When Ariwoola Ogbemi decided she wanted to study for a top-notch MBA a decade ago, she ruled out the two-year US model because she had a young family and could not spare the time.
“I knew two years wouldn’t work,” says the former head of the information technology department at Statoil Nigeria, the energy company. Instead, in 2003, she began the one-year MBA at IMD in Switzerland – a course she chose for its international focus as well as its duration.
Ogbemi is typical of a growing number of business school students who, because of the cost, time commitment or career trajectory, are eschewing the traditional two-year MBA model for one-year, part-time or executive programmes, or shorter specialised masters degrees in finance or accounting.