The MBA – a passport to an international career?

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The MBA – a passport to an international career?


With a degree in engineering from Delft, Bart Cornelissen from Nijmegen had already built a successful career in strategy consultancy when he decided it was time to take an MBA or Masters in Business Administration. “Although I’d built up a wide base of experience in business, I felt that there were still areas that I knew little or nothing about. I wanted to develop new skills and, at the same time, gain a qualification that might give me the opportunity to change career direction and allow me to work in a wide range of countries around the world. An MBA seemed to be the logical choice.”

Sjoerd Kamp, now studying at Said Business School at Oxford in the UK shares Bart’s view that an international career calls for an international qualification. “Every country has its own idiosyncratic education system,” he says, “and there’s little understanding of the value of individual domestic qualifications. An MBA is one of very few qualifications that is recognised and valued around the world.”

According to Bart Cornelissen, it’s not just the qualification itself that is of value but also the contacts that time at major business school brings. “When I first came to Tuck here in the USA, I heard a lot about the ‘power of the network’ but was more than a little sceptical. However I’m now the first to admit that it works. I’ve found that any graduate of the school I’ve tried to contact will get back to me within two to three days and I’m talking about some very impressive people, such as heads of top banks in London. It really is a invaluable resource.”

Despite a downturn in recruitment over the past few years, MBAs are now coming back into demand with major corporations, banks and management consultancies. But, while there seems little doubt that an MBA is a worthwhile investment for Dutch nationals looking to work on the global stage, how is it regarded in the Netherlands itself? “It’s certainly not as well recognised at home as it is in the USA where I’m studying at the moment,” he says, “but it’s certainly growing in reputation in the Netherlands, particularly among large multinationals.” Sjoerd Kamp’s previous employer was a typical example of one of these organisations – the strategy consultancy, McKinsey & Co. “After you have worked for McKinsey for a few years you are strongly encouraged to gain a new perspective by taking a year out in a different industry or pursuing further study. The most popular option is to take an MBA because of what you can learn and because of the doors it broadens your career opportunities.”

Another of the international organisations headquartered in the Netherlands, which has shown a real commitment to the value of an MBA is the global electronics company Philips. As Henk de Bruin of the company’s Corporate Sustainability Office comments, “We look to recruit and retain the very best people available and we place great store in leadership, functional skills and the drive for business excellence. That’s one of the reasons why we put so much effort into recruiting graduates of the world’s top business schools.”

As a result of the rising profile of the MBA in the Netherlands, the world’s largest programme of business school information, the World MBA Tour, is visiting the country again in 2004. Now in its eleventh year of operation, the World MBA Tour brings together over 250 of the top international business schools. Nineteen of the US ‘Top 20’ as defined by Business Week magazine participate, including: Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, Michigan, Northwestern, Stanford, UCLA and Wharton. All of the leading European schools also take part, for example: Italy’s SDA Bocconi; France’s HEC, INSEAD and EM Lyon; IESE and IE-Instituto de Empresa in Spain; Switzerland’s IMD; Rotterdam from the Netherlands, and Cranfield, Imperial, London, Manchester, Oxford, and Warwick from the UK. The Tour enables potential candidates to meet admissions directors face-to-face and to obtain a wide range of information on programme content, costs and duration, financial aid and post-qualification career options. The events also feature seminars and workshops which cover issues such as choosing between specialist post-graduate courses and an MBA, picking the right school, financing an MBA, taking the GMAT test, and preparing a winning application.