Program Durations

*Program content is subject to change

International MBA Program Specialists

NEED HELP FIGURING OUT WHAT DURATION BEST FITS YOUR PATH?

“I’m good with words, obsessed with green tech and currently working in finance. I desperately need a change, but I don’t know what I should do with my life. Help!” If this sounds even vaguely like you, get in touch. We’d be happy to help you begin exploring career options. We know what jobs are out there and the skills recruiters want. Reach out, no strings attached.

11 months

Advance your career growth and gain the necessary skills and knowledge quickly to move ahead in your field of expertise and get on track to landing the best job for you.

Pre-program- Bridge to business

We offer you a way for you to solidify the basics prior to the formal start of classes to help you get a leg up on a range of subjects, from financial accounting to quantitative methods, so that you can hit the ground running when the program officially starts. This foundation consists of a series of asynchronous components to be completed at your own pace. This "Bridge to Business" is designed to level out the playing field, ensuring every student starts off the program with the same foundation. And while it is intended for those without a prior background in business, accounting and/or some of the basic foundational elements and methods, everyone who joins the program is welcome to do this module.

Term 1 (Common core)

Business Foundations

This common module is consistent for all International MBA students. It addresses all the core, foundational subjects in business: strategy, finance, accounting, operations, marketing, economics, innovation and entrepreneurship. It is an intense, 15-week period, broken up into two sub-periods, each running for seven to eight weeks.

IMPACT SKILLS ACCELERATOR

Seamlessly integrated into your academic journey, the Impact Skills Accelerator is an essential facet of your MBA. This accelerator serves to hone and refine a distinctive set of impact skills through comprehensive training. It will help you develop a core toolset that enables you to structure problems effectively, think on your feet, listen actively, hack your learning, communicate, negotiate, collaborate, persuade, understand and develop yourself and others to succeed in any workplace. We will also make sure these competences are not studied in a vacuum but applied in your day-to-day classes, assignments and project work.

* This module extends on to Term 3

Discover more

CAREER DISCOVERY ACCELERATOR

Step into a world where career exploration becomes a transformative journey. Introducing the Career Discovery Accelerator, an essential component of your MBA, that is meticulously designed to help you figure out where you’re going in your career so you can make the best choices about your concentration, electives and other program options. It consists of a series of hands-on workshops, held in small groups, to help you discover where you want to focus your future career beyond IE Business School. You will have a chance to talk to and engage with professionals in different fields, discovering what a day in the life looks like for them and what it takes to get a job in a given sector.

Divided into three transformative phases (Launch, Explore and Decide), the Career Discovery Accelerator equips you with insights and strategies to make informed decisions about your future.

Discover more

Job Prep & search

At IE Business School, we do not take job preparation or the job search for granted. It is an integral part of developing future-proof leaders. Studies show you need to devote around four to five hours every week to looking for a job and preparing for interviews throughout your International MBA experience. We do not leave this to chance, but rather embed it as an integral part of the program. You will be working very closely with our Talent & Careers department to make sure you take full advantage of all career fairs, interview preparation boot camps and other activities we have to ensure you can maximize your chances of landing your dream job beyond IE Business School.

Term 2

Accelerated management curriculum

Our International MBA in the 11-month duration is designed for those seeking to fast-track a career in business. We expect you to have domain expertise in core business areas like strategy and finance. The curriculum taught in this module compresses a great amount of content into 12 weeks. Hence, the content is quite heavy, often advanced, and always oriented toward the CEO agenda. Why would this matter to the CEO? What should someone working as the CEO know about this issue? How would you defend this or that position before your board of directors?

You will study topics such as advanced corporate finance, advanced topics in the world economy and advanced supply chain management.

Job Prep & search

In this module, you will dedicate more time to further job preparation and search, building upon what you have already done in the Job Preparation and Search module earlier in the program.

* This module extends on to the end of your program

Term 3

Lab or Internship

The Lab is a six-week team experience where you will tackle a real business challenge that a company is facing. It will be an issue of high-enough importance to be on the CEO's agenda. Alternatively, there will be a possibility to complete an Internship, which could be extended in duration from six to 12 weeks in lieu of electives, and you will receive commesurate credits for your efforts. In the internship, you will work with an academic advisor to ensure that the concepts learned in the International MBA are properly applied to any internship-related work.

Electives

This six-week, 15-session period allows you to choose from a range of courses offered in the International MBA, focusing on various functional areas including finance, strategy and technology.

*Offering will be subject to student demand

Final Integrative Exercise

This is your final project for the International MBA. The idea is to use all you have learned to develop a problem of your own choosing and present a credible approach to solving it. It can be on any relevant topic—from finance, economics, sustainability or social impact to product development, disrupting the fintech value chain or implementing strategy at a large corporation.

15 months

Provides ample time for career exploration and more in-depth specialization. It’s beneficial to pivot career paths, explore new career options, or develop skills and gain the experience needed to enter today’s competitive job market or start up your company with confidence.

Pre-program- Bridge to business

Pre-program bridge to business

We offer you a way for you to solidify the basics prior to the formal start of classes to help you get a leg up on a range of subjects, from financial accounting to quantitative methods, so that you can hit the ground running when the program officially starts. This foundation consists of a series of asynchronous components to be completed at your own pace. This "Bridge to Business" is designed to level out the playing field, ensuring every student starts off the program with the same foundation. And while it is intended for those without a prior background in business, accounting and/or some of the basic foundational elements and methods, everyone who joins the program is welcome to do this module.

Term 1 (Common core)

Business Foundations

This common module is consistent for all International MBA students. It addresses all the core, foundational subjects in business: strategy, finance, accounting, operations, marketing, economics, innovation and entrepreneurship. It is an intense, 15-week period, broken up into two sub-periods, each running for seven to eight weeks.

Impact skills accellerator

Seamlessly integrated into your academic journey, the Impact Skills Accelerator is an essential facet of your MBA. This accelerator serves to hone and refine a distinctive set of impact skills through comprehensive training. It will help you develop a core toolset that enables you to structure problems effectively, think on your feet, listen actively, hack your learning, communicate, negotiate, collaborate, persuade, understand and develop yourself and others to succeed in any workplace. We will also make sure these competences are not studied in a vacuum but applied in your day-to-day classes, assignments and project work.

* This module extends on to Term 3

Discover more

Career Discovery accelerator

Step into a world where career exploration becomes a transformative journey. Introducing the Career Discovery Accelerator, an essential component of your MBA, that is meticulously designed to help you figure out where you’re going in your career so you can make the best choices about your concentration, electives and other program options. It consists of a series of hands-on workshops, held in small groups, to help you discover where you want to focus your future career beyond IE Business School. You will have a chance to talk to and engage with professionals in different fields, discovering what a day in the life looks like for them and what it takes to get a job in a given sector.

Divided into three transformative phases (Launch, Explore and Decide), the Career Discovery Accelerator equips you with insights and strategies to make informed decisions about your future.

* This module extends on to Term 2

discover more

Job Prep & search

At IE Business School, we do not take job preparation or the job search for granted. It is an integral part of developing future-proof leaders. Studies show you need to devote around four to five hours every week to looking for a job and preparing for interviews throughout your International MBA experience. We do not leave this to chance, but rather embed it as an integral part of the program. You will be working very closely with our Talent & Careers department to make sure you take full advantage of all career fairs, interview preparation boot camps and other activities we have to ensure you can maximize your chances of landing your dream job beyond IE Business School.

Term 2

Management Curriculum

If you decide to go for the longer, 15-month duration of the International MBA, you will have more time to explore and eventually choose a concentration along a given career path. This period will expose you to additional courses in strategy, operations, finance and technology, among other areas. It will also give you additional time to reflect on how your career can take shape beyond your International MBA, while you continue to hone your skills to make an impact after your experience at IE Business School.

Job Prep & search

In this module, you will dedicate more time to your job preparation and search, building upon what you have already done in the Job Preparation and Search module earlier in the program.

* This module extends on to Term 4

Term 3

Concentration

The Concentration period runs from early April to late June for our September intake. It is made up of 12 intense weeks where you deep dive into the concentration area most aligned with the career path you wish to pursue. Concentrations areas include:

Branding, Marketing & Sales
Digital Business & Analytics
Finance & Investments
Strategy, Organization & Transformation
International Business & Economics
Entrepreneurship & Corporate Innovation
Product Management & Service Design
Sustainability Management & Strategy

Each consists of six courses, all of which are mandatory for any given concentration area. If you wish to deepen your concentration beyond these six courses, you are free to do so during the free electives period toward the end of the program.

*Offering will be subject to student demand

Internship

Starting in the summer for our September intake, the Internship period is meant to give you at least eight weeks of hands-on, on-the-job experience in an area you wish to explore before committing to a full-time job. It is critical that, within the first month after beginning the program, you start preparing for interviews with the employers that offer these internships, which come to IE Business School during career fairs in the fall.

While no one is guaranteed a spot to complete an internship as the employer selects ideal candidates, you will be included in the recruitment process and given every chance to get your resume ready, attend relevant career fair sessions and learn more about potential internship experiences. This will be the first opportunity to make full use of the time you have invested in the Career Discovery and the Job Preparation and Search modules that come earlier in the program.

Students also have the option to search for internships on their own. Should this be the case, we ask you to please coordinate closely with our Talent & Careers team to ensure we maximize the benefit of a well-aligned approach between your efforts and those of the school.

Global Immersion Month

For those who opt out of an internship, there is the opportunity to participate in our Global Immersion Month—a learning experience in which you will travel to a destination city in Europe, Asia or America for 1 month to work with local companies to help them solve specific business issues. There will also be exposure to local culture, people and history, allowing you to immerse yourself in the local community. There will be specific IE Business School and project-related modules, as well as exposure to local schools, where you can share your experience in the world of work and serve as an inspiration for future generations. The destination cities will vary from year to year.

Please note that the GIM is completely optional and there is limited capacity. Additional fees will apply for students who participate, and specific visa requirements and/or travel restrictions may apply.

Term 4

Lab

The Lab Period is one of the most successful learning experiences the International MBA has offered over the years. Together with your assigned team, you will work on a real business problem that a company is facing. You will be briefed directly from company management itself and have a chance to interview and interact with them throughout the five-week-long module. The goal is to apply what you have learned so far in the program to tackle the given challenge. The Lab Period offers a variety of options to select from:

Social Impact Lab: Work with local communities in either South Africa or Brazil to help address a pressing issue—such as microfinance, SME entrepreneuring, local education, local healthcare and more—and improve the community you are working with in the process.
Startup Lab: If you want to start your own business, this is your chance to delve more deeply into it. You will focus on developing your business idea more fully with a complete business plan. You may take the work you do here onto the Venture Lab, if your startup is selected, to work on it further during the free electives period at the end of the program.
Business & Technology Impact Lab: This lab is focused on cracking a real business problem from multiple business and technology perspectives—more specifically, along the lines of the concentration you have chosen. As such, there will be up to eight different variants of the lab depending on the chosen concentration. You can find the full details under "Concentration" above.

Electives

During the Elective Period you can choose from a wide range of available courses for an eight-week period. You may use this period to either deepen your concentration area or expand beyond your concentration, as you see fit. You will have a shot at taking up to five elective courses during this period.

International Exchange

For the duration of this period, you will participate in an International Exchange that offers a choice to travel abroad to any one of IE Business School’s world-class academic partner institutions. We encourage you to choose an exchange institution that furthers either a thematic or regional career objective.

Final Integrative Exercise

This is your final project for the International MBA. The idea is to utilize all you have learned to crack a problem of your own choosing and present a credible approach to solving it. It can be any relevant topic—from sustainability and social impact to product development, disrupting the fintech value chain, implementing strategy at a large corporation, or building on a new startup idea that you have developed further through the Venture Lab and now wish to make a reality beyond the program.

19 months - DUAL DEGREES

Obtain a Dual Degree in less than two years to sharpen your leadership skills and business acumen in the International MBA and gain deep expertise in a specific field with a specialized Masters Degree.

Pre-program- Bridge to business

Pre-program bridge to business

We offer you a way for you to solidify the basics prior to the formal start of classes to help you get a leg up on a range of subjects, from financial accounting to quantitative methods, so that you can hit the ground running when the program officially starts. This foundation consists of a series of asynchronous components to be completed at your own pace. This "Bridge to Business" is designed to level out the playing field, ensuring every student starts off the program with the same foundation. And while it is intended for those without a prior background in business, accounting and/or some of the basic foundational elements and methods, everyone who joins the program is welcome to do this module.

Term 1 (Common core)

Business Foundations

This common module is consistent for all International MBA students. It addresses all the core, foundational subjects in business: strategy, finance, accounting, operations, marketing, economics, innovation and entrepreneurship. It is an intense, 15-week period, broken up into two sub-periods, each running for seven to eight weeks.

Impact skills accelerator

Seamlessly integrated into your academic journey, the Impact Skills Accelerator is an essential facet of your MBA. This accelerator serves to hone and refine a distinctive set of impact skills through comprehensive training. It will help you develop a core toolset that enables you to structure problems effectively, think on your feet, listen actively, hack your learning, communicate, negotiate, collaborate, persuade, understand and develop yourself and others to succeed in any workplace. We will also make sure these competences are not studied in a vacuum but applied in your day-to-day classes, assignments and project work.

* This module extends on to Term 2

Discover more

Career Discovery accelerator

Step into a world where career exploration becomes a transformative journey. Introducing the Career Discovery Accelerator, an essential component of your MBA, that is meticulously designed to help you figure out where you’re going in your career so you can make the best choices about your concentration, electives and other program options. It consists of a series of hands-on workshops, held in small groups, to help you discover where you want to focus your future career beyond IE Business School. You will have a chance to talk to and engage with professionals in different fields, discovering what a day in the life looks like for them and what it takes to get a job in a given sector.

Divided into three transformative phases (Launch, Explore and Decide), the Career Discovery Accelerator equips you with insights and strategies to make informed decisions about your future.

Discover more

Job Prep & search

At IE Business School, we do not take job preparation or the job search for granted. It is an integral part of developing future-proof leaders. Studies show you need to devote around four to five hours every week to looking for a job and preparing for interviews throughout your International MBA experience. We do not leave this to chance, but rather embed it as an integral part of the program. You will be working very closely with our Talent & Careers department to make sure you take full advantage of all career fairs, interview preparation boot camps and other activities we have to ensure you can maximize your chances of landing your dream job beyond IE Business School.

Term 2

Management Curriculum

If you opt for the longest, 19-month duration of the International MBA, you will have ample opportunity to build up a broad base of business knowledge. This period will give you the opportunity to explore and eventually choose a second Master's degree along your chosen career path. It will expose you to further courses in areas such as strategy, operations, finance and technology, among other areas. It will also give you additional time to reflect on how your career can take shape beyond your Dual Degree while you continue to hone your skills to make an impact beyond your experience at IE Business School.

Independent Project

For students pursuing a second degree combined with their IMBA experience, there will be an independent, individual project to be carried out at the end of term 2. The project is the student´s own choosing, and should seek to investigate a particular business challenge in depth. It can be focused on a single company or group of companies, at different stages of their lifecycle (from start-up, to scale-up, to well-established organizations, of different sizes, as well as geographic footprints, sectors, product and customer portfolios). The project topic will be discussed and approved by an academic counselor appointed for this purpose, and should bring in and integrate multiple disciplines studied through the MBA to date. A more detailed grading rubric will also be provided once enrolled. The project is to be carried out in the intervening period of 2-3 weeks between the end of Term 2 of the IMBA, and the beginning of their second Masters Degree.

Job Prep & search

Dedicate more time to job preparation and search in this module, building on what you have done in the Job Preparation and Search module earlier in the program.

Second Master Degree

Second Masters Degree

Choosing to pursue a Dual Degree program will extend your overall experience at IE Business School to up to 19 months. Check out the Dual Degree programs website for further information.

Choose your duration

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