Only by staying ahead and anticipating future needs, will MBA programs continue to deliver value to students. CEU Business School, with its emphasis on innovation, took this imperative to heart by disrupting its extremely successful EMBA program.

In October 2015 the school launched a completely redesigned executive MBA, called the Katalyst EMBA. A stark illustration of the School’s willingness to disrupt even successful activities to better serve the students and firms in the business community is the recently re-crafted EMBA Program—the school’s most popular program, the Katalyst Executive MBA.

Dean Mel Horwitch explained, “Of course, in Hungary, as in many other countries in the CEE, there are several good MBA programs. However, most are local in nature. In contrast our Katalyst EMBA is structured to meet the increasingly global demands of top managers and entrepreneurial leaders in our region.”

CEU Business School also has an informal and experimental EMBA-program arrangement with the Warsaw University of Technology Business School. Beginning October 2014, the schedules of the respective Katalyst EMBA programs were “harmonized.” Selected faculty members from both institutions now teach in both Katalyst EMBA programs. Students from both programs now form joint virtual student teams working on cross-CEE projects. Thus far, four faculty members have taught in both programs, including the Deans of the two respective schools. Joint Katalyst-EMBA weekends in Budapest and in Warsaw are held annually.

CEU designed the Katalyst EMBA with the understanding that almost all business spans national and regional boundaries. Professor Yusaf Akbar, Strategy professor at CEU Business School stated, “Even most start-ups from small nations today immediately “go global” in search of markets, funding and other complementary assets. The program mimics the way most corporations and entrepreneurial enterprises operate today. Students in our Katalyst EMBA learn to be successful in this new business world and to navigate and create value in such a setting.”

The Katalyst EMBA program starts at 6 PM on Fridays, has six classes per weekend, and meets every third weekend. Potential thematic weekend topics include Big Data, Supply Chains, and Business and Society. Thus, the program is now even more suited to working professionals than before; it is more attractive to more distant markets; and allows for occasional holistic and thematic weekends that focus on a single topic. There are two Katalyst EMBA entry points per year one in October and one in March.

This is an exciting time for CEU Business School, which is now in the midst of recruiting for a second Katalyst EMBA cohort starting in late March 2015.

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