fundamentals together through more advanced coursework. Applying that
hard-earned knowledge to your workplace is both a way to leverage your MBA
education, and also position yourself well with key stakeholders in your
organization. This, of course, is based on your performance and your perceived value
to the organization.

The second
leg of the stool of the Chicago Booth MBA is the school’s global network of
49,000+ alums. This powerful network gives our students access to relationships
and perspectives of successful individuals within the network, who are at
companies that they might not otherwise have a connection to. I encourage
students to look at the Booth network as a system of experts – experts with information
that will help give them an edge when it comes to decision making, finding
potential investors, looking for a new job or being informed about life in a
certain city or country. Of course, alums are not just experts…some of them are
also lifelong friends, business partners, sometimes event life partners. The
relationships that students benefit from through the network can help position
them for a multitude of different pursuits.

Which
brings us to the third leg of the stool - The actual MBA degree itself and
specifically the Chicago Booth MBA. Mid- to senior-level roles often ask for an
MBA as a pre-requisite for the job, but a Booth MBA, even more than this,
provides a strong signalling effect for the span of one’s career – signalling
about the calibre of professional you are, the level of thinking you have and the
problem-solving capability you bring, wherever your career may take you.

Leveraging
and positioning your MBA takes thoughtful planning and focused effort. When we
speak of the ROI on the MBA degree, this is precisely where talk and action
meet – fully using your MBA and letting important others know how you’re doing
so.

Wayland Lum

Senior Associate Director, Career Management

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02 Jun 2015, 11:01

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FROM Booth EMBA Blog: Lessons Learned from Chicago Booth's New Venture Challenge

Melissa
Harris is a business columnist at the Chicago Tribune and executive MBA student
at Chicago Booth. She is active in the first Chicago Booth women’s leadership program,
Booth Women Advance. Below she writes about her experience competing in the New Venture Challenge at Chicago Booth.

I applied to Chicago Booth – and Chicago
Booth only – to participate in the school’s New Venture Challenge, recently ranked
No. 4 among U.S. startup accelerators.

To participate, Booth students must hold a
minimum of 10 percent equity in their business and submit a seven-page
feasibility study to the program’s directors and judges. The study determines
whether the business is admitted.

This year about 80 teams applied and around 30
were admitted. The field was then narrowed to 10 finalists. In addition to the
feasibility study, the program requires a business plan, two presentations,
strength to withstand mountains of public criticism and, most importantly, a
product.

This is not a business plan competition. If a
company has a plan but no product, it’s unlikely it will advance to the finals.
Thus, a team must include marketers capable of selling the product and coders
capable of building it.

In my experience this year as the chief
executive of an NVC team, it’s a lot harder to find the coders. So, in
hindsight, the first thing I’d do is recruit a technical co-founder. With an
idea in hand and a CTO on board, the next step is to recruit a marketing/sales
team, a lawyer and an all-star advisory board.

Selecting and recruiting the team is the most
important pitch of the competition. You’ll need incredibly dedicated and
competent people to stand up a company in just a few months. You also better
like them because you’ll be seeing more of them than your family in the
near-term.

At stake is prize money, pride and, in my
case, my reputation. As a business columnist for the Chicago Tribune, I knew
and admired many of the program’s coaches, including Chicago Booth Professor Steve Kaplan,
Answers.com co-founder Mark Tebbe, and venture capitalist and former 1871 CEO
Kevin Willer. I wanted to learn from them. I also wanted to prove that I could
do more than write about start-ups. I could launch one.

That has been more difficult than I imagined.

My first idea blew up nine days before the
feasibility study was due. The team stuck with me and pivoted. Classmates moved
into my house, working for three days and two nights to conceive our company, AttnGrabbers.

Then our CTO got an amazing job opportunity,
which required him to pull back. We were about to hire a replacement, a
University of Illinois senior, when we found out there was a hiccup with his
work permit. (He’s not a U.S. citizen.) After working with our attorney to try
to find a solution, I concluded there was no legal way to hire him. When I
retracted the job offer, he volunteered to assist for free.

These highs and lows are sometimes compressed
into one business day. On the same day we woke up to glowing press for
AttnGrabbers, we learned we did not make the finals.

We’re not sure what’s next for AttnGrabbers. Our
developer is continuing to work on the software in his spare time while I
search for a corporate partner. At a minimum, the team is going to stay
connected through a Plan B, which all of us can work on while maintaining our
day jobs.

No one is quite ready to jump – especially
now that we fully grasp the emotional ups and downs that come with running a
startup.

The biggest benefit of competing in the NVC
is that you get to experience these glories and disappointments in a safer
environment than the marketplace.

Yes, you get scrutinized, but at least you
don’t go broke. -->-->

Melissa
Harris, XP-85-->-->

-->-->

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10 Jun 2015, 19:01

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FROM Booth EMBA Blog: Behind Our Admissions Outreach...

Lies an incredible group of alumni.

If
you are a prospective student or EMBA applicant, it’s likely you’ve met Chicago
Booth alumni over the course of your journey. In fact, alumni are our most common source of
information for applicants. The time they spend with prospective students at
events, corresponding through email, talking on the phone and conducting
interviews on behalf of the admissions team makes a significant difference in
the success of our recruiting efforts.

To
that end, we recently honored two Executive MBA alumni who serve as alumni
ambassadors for the XP North America campus and truly embody the culture of
“paying it forward” that thrives at Chicago Booth.

Elizabeth
Rogers, XP-81 and Scott Novak, XP-78 both personify the excellence and
integrity that make up our community. Aside from their demanding careers -
Elizabeth is currently the Partnership Director at Wiley and Scott serves as
Sr. Assistant General Counsel at Zurich Insurance – they have gone to great
lengths to provide valuable counsel to our prospective students and applicants.
Over the past year, they’ve answered countless questions, shared perspectives
on why they chose to do an MBA, why they chose to study at Chicago Booth and,
most importantly, served as visible representatives of our vibrant community.

I
was honored to present Elizabeth and Scott with this year’s Outstanding
Ambassador Award in front of their fellow alumni. We are deeply grateful for
the efforts they have made in bringing together XP-86.

Our
alumni and students are undoubtedly the best resource when it comes to understanding the experience of the Executive MBA Program at Chicago Booth. Whether you are just
beginning to research programs or lining up your application pieces, I
encourage you to seek out opportunities to engage with them, particularly
during the information sessions and dinners we host each fall.

Patty

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13 Jul 2015, 15:00

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FROM Booth EMBA Blog: Kicking Off in Chicago

New Executive MBA students from over 50 different countries gather at the Harper Center during Booth Kick Off. View more photos from the week here.

This June, 237 individuals from over 50
different countries around the globe converged in Chicago to start the
Executive MBA Program. It’s always exciting for me to see students from diverse
backgrounds, industries and functions come together for what will be the most
challenging, inspiring and rewarding 21 months of their lives – and this year
was no exception.

The start to our program is rigorous.
Students jump right into their first courses and begin to explore who they are
as leaders in their first LEAD sessions. They also hear from prominent members
of our community. This year, students were addressed by the President and CEO of
Hyatt Hotels Mark Hoplamazian, ’89, who encouraged them to seek out “reverse
mentors” – young advisors who offer different perspectives which can be very
valuable to a business. They were also treated to a fireside chat with Nobel
Prize winning faculty member Eugene Fama, who relayed this message: “You came
here to learn something- so do it!”

Both of these leaders emphasized core
values that reside at Chicago Booth; a respect for diverse perspectives, a
willingness to challenge each other and work hard, and the importance of community.
Students here are taught to challenge ideas and ways of thinking. When your
ideas and assumptions are challenged – especially when done by your fellow
classmates who are from hugely varied backgrounds - you are forced to support
your ideas, using data and evidence and think about the problem from many
different angles. This builds your confidence, and makes you a better thinker,
a better decision-maker and a better manager.

But it isn’t just about challenging for the
sake of it. It’s clear from watching students go through this program that they
want to learn from and support one another. They respect each other even if
they don’t agree. This fosters a distinct learning environment that allows
students to try new things, take risks in a safe environment, and get honest
and direct feedback from successful professionals from around the globe –
something that is very difficult to find in the workplace.

The path that each student takes to get to
this program is very different. What always surprises me is how quickly they
warm up and start getting to know one another. By the closing dinner cruise on
Lake Michigan several people told me that they already felt changed. And
despite being exhausted from an exhilarating #BoothKickOffthey couldn’t wait to get to London for the next class week!

Richard

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22 Jul 2015, 10:01

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FROM Booth EMBA Blog: Imagine this: March 2018

The 2016 Executive MBA Program application is available now and if you apply and are admitted sometime in the next 8
months you will graduate in March of 2018...so mark your calendar. And
mark October 2, 2015, December 1, 2015, February 1, 2016 and April 1, 2016, too. These are our application deadlines for the coming year, and believe it
or not – they approach pretty fast.

To that end, I wanted to highlight a few changes in our
application. We are still asking for recommendation letters, essay(s), GMAT
score (or waiver), and an interview but have also included a new section called
"Career Goals" that aims to provide us with a better understanding of
what you hope to gain from the program professionally.

-->-->

The new Career Goals section asks 4 questions:

-->-->

1. Define your current career objectives. What is your most important career objective?
Options include advancing within your own company, making a change, growing
your own business or starting a business. You can also choose "other"
to explain your specific situation.

2. Rank some possible outcomes that you see
coming out of your MBA experience. Are you looking to develop your skills
as a leader, work across more diverse functions, or gain international
mobility?These are more targeted goals
that we are eager to know more about.

-->-->

3. Tell
us about your next career move. What do you see happening with your career once you’ve
completed the program? This is an opportunity for you to describe your plans in
your own (250) words.

4. How
do you see us helping you with your career goals? Career Services offers a robust array of tools
designed to help you navigate your next steps. In the application, you will be
asked to select your preferences by choosing among resources such as one-on-one
coaching, webinars and access to databases.

-->-->

So what we are going to do with this information? Two
things. First, we will use your responses to help us understand and shape
our Career Services offerings when you are a student. We have an
incredibly diverse student population with equally diverse career goals and we
want to be able to meet you where you are. Second, we want to be sure that you have thoughtfully
considered the impact that studying at Chicago Booth will have on your career
trajectory. For example, if you are currently working as an accountant and you
tell us your next desired career move is to become the first astronaut on
Mars...well Houston, we have a problem.

-->-->

As our global teams gear up to travel and meet with prospective
students, I strongly encourage you to engage with us and our alumni for greater
insights on what Chicago Booth can do for you and your career. We look forward
to meeting you along the way to March 2018.

-->-->

Toby

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