Message from Program Director
Educating Era-Defining, True Societal Leaders
Every year, competitively selected executives and managers who are committed to vital managerial decisions at their institutions find themselves at the doorstep of the EMBA Program at the Keio Business School. These professionals are already highly specialized and experienced in their respective fields. It is an amazing thing just to have such a group of people interact with and learn from each other. They engage in candid and serious discussions and these exercises lead to invaluable long-lasting relationships. The first thing that they face right after enrollment is the so-called "Visionary" course. The program also offers the "Domestic Fieldwork" course that addresses corporate challenges and regional development in Japan through on-site observations and "Overseas Fieldwork" courses that deal with the creating new businesses in developing economies. Our EMBA Program offers a variety of innovative and novel learning formats as well as case study discussions and lectures across eight functional areas covered by the core courses.
The underlying principle reflected in this varied learning approach is the idea that management perspectives should not be one-dimensional. In the past, business schools have focused on teaching the best way to allocate assets at a company's disposal purely to maximize economic profit. Now we are living in the era when corporations find themselves facing challenges in finding ways to sustainably increase their economic intake. What kind of role should a company play in society at large? What should they aim for and what kind of activities should they carry out with multiple stakeholders? What kind of society do they aspire to realize? At our EMBA Program, executives are strongly expected to broaden their scope and mindset to find answers and solutions to the above fundamental questions.
Recent events around the world also require our attention, including the escalation of geopolitical conflicts, shifts in political and economic balances of power, and sudden large-scale natural disasters that have proliferated uncertainty and shaken the foundations of our conventional wisdom to the core. There is no way of knowing what tomorrow holds. To adequately respond to the societal and environmental challenges facing corporations, they must have the intuition and ability to drastically reconfigure the way resources are managed.
In the spirit of the Keio Business School's founding philosophy of cultivating "era-defining and true societal leaders", our EMBA Program aims to educate managers who can pilot in a new age; leaders who handle uncertainty and harness diverse perspectives and ambitious plans to connect with people's hearts and minds--all while making agile, adaptable, prompt, and appropriate decisions. We hope to find you at the doorstep of the EMBA Program at the Keio Business School.
