With demand for management education growing throughout the Middle East, the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, is to launch a corporate EMBA in Kuwait at the end of this year.

George Najjar, dean of the Olayan School of Business at AUB, says this will be the first time in 145 years that the school has run a degree programme outside its campus. The programme will differ from the school’s established EMBA in being aimed at a specific sector, such as the oil sector and associated industries. Participants – Prof Najjar foresees an initial cohort of 20 senior managers – will be chosen and sponsored by their companies. However, standards will remain stringent.

The calibre of participants on OSB’s EMBA programme is high, says Prof Najjar, and includes senior executives, managers and heads of companies. Consequently participants on the Kuwait programme will need to have a compatible profile.

While most of the programme will resemble the EMBA curriculum, about 20 per cent of the material on the corporate EMBA, such as case studies, will be tailored to the specific sector.

The growing demand for management education throughout the region saw London Business School launch an EMBA programme in Dubai this month, the first time the school has set up its own programme outside the UK.

Prof Najjar welcomes any competition. The emerging markets of the Middle East bring huge market demand for business education, he says. And the school, with its management education portfolio – a Bachelor of Business Administration, an EMBA, a full-time MBA and executive education – is well placed to meet this demand.
http://sb.aub.edu.lb