Cranfield School of Management was set up over 30 years ago with the purpose of contributing to the improvement of management practice and leadership. Today it is one of Europe’s leading business schools with a growing international reputation. It is renowned for its high quality teaching and research and its strong links with industry and business. Above all, Cranfield is known as a school that provides practical management solutions.

In addition to its postgraduate masters degrees and doctoral programmes, the School is one of the world’s largest providers of executive development courses for practising managers. Each year more than 6,000 managers attend courses varying from one and two-day seminars on specialist topics to three-week management development programmes covering all business disciplines. As well as the open programmes, the School’s Centre for Customised Executive Development designs tailored, in-company programmes for organisations across a broad spectrum of industries and business sectors.

Also based within the School of Management is the Cranfield Centre for Logistics and Supply Chain Management, with Europe’s largest faculty specialising in management in this field. The Centre has strong links with the University’s technology faculties, thus offering a unique combination of managerial and technical expertise.

The Cranfield MBA – a quality programme
Increasingly an MBA is the essential qualification for many senior management positions. In addition to providing a well respected and widely recognised qualification, the programme of study opens up opportunities for those who want to make a change of direction, advance their career, set up their own business or expand their personal networks.

Cranfield School of Management first offered a full-time MBA programme in the mid 1960s. Over the years we have developed an international reputation for excellence, and our MBA is consistently ranked amongst the top programmes in the world. Cranfield is one of a select number of business schools world-wide to be accredited by all three of the major accreditation bodies: AACSB International, EQUIS and AMBA.

What sort of people take an MBA?
Participants at Cranfield come from a wide variety of backgrounds with a great diversity of experience. Typically, 60% of full-time students are international, representing more than 40 different countries. Their average age is 30 and they have around eight years’ organisational experience.

Helping managers work effectively in the global environment is a top priority at Cranfield and the School’s international focus is emphasised by the multicultural mix of students, faculty and research, combined with partnerships and exchanges with other business schools and organisations across the world.

Cranfield’s 9,000 alumni include directors of international companies, chief executives of major charities, owners of multi-million dollar businesses and heads of government departments.

Advantages of an MBA
There are a variety of reasons for undertaking an MBA, not least to gain a thorough grounding in core business topics and current best practice combined with understanding of the practical application of this in the business world.

Cranfield alumni, however, say that the greatest life-changing impact is through the personal development aspects of the programme. This approach enables them to grow in confidence and develop their communication, teamworking and leadership abilities so that they can take on new challenges and career opportunities.

This experience is enhanced by the Cranfield ‘learning teams’ approach where MBAs work in groups of 6 people throughout the programme. The teams are selected so that they represent the ultimate international, cultural, business and functional mix of experience, maximising what participants can learn from each other.

Sally Glover, Head of Career Development at Cranfield claims that this approach is of great importance. She says: “One of the key benefits to MBAs is that they gain a multi-faceted perspective of business, and through team working they develop their communication and interpersonal skills, which are the essential drivers of business success.”

This mix of team-working, intensive learning, high calibre students, interactive teaching, excellent faculty and leading-edge research all contribute to a distinctive approach we call “The Cranfield Experience”.

For more information about the School and its programmes, or to recruit a Cranfield MBA, please contact Maureen Williams:
Telephone: +44 (0) 1234 754386
Email: maureen.williams@cranfield.ac.uk
Website: www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/