Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) Singapore Management University

Why SMU EMBA?

Modelled after The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania), SMU is Singapore's national business university renowned for delivering world-class business management education.

Joining the SMU Executive MBA Programme presents distinctive advantages for you, including:

• Study stints with three other world-class universities globally. In addition to spending about six weeks at SMU in Singapore, you will spend a week each at NYU Stern School of Business, Sasin School of Management, and Antai School of Economics & Management (Shanghai Jiao Tong University) for a truly global curriculum. You will have the opportunity to be immersed in the business, political, social and legal issues of four separate countries as you study the problems, challenges and issues unique to each of these business environments. Throughout the Programme, you will interact with world-class professors and leading world thinkers. You can also look forward to being trained at some of the world's best academic institutions. Along with their international research and consultancy experiences, your lecturers will bring their rich real-world experiences from both Eastern and Western perspectives and shape your understanding of the contours of global business.
• Accelerated programme: 8 Segments over 12 months. Our Programme is structured to fit the busy schedule of senior executives and allow them to complete their studies within a reasonable period of 8 segments over a 12-month period with minimal disruption to their work. You can continue to pursue your career aspirations while completing your degree.
• The most senior EMBA class profile in the world. Our EMBA Programme has been attracting senior leaders from across Asia, Europe and the Middle East. With nearly six in ten students of each cohort being C-suite executives with an average of 20 years of corporate experience from a wide variety of geographies, industries and roles, your learning experience will encompass vibrant interactions and robust discussions.
• Innovative curriculum co-designed with over 100 corporate leaders in Asia. Our EMBA curriculum is designed with inputs from more than 100 corporate leaders across Asia to prepare future leaders for the challenges of leading organisations in the rapidly growing regional markets. These inputs have resulted in distinctive modules that are unique to the SMU EMBA such as Executing Strategy, Crisis Management and Communication, Innovation & Growth Management, and Leadership in Digital Transformation. Our Strategic Initiative Project module will also give you the opportunity to have hands-on experience in investigating an issue of strategic importance to your company over the duration of the Programme.
• Globalising Asian business, Asianising global business. Focused on Asian businesses, our case studies are a distinctive feature of our curriculum. They will provide you with an in-depth understanding of doing business in Asia and integrate a global perspective with it. Our Centre of Management Practice produces case studies focusing on Asian companies and these supplement your case studies written on Western companies.
• World-class University and excellent city location. QS Stars objectively ranks universities based on 11 key pillars of what makes a world-class university. These key pillars account for a number of factors that are often overlooked in other university rankings and assessments, including research, teaching, employability, internationalisation, facilities, online/distance learning, social responsibility, innovation, arts & culture, inclusiveness, and specialisation.

Ranked 22nd Globally and 7th for Alumni Salary – Financial Times EMBA Ranking 2020

The SMU EMBA Programme is designed for the global senior leader who is keen on business innovation and personal growth. The innovative curriculum is created with input from more than 100 business leaders in Asia. It is designed to prepare senior executives for the challenges of leading organizations in the rapidly growing Asian markets. EMBA graduates from the programme will be fully equipped to take advantage of fast-evolving markets, resources and capabilities in Asia.

Delivered in intense 1-week sessions spread across 12 months to suit the busy schedule of senior executives, the programme is taught by some of the world’s best faculty. With their extensive research and consultancy experience, they bring rich real-world expertise and insights from the East and West into the classroom. Our EMBA participants also get to spend a week each at internationally renowned partner institutions.

Special care is taken in forming the class of each cohort as a big part of learning in the EMBA comes from learning from each other. Over half the class is comprised of C-suite executives from diverse backgrounds, geographies, and industries. The curriculum has also been revamped to cover topics on current trends, as well as include individual coaching and blended learning to augment the learning experience.

Calendar

The SMU EMBA Programme is specially designed to complement the busy schedules of global senior leaders like you. Conducted modularly over 8 segments in 12 months (over 2 calendar years, e.g. August 2023 to August 2024).

Programme format

Besides structuring our Programme to minimise disruption to your work and personal pursuits, we have packaged its format to be rigorous and challenging, while giving you ample opportunity to network and develop peer relationships.

You will embark on the Programme with orientation, team building and the commencement of classes packed into the first 7-day Singapore segment. Thereafter, you will attend the overseas and Singapore segments, 6 days each (Monday to Saturday). This format was decided after in-depth consultation with a broad range of stakeholders to determine an optimal design.

Daytime sessions will be a mix of classroom teaching and industry visits, while evenings may be used for guest lectures, projects, group work and networking sessions.

Strategic Initiative Project

The Strategic Initiative Project (SIP) will challenge students to learn through immersion in a real problem. Students will play an active role of a problem-solver confronted with an ill-structured authentic situation that simulates the problem that you are likely to face as a manager in a complex organisational environment.

Through the 12-month SIP, students will form teams of 5 - 6 students and together will faculty guidance, they will learn how to develop problem-solving strategies and sector-knowledge bases and skills.

SIP represents an educational paradigm shift; where the focus lies on the impartation through learning rather than teaching. Learning in this module takes place within the context of currently occurring tasks, issues, and problems, and authentically represents real-world concerns.

Distinctive Curriculum

Leadership & Vision

While having a global perspective is important, it is imperative for you to synthesise your perspective into a vision that can be articulated and communicated with clarity that will inspire and propel your organisation forward.

• Leading In A Global Environment
• Corporate Strategy In A Global Environment

Business Acumen & Integrity

Having the attributes of keenness in the business sense and a solid internal compass is critical to sustainability. Tomorrow's leaders, like today, will need to sharpen their edges in these attributes in order that their organisations to continue to experience a long-term trajectory of success.

• Managerial Economics
• Corporate Finance
• Financial Reporting & Analysis
• Corporate Governance & Ethics

Global Perspectives with Asian Insights

For organisations to continue their growth stories, it is imperative to extend their reach beyond familiar shores to cultivate markets that may not be apparent today.

• Political Economy: Global & Regional
• Contemporary Issues In Asian Business

Managing change and agility

Change is the only constant in life. Successful firms are those that recognise the need to evolve with the changing tides and times. The challenge for leaders in the global economy’s state of flux would be to dynamically bring about meaningful and useful change that would retain an organisation’s growth through time. As Asia’s growth story begins to take centre stage, change management has become more important than ever before.

• Innovation & Growth Management
• Negotiating in Business

Sustainable performance

An organisation's culture, strategy and processes come together synergistically to ensure its success in the long term. It is therefore critical that you build sustainable, viable, trackable and repeatable processes, policies and procedures to implement your vision.

• Operations Management
• Strategic Marketing Management
• Executing Strategy
• Speaker Series On Corporate Social Responsibility

Resource development

Given the limited resources and yet ever-increasing demands on leaders to grow their enterprises, your ability to harness and marshall resources become even more important in the face of competing organisational needs. It is therefore essential for you to know how to acquire, develop, manage and retain resources as part of your leadership repertoire.

• Network & Alliance Building
• Raising Capital & Resource Management