For Raluca Raitan, 32, private banking relationship manager at Bank Leumi Romania, the point of taking the WU Executive Academy’s EMBA program was developing her leadership abilities and advancing her career.
“The hardest part of the program was having no time left for my personal life. However, I wanted to consolidate my knowledge and learn new things, and over the program’s 14 modules you acquire skills from 14 different fields, which helps you develop,” said Raitan, who in 2010 won the EUR35,000 scholarship provided by ZF and the WU Executive Academy.
Romanian MBA graduates joke that, during the program, they get to know the people in the airport better than their own neighbors, and that learning to cope with the quick pace of life for as much as two years is very difficult.
Almost 4,000 managers have graduated from MBA or Executive MBA programs offered on the local market by 14 business schools and, according to ZF’s Top MBA issue last year, the graduates’ net average salary is EUR2,600.
An MBA from a prestigious university can be a graduate’s main launching pad toward a promotion, Schlegelmilch explained. Almost 35% of the academy’s MBA grads are in C-level management (president, CEO, managing director, member of the board etc.), compared with 20% when starting an EMBA program. As for salaries, over 25% of graduates got a raise of more than 50%, while 7% went on to receive double their previous pay. More than 120 Romanian and foreign top executives graduated from the EMBA program offered by the WU Executive Academy.
For one or two years, local managers can attend such a program and work, meaning they are preoccupied with personal development, they are ambitious and focused on results, something appreciated by employers. However, it takes more to end up on a head-hunter’s shortlist, or in a multinational corporation’s staff, or even to ask for a raise. Schlegelmilch warns that taking an MBA program only to get a raise is a big mistake, since such a thing is not guaranteed.
An analysis by the Academy shows that states in Central and Eastern Europe are the new focal point for MBA program providers from all over the world, given the trend of replacing expats with local MBA graduates in the near future. Last year alone, 322 Romanian managers added an MBA to their resumes, hoping this would change their professional path.
The local market has 14 business schools, which provide 15 programs to people looking to improve their management skills. The WU Executive Academy is the only school that offers two programs in Bucharest – Executive MBA and Professional MBA. The main difference between them is their target: the former is usually tailored to people with at least 3-5 years of experience in a management position, and who are over 35.
(English version by Radu Bostan)