Few leading business schools offer the unmatched access to industry and its top executives that Columbia Business School (CBS) provides to its MBA students by virtue of its New York City location. The school has wisely trumpeted this fact with the tagline “At the Very Center of Business,” even inserting it into the essay prompts prospective applicants to the school must answer.
Yesterday, the school announced the recent launch of an immersive seminar designed to build upon CBS’s advantageous location and access to captains of industry. As part of the seminars, which debuted over the spring and summer semesters, full-time MBA students convene with C-suite executives for frank discussions about where business is headed, as well as the challenges and opportunities that line the path. CBS faculty members Khalid Azim and Barry Salzberg helm the seminar series.
“Our students have always enjoyed the benefits that New York City has to offer. They are just a subway ride away from tremendous career opportunities,” CBS Dean Glenn Hubbard said in a statement. “These immersion seminars students meet with industry executives and see theories taught in the classroom being applied in real-time in the business world.”
Companies from an array of industries ranging from management consulting and financial services to data analytics and luxury brands partnered with CBS for the inaugural seminars. They included Google, Morgan Stanley, Deloitte an Tiffany and Company, among others.
“We had an incredible list of companies that we visited, and I think that goes to show how diverse New York is for industry,” said Azim, CBS director of strategic curricular networks and partnerships, in a video the school produced to extol the value of the immersion seminars. There are plans to grow the program in the coming year.
“The immersion seminar was an incredible way to have all the elements of the core—from accounting to corporate finance to marketing to our strategy courses—and see how all of those methodologies and all of those disciplines are at work,” said Shana Gotlieb, MBA ’16, as part of the video, calling it the best class she took at CBS.
Salzberg, who joined the CBS faculty recently after a 40-year career with Deloitte, represents the type of industry leaders the immersion seminars helps connect students to. “It’s combining the best of academia and the business world in a place—New York City—where you can’t beat the opportunity to have students experience the real business world and meet with C-suite leaders week after week,” he said as part of the video.
“Only in New York City does a school have access to this array of industry titans,” Azim added as part of a statement. “We look forward to capitalizing on the extraordinary momentum spurred by our inaugural seminars and strengthening the experience for future generations of Columbia Business School students.”
Watch the video about Columbia Business School’s new immersion seminars.
