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Your IMD EMBA journey

Your IMD EMBA journey

How the program works

The IMD Executive MBA is a modular program consisting of a Foundation Stage and a Mastery Stage, giving you the flexibility to choose the format and timing that works best for you.This blended, flexible modular curriculum allows you to combine personal development with daily life. 

  • From 18 months total depending on your work commitments 
  • 5 starting dates per year
  • 7-9 weeks out of the office in total (depending on your Foundation Stage choice)

The Foundation Stage can either be taken as a 20-day on-campus program plus 5 weeks online, or 10 weeks live virtual plus 8 days on campus program plus 5 weeks online.

The Mastery Stage comprises six 1-week modules spread over twelve months.

Foundation Stage options

You choose one of two Foundation Stage options before entering the Mastery Stage.

Option 1: Foundations for Business Leadership
3 weeks face-to-face at IMD campus, Lausanne

Foundations for Business Leadership (FBL)
3 weeks face-to-face at IMD campus, Lausanne
(8 ECTS credits)

Fast-track your understanding of key business fundamentals. Master the core functions of a complex organization.
Streams: marketing, finance & accounting, business model innovation & entrepreneurship, strategy & industry analysis, operations & supply chain management

View full details of Foundations for Business Leadership (FBL)

Advanced Management Concepts (AMC)
5 weeks online
(5 ECTS credits)
Online learning requires approx. 15 hours per week.

Go deeper into the topics covered during FBL with this five-week distance learning module.
Streams: strategic thinking, finance, marketing, ESG fundamentals

Option 2: Global Management Foundations
10 weeks live virtual classroom plus 8 days on campus

Global Management Foundations (GMF)
10 weeks virtual and 8 days at IMD campus, Lausanne
(8 ECTS credits)

This immersive journey, blending 10 weeks of live virtual sessions with an 8-day on-campus experience from August 26 to November 25, 2024, offers a flexible pathway to launch your IMD Executive MBA.

This blended experience enables you to build your business leadership skills for a rapidly changing world with full capability-building and integration of the latest general management topics.

Learn more about Global Management Foundations (GMF)

Advanced Management Concepts (AMC)
5 weeks online
(5  ECTS credits)
Online learning requires approx. 15 hours per week.

Go deeper into the topics covered during GMF with this five-week distance learning module.
Streams: strategic thinking, finance, marketing, ESG fundamentals

Comparison table of Foundations for Business Leadership and Global Management Foundations

If you are age 28-35 with 5-10 years of business experience and are aiming for the EMBA, then you may apply via IMD’s Future Leaders (FL) instead of Foundations for Business Leadership or Global Management Foundations. Admission to the EMBA is confirmed on a case-by-case basis and dependent on all admissions criteria being met. Please discuss with your program advisor.

Mastery stage

The Mastery stage consists of 6 in-person modules of 1-week each, spread over a 12-month period, with online learning in between modules. 3 of the modules take place at the IMD Lausanne campus, while the remaining 3 are Global Immersion weeks, with a variety of exciting locations to choose from. These modules cover a broad range of topics, including Leadership, Corporate Resilience, Crisis Management, Entrepreneurship, and Executive Career Management, to name but a few. See more details below.

(47 ECTS credits)

Leadership Stream
Become a more self-aware, reflective and strategic leader

Many find that the leadership stream is the most enlightening and valuable element of the program. You reflect and experiment with your leadership style through team simulations, individual assignments, and personal one-on-one coaching.

Leadership is at the heart of your ability to effect change in your organization. This is critical as you move into senior management roles where you are increasingly responsible and accountable for delivering results, especially through others.

Receive high-impact personal leadership coaching integrated throughout the program

IMD’s Executive MBA is not just about acquiring and mastering technical knowledge, it’s a transformational human experience.  Enhance your ability to positively impact your organization as you discover how you take-up authority, better understand group dynamics and develop the inner resilience to cope in any situation.

Global Immersion Weeks
Experience full immersion in highly different business contexts

Global Immersion Weeks take you directly into global business environments, hand-selected by faculty to accelerate your real-world understanding around critical themes such as:

  • Entrepreneurship
  • Innovation
  • Digital strategic agility
  • Social innovation and impact investment
  • Business challenges in emerging economies
  • Start-up ecosystems

Guided by passionate faculty and local experts, you see life as it is, in companies, as well as in the cultural, economic and political context in which they operate.

Explore themes and destinations

Entrepreneurship: from ideas to execution
Work directly with a Swiss start-up, understand the market and potential business opportunity, and pitch the start-up to venture capitalists.
Potential destinations: Silicon Valley, India

Innovation
Analyse a real business challenge for a company, carry out a strategic analysis and develop recommendations for the client firm.
Potential destinations: Estonia, China

Corporate transformations
Carry out a real project to examine corporate transformations for a company and make recommendations for a major transformation.
Potential destinations: India

Social innovation & impact investment
Learn how to think big in a small market. Find ventures that have the potential to grow and scale.
Potential destinations: Peru

Business challenges in emerging economies
Learn about the unique opportunities and challenges of doing business in emerging markets.
Potential destinations: Kenya

Start-up ecosystems
Enhance your understanding of what is required for an entrepreneurial ecosystem to flourish and identify potential pitfalls.
Potential destinations: Israel

Real-world projects
Lead innovation back in your organization

Real-world projects allow you to apply all your new skills to your organization’s context, directly as you are building your new competencies. Five tailored projects serve as your own “learning laboratory” to test out your innovative initiatives, experiment, analyse, refine and then develop a fully-fledged business proposal, strategy, or execution plan. Faculty are on hand to personally help you find truly impactful solutions to the tangible challenges you and your company are navigating.

The projects are introduced in a cumulative way through a cycle of execution and reflection, integrating step by step what you learn in the leadership stream and in the Global Immersion Weeks.
Executive Career Management
Explore a range of exciting, potential futures for yourself

Ensure your professional and personal fulfilment with our guidance. Whether you plan to change employment after the EMBA or accelerate your career within your current company, pro-actively planning your career path and leveraging your resources is critical to your success.

  • Career strategy
  • Leverage your experience and skills
  • Career design

Throughout the Mastery Stage of the EMBA, you will be working both onsite and at a distance through a series of workshops, webinars, career management tools and counselling with an experienced Career Strategist who will be matched with you according to your needs.

Crisis Management
Successfully manage extreme uncertainty and risk

Prepare yourself for every leader’s reality with crisis leadership training from top experts – the Swiss Armed Forces.

To complete your EMBA journey, you will be challenged to experience a crisis situation in a high intensity, two-day simulation. You and your team will learn how to lead in a crisis from generals of the Swiss Armed Forces and how to communicate with various stakeholders. You will have to deal with stress, uncertainty, surprises, fatigue and frustration. You will learn how crisis leadership is different – when to switch from “business as usual” to crisis-mode – and how to lead from briefing to briefing under time pressure.

Meet the expert faculty guiding your success