EMBA Class of 2017 Gets Underway at Yale SOM

Yale School of Management (Yale SOM) has released details of its new executive MBA class, which is embarking on the two-week residential segment of the program today, July 27.

As a whole, the 63 members of the school’s EMBA class of 2017 are 41% female and 30% international (although, 11% of the class hold dual citizenship).

Yale SOM’s executive MBA program is a fairly recent addition to the US market. When it was launched 10 years ago, it was targeted specifically at those working in the healthcare industry. However, at the end of 2013, the school decided to branch out its executive offerings and added asset management and sustainability as two further options for specialization. This led to its highest-ever intake in 2014 and a spot in the top-10 of the first EMBA ranking it chose to participate in. 

Executive MBA program participants split across three focus areas

Now, students in the class of 2017 are split relatively evenly between its three areas of specialization (choosing a focus remains a compulsory requirement for the time being). However, the more established healthcare focus remains the most popular focus and accounts for 41% of the class, with 30% taking sustainability and 29% looking at asset management.

In its welcome announcement, Yale SOM provides examples of the type of student each executive MBA program specialization has attracted. Healthcare has a student working in c-suite level recruitment for healthcare services firms, asset management’s allotment includes a securities examiner and risk strategist with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the class of 2017‘s sustainability channel extends to a US Navy officer who has been attached to oilfield services firm, Halliburton, as an environmental-compliance engineer.

However, delving into areas of concentration comes only in the EMBA class of 2017’s second year. Before that, the class must get to grips with Yale SOM’s multidisciplinary MBA core curriculum, which is to be tweaked slightly for the coming academic year, based on student and alumni feedback.

The core is one of two principal components that form the basis both of the school’s traditional on-campus MBA program and its executive equivalent, the other being a leadership development program that runs alongside each degree for its duration.

After its initial residential component, the executive MBA program at Yale SOM runs on a typical weekend arrangement, with classes held on campus every other Friday and Saturday. There is also a further one-week residential period in the summer as students advance into their second year.

Yale SOM image: Shutterstock.com