ACE joins forces with Tanaka Business School to promote new Residential Executive MBA

Article from Impact, the Association for Consultancy and Engineering's (ACE) magazine (Dec 2004 / jan 2005)

Too often, an MBA has been a one-way ticket out of engineering and technology into investment banking. So it’s no surprise that engineering employers have been lukewarm about encouraging their employees to go to business school.

But now a solution has been devised by Imperial College, supported by ACE, in the form of the new part-time Tanaka MBA programme (Residential Executive MBA), enabling participants to manage new technologies as they come on stream. And there is more good news for ACE members, who will be entitled to a £1,000 discount on part-time MBA fees.

Imperial’s Tanaka Business School has redesigned its MBA to focus on the management of innovation. Other Imperial faculties – from Engineering to Life Sciences – will help deliver electives that examine the challenges of managing new technologies as they come on stream.

The Tanaka MBA will also allow students to access the whole Imperial network of contacts and expertise. It is unique in offering all students the opportunity to undertake a commercial feasibility study of a piece of Imperial technology; honing the whole range of business skills on a live project.

“We began by asking the leaders of technology businesses what they really wanted,” says Tanaka Principal, David Begg, “and their answer was surprisingly clear; a course that meets the needs of the innovation industries, thereby accelerating careers within the sector, and a part-time format that allows employers to maintain contact with their employees while they study.”

“The residential programme combines the advantages of a global catchment area and the advantages of part-time study,” says ACE chief executive Nelson Ogunshakin, who played an important role in shaping Tanaka thinking.

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