During her 21 months studying the OneMBA, Global Executive MBA programme, run by the Chinese University, Fanny Ching Sau-ying saw her classmates switch jobs and join large corporations in different countries. She also found a fresh impetus for her career and joined the local office of an American company, Newell Rubbermaid, as regional finance director in 2005.
Being exposed to how businesses are conducted in different parts of the world and emboldened by students' desires to try new positions, she said: 'A global mindset is important for career advancement. We became more aggressive and more willing to make changes as we developed new perspectives in tackling problems.'
Increasingly, MBA training is preparing aspiring executives for cross-cultural positions in today's globalised economy.
Ms Ching had wanted to retire early when she returned to Hong Kong in 2004 after having worked in the mainland and Singapore for a decade, but she changed her mind after learning about the business challenges in different parts of the world through the course.
'We went on trips to different cities and listened to public and private sector representatives talk about various issues. We found that concepts such as corporate social responsibility are so new in some places. The role of global executive leaders is to influence their team members, so they all work in the same direction in a cost-effective and socially responsible way.'
The OneMBA programme is designed to prepare executives to meet global challenges. Every few months, students have residence weeks in one of the five partner institutions of the programme - School of Management Erasmus, the Netherlands; Kenan-Flagler School of Business, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, United States; EGADE, Monterrey, Mexico, and Fundacao Getulio Vargas in Brazil.