Creative MBA

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CREATIVE MBAs PROSPER

CREATIVE MASTERS NOT ALL MBAs END IN A CAREER IN THE CITY. SPECIALISED COURSES ARE NOW TEACHING CREATIVITY AS WELL AS BUSINESS

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FASHION, LUXURY AND HORSES. Not what you might expect to learn about on an MBA course. But a growing number of people are choosing to study more than the business basics. Whether you want to work within the creative media, the luxury goods sector or even run a riding school, there is a business course to match. With the finance and banking industries, the usual target for MBA students, in turmoil, specialist and creative courses are becoming increasingly popular. Despite – or perhaps because of – the economic downturn, 2009 was a record year for business school applications, according to the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), the body who monitor MBA applications. There was a 25 percent rise in demand in Europe alone, and the GMAC say that specialist MBAs played a large part in this. But are the extra skills taught on specialist courses actually valuable in the workplace? Dr John Oliver, who

runs the Professional Doctorate in Creative Industries at Bournemouth University, says yes. “Media is a creative industry, where your ideas are your currency. Naturally, essential management techniques are important, but to learn how to manage creative people and the creative process is something you would not learn on a generic MBA course.” Some courses are using scientific methods to understand the creative process and fine-tune product development – for example, using psychology to understand why consumers pick one luxury perfume over another. Others are tailoring standard business concepts to the industry in question, such as the MBA in Equine Business Management at the Royal Agricultural College, which focuses on information relevant to small businesses rather than big corporations. As a result, graduates have a better cross-section of skills than from a cookie-cutter MBA. Antoine Tirard,

MASTER’S PIECES: One of the award-winning designs that helped launch jewellery designer Dave McCaul’s sparkling career

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