Welcome EMBA 13 Students!

The latest cohort of executive MBA students began their 19-month journey to earning their degrees last week (Jan. 18, 2013) at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. The 41 students are the 13th group to start the program since the Smith School launched its EMBA degree in 2002. This year’s class is the largest cohort the Smith School has recruited yet, as applications to have been increasing steadily for the past four years. It’s also one of the most diverse classes, with women making up 37% of the class, 60% minority, and 32% of international origin.

The high proportion of female students puts Smith at the leading-edge of building a program that is attractive to female business leaders, which is a national trend of more women applying to EMBA programs. Women represented 37% of the 2012 applicant pool nationwide, up 10 percentage points from 2011, according to a study by the Graduate Management Admissions Council released in September.

“We’re especially proud to be welcoming this exceptional group of driven, and accomplished professionals to our EMBA program,” said Greg Hanifee, Assistant Dean of Executive Programs at Smith. “The combination of the students’ diversity in industry and functional experience combined with our outstanding faculty and staff sets the stage for another incredible journey of discovery and applied learning.”

Smith’s EMBA program kicked off with an intense weeklong series of courses and introductory sessions. The students in Cohort 13 will get to know each other well over the next year-and-a-half, spending every-other weekend together developing their core business skills and working together in groups to solve real business challenges, which based on prior cohorts, will lead to several students starting new ventures. They will also learn much more about themselves as leaders, as the program focuses heavily on leadership development and executive coaching.

EMBA – Class of 2014 profile (entering January 2013)

• 37% female
• 60% minority
• Average Age - 40
• Average years of experience – 17
• Average years of management experience – 11
• 44% have graduate degrees; 12% have dual masters degrees
• 32% of international origins coming from: Bangladesh, Columbia, Cuba, Haiti, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UK
• 24% military backgrounds (hailing from all four branches)

More detailed class profile information can be found on the EMBA website.