Introduction
Cultivate your leadership skills in Weatherhead’s Executive MBA (EMBA) program. Grounded in the conviction that great leadership can be taught and learned, this world-class degree for distinguished working professionals is delivered by renowned faculty who pioneered these principles of leadership.
Weatherhead’s Executive MBA (EMBA) program will help you examine your leadership strengths and gaps and develop a personalized learning plan to become the best leader you can be. For decades, Weatherhead’s organizational behavior faculty members have built a best-in-class reputation for teaching the art of leadership.
You will learn from the originators of these breakthrough business concepts:
Appreciative Inquiry
Emotional Intelligence
Intentional Change Theory
Sustainable Value
Flourishing
Learning to Manage by Designing
Learning Styles
Experiential Learning Model
Join over 1,000 leaders who have accessed new reserves of energy and leadership potential through the Weatherhead EMBA.
Is the Executive MBA Program Right for Me?
Participants in Weatherhead’s EMBA program arrive with an average of 15 years of professional experience and aim to ascend to senior leadership roles. With this in mind, courses are designed to approach critical disciplines like strategy, finance, marketing, and accounting through the lens of leadership. Together with the faculty, students examine how the assets created in—and the products and services designed by—these fields enable leadership teams throughout an organization to function most effectively.
The Weatherhead model of classroom interaction allows faculty and students to share their knowledge and expertise. Furthermore, projects assigned across courses and disciplines enable students to apply what they have learned in their work environment to their scholastic undertakings.
Four Elements of the Weatherhead EMBA
Managers create the worlds in which we work and live. In order to best prepare executives for this task, the Weatherhead EMBA is organized around four elements:
The development of leadership skills at the levels of self, team, organization, and society.
The sociopolitical structures in which leadership is most needed, including government, the world economy, and the rapidly changing realm of technology.
The language of business, with a special focus on how it is spoken in the boardroom.
The achievement of change in organizations by leading design-oriented teams.
These four elements create a leadership package that will prime the student executive to assume a more responsible and influential position in an existing organization or to build a dynamic new organization. Together, these skills help leaders act with confidence and decisiveness in the face of uncertainty.
Time Commitment
With only 16 total 3-day visits to campus, the Weatherhead EMBA is designed to be manageable for busy executives, allowing students from around the world to participate in a one-of-a-kind leadership program.
While the on-campus requirements are minimal, the EMBA program demands a serious time commitment from each participant. Although individual study habits vary, successful students may devote 10-15 hours per week to the program.
“One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Weatherhead EMBA program is the focus on organizational behavior and leadership topics as well as Appreciative Inquiry, and those fields of study that really help set the employees who have gone through that program apart from employees who have gone through other programs. Weatherhead graduates have a much stronger appreciation of how elements of leadership are important and how they help drive change in an organization.”— Linda Rae, General Manager, Power Generation, and Oil & Gas, GE Digital
What’s the return on investment for this Executive MBA degree?
Because the Weatherhead EMBA requires a significant investment of time and money, we take very seriously our responsibility to ensure that the return on that investment is immediate, substantial and lasting, both for the student and for his or her sponsoring organization.
ROI for the Student:
Instruction that combines theory with a pragmatic link to on-the-job application, guaranteeing that what you learn in the classroom today can have a positive impact on your work performance tomorrow.
A team creation and team management approach that dramatically improves your ability to maximize the effectiveness of team membership and leadership in the workplace.
ROI for the Sponsoring Organization:
A rapid increase in Weatherhead EMBA students’ leadership effectiveness, problem-solving skills, and strategic thinking ability.
Each EMBA student participates in the Application Project, a semester-long project in which students explore their organizations for “design opportunities,” opportunities to create value by deploying resources and capabilities in new ways. In the past, 85% of students have reported that the resulting revenue enhancement or cost containment of the project exceeded the cost of their EMBA tuition, and 35% of the students reported that they delivered a return to their organization that was three times the cost of tuition.
Executive MBA for Nonprofit Professionals
In addition to earning the Master of Business Administration degree, nonprofit professionals who complete the EMBA can at the same time earn the EMBA Nonprofit Certificate. The best executives, in any industry, seek out multiple perspectives for best practices. The EMBA certificate program fosters mutually beneficial dialogue between professionals from nonprofit and for-profit backgrounds. As a participant in the EMBA Nonprofit Certificate program, you will build new and lasting partnerships with other nonprofit and for-profit organizations in Greater Cleveland.
Curriculum
Weatherhead Executive MBA students aspire to leadership roles within organizations. Through a curriculum developed by some of the world’s foremost business experts, you will expand your capacity for leadership and strengthen your knowledge of how business works.
Sample EMBA Curriculum
Year One
Year Two
Fall semester
Orientation / Building the Learning Environment
EMBA 441 – Leading Change: Self
EMBA 451 – Business Model Design
EMBA 438A – Business Statistics and Quantitative Analysis
EMBA 436 – Accounting for Business Executives
EMBA 450 – Managerial Marketing
Spring semester
EMBA 473 – Leading Change: Teams
EMBA 445 – Expanding Boundaries
EMBA 438B – Business Statistics and Quantitative Analysis
EMBA 439 – Corporate Finance
EMBA 437 – Economic Analysis for Managers
Summer semester
EMBA 475 – Managing in a Global Economy
Fall semester
EMBA 472 – Leading Change: The Organization
EMBA 478A – Leading Design in Organization
EMBA 446 – Managing Risk and Real Options
EMBA 464 – Legal Environment
EMBA 443 – Supply Chain Management
Spring semester
EMBA 479 – Leading Change: Society
EMBA 442 – Innovation
EMBA 478B – Leading Design in Organizations
EMBA 449 – Contemporary Issues in Management
EMBA 476 – Corporate Governance and Dialogues in Healthcare
Executive MBA Program Structure
The EMBA program is delivered over five semesters or 21 months. Both fall and spring semesters are comprised of four 3-day visits. These visits take place once a month, Thursday through Saturday, from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The summer semester is delivered abroad through the weeklong International Study Experience.
The Weatherhead EMBA is a lock-step cohort program. A new EMBA cohort begins each September.
Participants self-select learning teams, which represent essential study partnerships over the course of the program as well as invaluable resources for networking and organizational support. Learning teams often grow as close as a second family, with members establishing impactful, life-long relationships. Team members go on to be each other's mentors, advisers, and even employers. Learning teams meet weekly outside of the classroom, either face-to-face or remotely, to achieve course objectives and enhance the learning experience. In addition, faculty often host optional study and review sessions, which are also recorded for virtual access.
Executive Coaching Component
The Executive MBA curriculum emphasizes a unique, personalized approach to learning, with a focus on self-awareness as the key to becoming an effective leader. Each candidate in the Weatherhead EMBA program is assigned an executive coach who helps him or her take full advantage of the academic experience while providing guidance as he or she develops as an individual and leader.
Weatherhead’s Executive MBA Application Project
Weatherhead’s EMBA degree program includes an in-depth application project that integrates design practices in management education. Each student spends a semester exploring his or her organization for a “design opportunity”—an opportunity to create value by deploying resources and capabilities in new ways. Students assume leadership responsibility and, with the support of a team of peers in the program, execute a design project that generates a return for the organization.
International Study Experience
Each EMBA cohort chooses its destinations for the trip, which typically occurs around mid-June and lasts about 8 to 10 days. During the summer semester, students travel abroad for a portion of the program during which faculty reinforce business fundamentals through a global lens. Weatherhead faculty and experienced professionals from institutions and organizations worldwide coordinate hands-on activities with global and local entities, as well as in an academic setting, in the region selected for that year’s study experience.
Students explore the nature of global leadership and operations while improving their understanding of the role of culture in business and society. They return to their own organization with a renewed commitment to employ the knowledge, skills, and holistic perspective developed during their experience abroad to benefit their colleagues at home.
Students generally visit two different countries as part of their tour. Previous cohorts have traveled to such destinations as Spain, Morocco, Greece, South Africa, Argentina, Vietnam, China, Sweden, Latvia, Germany, Switzerland, Turkey, Japan, South Korea, London, Milan, Ireland, Scotland, Hungary, and Romania.
Weatherhead’s Executive MBA Class Profile is a Community of Individuals
The individuals enrolled in the Weatherhead’s Executive MBA (EMBA) program are working professionals who want to be challenged to new heights in leadership. The nature of the residencies promotes networking among like-minded peers, relationships that have the potential to evolve into lifelong friendships and business partnerships down the road.
Who Enrolls in the Weatherhead Executive MBA?
Because of the residency format of the EMBA program, professionals across the country are able to attend. While many EMBA students live and work in Ohio, candidates from states including California, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia, Alabama, Washington, D.C., Texas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Minnesota have enrolled.
Organizations
Since 1979, more than 500 organizations have been represented in the Weatherhead EMBA. These organizations range from Fortune 500 corporations to small entrepreneurial firms, from major not-for-profit institutions to one-person professional service companies. Regardless of size, scope, or area of business, organizations realize an immediate and substantial return on investment through the knowledge and skills their participants bring back to work. They continue to enjoy the impact of a Weatherhead EMBA graduate on their team for years after their employee’s graduation.
Agrana Fruit US, Inc.
AIG, Inc.
Aleris International, Inc.
Arab National Bank
Avery Dennison Corporation
BASF
Beckett Gas, Inc.
Behr Process Corporation
BF Goodrich Tires
CapitalWorks, LLC
Cardinal Pumps and Exchangers
Case Western Reserve University
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Cleveland Clinic Foundation
Clinical Research Management, Inc.
Columbia Chemical Corporation
Community Health Partners Regional Health Systems
Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE)
Dealer Tire
Diebold
Erie Insurance Group
Erie Neurosurgery and Associates, Inc.
Emerson Network Power
FirstEnergy Corporation
FNB Corporation
Food Systems Unlimited, Inc.
Ford Motor Company
GE Lighting Valley View
GE Healthcare
Goodrich Corporation
GrafTech International
Hathaway Brown School
Harland Clarke
Hudson & Keyse, LLC
Inficon
Innovar Systems Limited
Keithley Instruments, Inc.
Ken-Tool
KeyBank
KeyCorp
LHS Benefits
LINX Networks, Inc.
m2m Imaging Corporation
Malco Products, Inc.
Maverick Molding Corporation
Meier Transmission
Microsoft Corporation
ArcelorMittal
Morrison Products, Inc.
NewPort Tank Containers, Inc.
North Coast Spine Center
Novar
Novelis Corporation
NuTEC Metal Joining
Ohio Spiral Duct
OneCommunity
Oracle
Owens Corning
PPG Industries
Progressive Group of Insurance Cos.
Ray Fogg Building Methods, Inc.
Reliant Energy
Rotek, Inc.
Sherwin-Williams Company
Shiloh Industries, Inc.
Silicon Turnkey Express
Stark County Women’s Clinic
SUNPRO
Swagelok
The Timken Company
Trendesign, LLC
Triumph Capital Group, LLC
University Hospitals
Victory Capital Management, Inc.
Vita-Mix Corporation
Weatherchem
Wesbury Unity Methodist Retirement Community
Winncom Technologies Corporation
Xerox
Admission Information
Weatherhead’s Executive MBA Philosophy of Recruitment
The Weatherhead School of Management Executive MBA admissions team is committed to recruiting diverse and motivated students who are dedicated to their professional growth as leaders and global influencers. We look for professionals who are critical thinkers, possess open mindsets, and exude a range of educational, professional, and life experiences. These experiences, along with an internal drive to innovate and create positive change, enrich the dialogue and teamwork in the classroom.
Executive MBA Application Process Overview
Create an application, or log in using your username and password to continue your application.
Upload the required unofficial documents. If you are admitted and you matriculate, we will require your official documents then. Further instructions will be sent by email.
When your application is finished, click “submit” to pay your non-refundable application fee
After clicking “submit,” you will not be able to make any changes to your application form, resume, or essays, but you will be able to log back in later to upload transcripts and test scores. All required documents must be submitted in order to be considered.
Once your application is complete, you may receive an invitation to interview. Interviews are by invitation only.
Any application that remains incomplete at the end of the admissions period will be denied.
Executive MBA Application Requirements
Qualifications
Most candidates have 10 or more years of relevant work experience, along with managerial and supervisory responsibilities
Potential for career advancement to a senior managerial position
Ability to participate in and contribute to an intensive learning environment
Time and willingness to make a 20-month commitment to attend classes, study group meetings, and other required activities
Evidence of the ability to complete graduate-level coursework
When reviewing your profile for admission consideration, the Weatherhead admissions team requires the following:
Transcripts*
Two free-response short essays (prompts are within the online application)
Current resume
Two Recommenders
As part of submitting your application, you will be required to enter the names, relationship, and contact information of two recommenders. We reserve the right to contact your recommenders directly if we need more information about you as a candidate for this program.
Application fee: $100 (non-refundable)
Detailed instructions are available in our online application.
*If you do not have an undergraduate degree from an accredited institution, you will be required to take the GMAT (Code is WTJ-F1-47) or GRE (Code is 1105).
