Industry leaders are being given the opportunity to refine their professional skills through a programme launched by NYU Abu Dhabi’s business school.
The Stern School of Business at NYU Abu Dhabi welcomed its inaugural executive MBA cohort this week. It is the business school's first executive programme outside New York.
Rob Salomon, dean of Stern at NYUAD, has been working on the programme for six years.
“It's bringing together the best of both worlds – the rigour of the programming that we developed and designed in New York, and then tailoring it for here, for the realities of the Mena region,” Mr Salomon told The National.
The 37 students include 21 nationalities and bring leadership experience from across many industries.
“These are people who are accomplished in their fields and not just in the commercial side like finance consulting, tech [and] health care, but also in the government side as well,” said Mr Salomon.
The programme meets monthly from Friday to Sunday and also includes week-long residencies at global NYU sites.
“It is designed so that experienced executives don't have to take time off work. They can continue to work while they pursue their MBA degree and advance in their careers,” Mr Salomon said.
Growing demand
Mr Salomon is an NYU alumnus, with a master's degree and a PhD in international business and management. He has been part of the Stern School of Business since 2005 and moved to Abu Dhabi three years ago.
He believes the UAE capital is the perfect place for an executive MBA programme, especially given its economic diversification in recent years.
“There really is a demand and a hunger for that type of education,” he said. “This market is only growing and it will continue to develop.”
His goal is to bring the best MBA programmes to the region to help propel the UAE's economy forward as technology, finance and AI become more integral to the country.
“There are amazingly talented people in this region, and in this country specifically. What we noticed when we did our [market] research was that there was a dearth of high-level, rigorous and high-quality management programming,” he said.
The goal of the new programme, he added, is to prepare executives for leadership roles in the country and the broader region.
“We can't lose sight of the fact that we live in a regional and global world where their contributions will have to ripple out to other markets,” he said.
“We're preparing them for the realities of working here in Abu Dhabi while understanding that what they do has an impact on the UAE, on Dubai, on Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, and the globe.”
Teaching valuable skills
The programme will teach leaders hard and soft skills to use in their day-to-day roles as executives.
“There are people who have some kind of natural ability [to lead], but through reading, learning and classroom experience, this can be learnt in practice,” he said.
Mr Salomon recognises the impact AI is having on jobs, but believes that human-centred skills are still critical for leadership.
“At some level, technical skills are becoming commodified, especially in an AI world. What's going to differentiate or separate people are their people skills,”
Therefore, the executive MBA (EMBA) programme aims to teach students different skills without discrediting past degrees or achievements.
“Soft skills will become more valuable in this new world, not less. [That is why] a business school education is still valuable in an environment where AI is becoming more and more and more present,” he said.
Just the start
Stern at NYUAD launched its full-time MBA programme last year, but Mr Salomon says that was just the “launching point” for an expanded Stern portfolio in Abu Dhabi.
“There is tremendous opportunity here to bring the kinds of management training that we've been doing in New York to this market.”
