The Ivey Difference
We don't just do things differently, we do them better.
Something happens during the Ivey Executive MBA Program that goes beyond the acquisition of knowledge.
That's because, at Ivey, we believe how you learn, and who you learn with, is foundational to what you learn.
What sets the Ivey EMBA Program apart from other MBA programs in Canada? The difference goes well beyond the curriculum. Our graduates describe the program as nothing short of transformational - an experience that shapes the way they approach challenges and opportunities.
Five interlinked elements give you not just the business fundamentals that you would expect from an MBA program, but also the leadership capabilities required to turn concepts into decisions, knowledge into action, and ideas into change.
The Ivey Executive MBA opens your mind to how the business world really works and prepares you to take challenges head-on.
How You Learn
How you learn is just as important as what you learn.
Learn By Doing
Before you start asking to see a course outline, let's make one thing perfectly clear. How you learn is more important. Because no matter how engaging a faculty member may be, you can't be lectured into becoming a great decision maker.
Confidence comes with practice. In the Ivey classroom, you'll develop your confidence as you apply what you've learned while being challenged by your classmates and faculty. They'll offer perspectives from real-world business experience as you work through each case, imparting years of knowledge in just 17 transformational months.
Case-Method Learning
Ivey Case-Method Learning isn't just teaching; it's about instilling powerful decision-making skills that will stay with you long after graduation. By working through complex, multi-disciplined challenges in tight-knit groups, you'll develop a new way of thinking that influences everything you do going forward. You'll adopt a big-picture point of view, and you'll improve your confidence and ability to turn options into decisions, knowledge into action, and ideas into change.
To prepare for class, you'll assess each case and develop your action plan as though you are the leader dealing with that particular business challenge. From there, you'll test your ideas with your learning team, and new ideas and strategies will emerge. This exercise builds confidence in your decisions and prepares you for class itself. The Ivey classroom is the final step, where you'll open the debate to the diverse perspectives and experiences of the entire class.
Read more about the Ivey case method in this Globe and Mail article written by two EMBA participants.
Who You Learn With
Leaders don't sit back. Lean forward and contribute every day in the case method.
Ivey EMBA Participants
Even with their incredible diversity, all Ivey EMBA participants have something substantial to offer and are all eager to bring their unique experience to class discussions. Ivey faculty members find ways to accelerate learning in the case study method by drawing on the breadth and depth of knowledge in each classroom.As a participant in the Ivey EMBA Program, you'll join top-quality classmates from a broad range of professions, industries and roles. Ivey EMBA participants have an average of 15 years of full-time work experience.
Ivey EMBA Faculty
Ivey EMBA professors contribute valuable experience from outside the classroom. Through their research, case writing, and consulting assignments, they have a keen understanding of the pressures and challenges facing organizations in Canada and around the world, and in many instances are actively involved with them. In many cases, the professor facilitating your class will have first-hand knowledge about the case at hand, resulting in a deeper and more relevant learning experience. At the same time, Ivey professors are very accessible - not only during your time at Ivey, but also afterward on an informal basis.
Cross-Enterprise Leadership Skills
In the Ivey EMBA Program, you'll learn what it takes to succeed in your organization by looking at your role in the context of the whole. You'll learn how to make decisions that build success across the entire organization. That's real leadership development.
Practical Learning With Real-World Relevance
As a program participant, you'll build greater expertise in all functional areas of business from accounting to marketing, but with a Cross-Enterprise Leadership perspective. Ivey's Case-Method Learning and highly relevant projects develop your judgment, confidence, and effectiveness in knowing when and how to apply what you've learned.
Projects With Immediate Impact
The Program includes several individual and team-based projects designed to develop your analytical skills and teach you when to apply them in real-world business challenges. The project work combines your academic and professional life and encourages you to identify and examine challenges within your own organization as part of your course projects. The result: a customized EMBA learning experience that delivers immediate benefits back to your organization.
The Discovery Expedition
With a broader strategic perspective, new knowledge, and sharpened skills, you get a chance to apply your learning in a global context with the Discovery Expedition. Visit an emerging economy for a week-long immersive experience that will include site visits, guest speakers, tours and cultural exploration. This is not industrial tourism; it is an experience designed to expose you to the business practice and context of an unfamiliar global environment.
Why It Matters
Build confidence to make sound decisions and drive clear action plans for your team.
With every learning experience in the Ivey EMBA Program, you'll gain more than business education. You'll develop the ability to apply that knowledge in ways that drive your organization forward and demonstrate your enhanced leadership capabilities.
The Ivey Leadership Essentials
Drawing on the vast experience of your classmates and faculty, the Ivey EMBA Program pushes you to develop and practice the skills that are essential for success. We call them the Ivey Leadership Essentials, and they're at the core of everything we do.
Leverage Team Talent
Execution of great ideas requires assigning the right tasks to the right people at the right time. Leadership demands that you are able to move beyond what you can achieve as an individual performer to mobilizing, coaching, and motivating the talent around you: in some cases, teams and team members around the globe. Much like the real world, you work in learning teams from day one in the Ivey EMBA Program. Quickly, you gain an appreciation of what it takes and what is possible when you transition talented individuals into high-performance teams.
Communicate Persuasively
In a learning environment that draws so much from the experience in the classroom, you need to be on your toes. Contributing to the discussion is expected, but more importantly, you need to be able to express your perspective clearly and be able to back it up confidently with sound analysis. It's not about being right; it's about communicating your position persuasively and effectively. And it's also about being open to new perspectives that you can use to build better ideas that your teams can really get behind.
Embrace Complexity
Leadership in the real world is full of complexity. In today's global economy, that complexity increases exponentially as you take on more strategic roles. And you know that challenges don't arrive in tidy boxes labeled "marketing" or "finance," so we don't teach you how to approach them that way. Case-Method Learning requires you to develop the judgment of when to apply the knowledge you have and the new knowledge that you are developing in the program. Cases contain real information about real challenges - sometimes too much, sometimes too little - pushing you to uncover the critical details and move on to actionable solutions.
Manage Priorities
Time is always the one thing that we never seem to have enough of, but learning better ways to set and deliver on priorities can make all the difference in this daily pressure. Adding the Ivey EMBA to your schedule may not seem like a solution, but alumni consistently tell us that the experience made them significantly better at managing the demands of multiple tasks and conflicting priorities - both personal and professional. The pace of the program is demanding, but exhilarating. It will push you to make smart trade-offs with your time in ways that will stay with you long after the program ends.
Drive Strategic Action
Great leadership is ultimately about getting great results. And great results can only happen when leaders make informed decisions and translate those decisions into brilliantly executed plans. Case-Method Learning demands a bias for action. The foundation of every class revolves around the questions, "What would you do if faced with this challenge and why?" and "How would you make it happen?" You learn to make and defend decisions under pressure with often incomplete, conflicting or ambiguous information - just like real life. But through numerous case discussions, you will gain the confidence to make strategically calculated decisions in the face of uncertainty and lead execution plans that drive results.
Where You'll Go
Build your skills today for limitless opportunities tomorrow.
Just like you, your classmates value the Ivey experience because it's a different kind of business school. It's one that connects you with nearly 30,000+ graduates in 106 countries, who all share a desire to achieve more, and are open to sharing their strengths long after graduation.
Ivey Alumni Network
As an Ivey EMBA graduate, you'll have access to one of the most prestigious alumni networks in Canada and the world. Ivey grads know that you chose Ivey because you value what makes it different from a traditional business school. That shared connection says a lot about you and the network you will join.
40
Ivey has more emerging leaders on the Caldwell Partners "top 40 under 40" list than any other business school
100
19 Ivey Alumni are running Profit 100 Fastest Growing Companies
106
Nearly 27,800 Ivey alumni lead organizations in 99 countries
48%
Almost 1 in 2 Ivey alumni hold a senior management position*
*CEO, CFO, CIO, CMO, CTO, Chair/Vice Chair, Founder, Head, Managing Director, Owner, Partner, President, Proprietor, Treasurer, Vice President and Director
Tradition Of Leadership
Since its launch in 1991, the Ivey Executive MBA Program has welcomed 68 classes, with over 3,000 graduates. Along with Harvard, Darden, and IMD, Ivey is one of a select few schools in the world - and the only business school in Canada - that truly follows the tenets of Case-Method Learning.
Beyond the quantifiable measures of success is the intangible value of the Ivey Experience. Upon completion of the Ivey Executive MBA Program, you won't just walk away with a better understanding of business; you'll emerge fully prepared to inspire, motivate, and succeed.
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