As Sandra Glavas leads the MBA team in all that is "international", we thought a few quick questions of her would help provide greater insight into why the Kedge Global MBA places such importance on the international aspects of the programme.
A bit about your background?
I have spent over 8 years in Executive Education industry and worked at 2 highly ranked US programs (in the domain of open and customized programs, traditional MBA and Executive MBA with the focus on international programs, team dynamics and sustainability). I also come with leadership skills and senior management experience (e.g., World Bank, Norwegian Cruise Lines). In these and other roles, I have gained valuable business experience which has led me to truly understand quality customer service and different aspects of program and team management. I am very passionate about Executive Education, learning, and educating new generations of leaders. I am a certified coach and experienced in working with small teams in multicultural settings.
How did you come to be part of the Global MBA?
My husband (key professor in CSR at Kedge) and I moved to France from the United States in August 2014 for his work and I reached out to Kedge Executive Education to see if they had might have any opportunities coming up. Soon thereafter they came calling as one of the positions opened up. I of course was delighted to jump at this opportunity and join the MBA team.
What is your role in the Global MBA? How has your background positioned you for this role?
I primarily manage the international programs and partner relationships for Kedge MBA, but I also work alongside the Academic Director and the MBA Program Manager to ensure the academic standards and the overall quality of the program. My previous Executive Education experience and knowledge of the international MBA markets and trends greatly helps me in this role. I am also responsible for overseeing the Business Development Project (BDP) oral defense process.
What relationship do you directly have with the MBA participants?
I often assist with candidate interviews which gives me the opportunity to meet our future students early in the process and get the sense of who they are. But mostly I work with students to help them choose their majors and international seminars. I also try to take as many opportunities as possible to get feedback from our students and learn about their experience with the classes, seminars, faculty and the program overall. We then use this feedback to make the necessary adjustments so that our program would provide the best possible learning environment to our students and pleasant working environment for our faculty.
Why is it important for an Executive MBA to be “international” today?
We live in the global world and anyone striving to move up the business world ladder these days will have to demonstrate their ability to work internationally and in a multicultural environment. Kedge Executive MBA creates those kind of opportunities for our students by enabling them to study/interact in a multicultural settings with international faculty of rich and diverse backgrounds. The goal is to promote the cultural sensitivity and help transform the cross-cultural barriers into new opportunities and ways of working together more effectively.
Is an “international seminar” really a value-added for young Exec MBA’s?
It most certainly is, and particularly to the students who up to this point in their lives have not yet had many opportunities to work abroad or form part of multicultural teams. The seminars provide the opportunities to learn not only how business is done in different parts of the world, but also to understand different attitudes to time and decision making, to learn to be open minded and flexible and to see the value of not imposing their own ways of working on others, but rather embracing the differences. It is all about pushing someone far enough out of their comfort zone to the point where they begin to learn and grow.
What objectives have you set for the programme?
Down the road, I would like our international seminars to be more streamlined and connected to the specialization majors. I would also like to see greater mobility between our Chinese and French campuses in terms of choices of specialization major. Another objective is to attract greater number of students to our excellent international majors of Driving Sustainable Change and Wine and Spirits Management.
What do you envision for the MBA in the next few years? How will the programme evolve within your domain?
There still remains much to do… but I’m full of surprises!
Are there any new exciting projects coming up? Why are they exciting/strategic/necessary?
One of the new projects that I am currently working on is creating a new international seminar in the USA with one of our existing partners with focus on leadership. We already offer 2 seminars in the US and one business consultancy project, but the interest has been so big lately that we have not been able to keep up with the student demand.
How do these international offers differentiate the Kedge Global MBA? Is it really a deciding factor in the choice of an MBA?
Well I certainly hope so, and if it is not, it should be as like I mentioned above – the international dimension will increasingly become one of the key factors for landing those C-suite positions. Even for the students who have no such ambitions and have different career paths in mind, this sort of experience will be a game changer.
