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Executive Education

Mini-MBA: Essential Business Skills

Step up to the next level of success

 

 

No matter who you are in the world of work, getting a big-picture view of how business operates can be a pivotal strategy for advancing your career and growing your organization. 

Spread over a concise five weeks, this robust program provides a comprehensive look at the fundamentals of business and current organizational practices. It covers all the key components of a formal business school curriculum, enabling you to increase your business acumen and bring fresh insights to your work without having to commit full time to study. 

Led by award-winning UBC Sauder faculty, the program will expand your knowledge and applied skills in strategy, financial management, operations, strategic HR and marketing. You’ll also explore how decisions in one area may impact the others, and how strategic integration between functions can drive organizational success. 

 

 

The learning journey

The multi-layered activities interweave throughout the program, enabling you to integrate your learning as you progress step-by-step through the material:

  • Session pre-work includes short videos and readings introducing the various topic areas. There will be no out-of-class assignments, but reviewing these materials beforehand will help you prepare for your next live online session. 
  • Live online sessions bring learning to life through online contact with the faculty and your colleagues. Sessions include class discussion, Q&As, peer-group collaboration, networking, etc.—all intended to vitalize the content with that most valuable learning tool of all: human interaction. 

This program is ideal for those at any stage of their career, including: 

  • Early or mid-career managers aspiring to expand their executive potential 
  • Small-business owners/managers who want to grow an enterprise
  • Senior leaders looking to refresh their perspectives with new ideas 
  • Anyone who has wanted to pursue a formal program of business study but never found the opportunity

Benefits for you

  • Get a solid grounding in the key components of business
  • Recognize the connections between different functional areas 
  • Look at the business from multiple angles, to reach more informed decisions 
  • Deepen your experience through peer networking and collaboration
  • Keep pace in today’s increasingly complex business environment
  • Drive your career forward while delivering value to your organization on many levels

Benefits for your organization

  • Ensure your company has the critical knowledge and skills it needs to succeed
  • Build organizational power to spot opportunities and manage challenges
  • Become more adept at cascading strategy through every business function
  • Promote cooperation and action between various areas of the business
  • Develop your company’s talent and succession pipeline 

Strategy

  • Environmental scanning and market assessment
  • Sources of competitive advantage and barriers to entry
  • Building effective value propositions
  • Contemporary models of strategic planning

Finance and Accounting

  • Key financial/accounting principles and tools 
  • The effect of transactions on the company’s financial position 
  • The budgetary cycle and financial controls
  • Time value of money: creating support for business decisions

Operations

  • Core principles of high-performing processes 
  • The role of operational building blocks (capacity, inventory etc.) 
  • Integrating operations with other functional areas 
  • Creating an effective operational strategy 

Strategic HR 

  • Fundamental principles
  • Utilizing HR to integrate business strategy
  • Driving results by managing performance and building high-level partnership skills
  • Leading people through change 

Marketing

  • Understanding customers (businesses and end consumers)
  • Market segmentation, targeting and positioning
  • Making product, place, price and promotion decisions
  • Digital and social marketing strategy 

Special features

This program blends interactive, instructor-led live sessions with engaging self-paced learning opportunities—enabling you to bring fresh insights to your work, while you work. 

Mahesh-Nagarajan

Dr. Mahesh Nagarajan

Faculty

Mahesh is the Senior Associate Dean for Research and Professor in the Operations Division at the UBC Sauder School of Business, where he holds the Alumni Chair professorship in Stochastic optimization. He is an applied mathematician whose research looks at mathematical modelling, analysis and optimization. He has also consulted widely for manufacturing, service and health care organizations around the world.
Scott Sinclair

Scott Sinclair

Faculty

Scott is a faculty member at the UBC Sauder School of Business. Actively involved in professional accounting education for more than 30 years, he has won multiple awards for teaching excellence and for 10 years was the principal author for the CA School of Business in Western Canada. He has also worked for Coopers & Lybrand Chartered Accounts, serving small business and mining clients.
Stanley, Amy

Amy Stanley

Lecturer

Amy is a Lecturer in the Organizational Behaviour and Human Resources Division at the UBC Sauder School of Business. She holds an MSc in International Human Resource Management and completed the early days of her HR career in London, UK. 

Amy became a Certified Executive Coach through Royal Roads University, and held various leadership positions in HR before going into teaching. She manages her own leadership development business specializing in supporting leaders through conflict and helping them optimize relationships with peers and teams. Her global client list includes a range of industries from the business, finance, government and education sectors.

As a Lecturer at UBC Sauder, Amy teaches organizational behaviour, leadership and specialist HR courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. She also works alongside organizations and individuals at Sauder Executive Education, where she provides learners with the tools they need to manage effectively and boost performance. In addition she leads custom leadership development programs, teaching leaders how to maximize performance through building and sustaining strong teams.  

Amy’s 20+ year career in HR informs much of her teaching. Bringing humility, humour and realism to her classes, she believes that being prepared for the good and bad things the workplace gives people the best chance of success.

[Executive Education Programs] Mini-MBA: Essential Business SkillsEssential Management SkillsManaging Performance

Darren Dahl

Dr. Darren Dahl

Faculty

Darren is the Dean of the UBC Sauder School of Business and an Innovate BC Professor. He’s globally recognized for his work in strategic marketing, entrepreneurship, creativity and social influence. Dahl is an award-winning academic who is a past recipient of the Killam Research Prize and the 3M Teaching Fellowship, and in 2015 he was ranked as the #1 professor worldwide for marketing research by the American Marketing Association. He also consults widely for multinational corporations.
Perry Atwal Profile

Perry Atwal

Lecturer

A full-time lecturer at UBC Sauder School of Business, Perry Atwal delivers numerous Executive Education programs - both Custom and Open Enrollment - in areas such as business strategy, leadership, and entrepreneurship.

Perry’s professional journey includes a tenure with Morgan Stanley, where he contributed to the Investment Banking and Equity Research Divisions across global financial hubs in London, Hong Kong and New York. He has also consulted with Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse First Boston, and Barclays Capital.

Throughout his career, Perry has forged effective relationships between business and government entities at many levels, with a client portfolio including Translink, Vancouver Board of Trade, Haisla First Nation, and KPMG.

A distinguished alumnus of UBC Sauder, Perry has been with the school for over 20 years, graduating first in his MBA class, before later serving as Assistant Dean and Executive Director of UBC Sauder Executive Education, followed by roles as Director of Strategy, and CEO of the Centre of Healthcare Leadership at the school. 

Perry teaches Organizational Behaviour and Employment Relationships to undergraduate students at UBC Sauder and instructs graduates in Labour Negotiations, Marketing and Service Management. He has taught extensively in the school’s International MBA program with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and he also lectures to graduates of the UBC Engineering, Medical and Arts faculties. 

Perry is a member of both the Canadian Venture Capital Association and the European Venture Capital Association, as well as a Certified Human Resource Practitioner.

[Executive Education Programs] Mini-MBA: Essential Business Skills, Leading High Performance TeamsStrategy Implementation that WorksBuilding an Effective StrategyEssential Management Skills

Upcoming sessions

calendar Program dates
price_tag Fees and Taxes
notebook Format
filled_point Location
Feb 10 - Mar 14
$5650.00 + tax (5%)

Online

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Online format is delivered virtually in real time and are not recorded. 

Online format is delivered virtually in real time and are not recorded. 

Online
May 5 - Jun 6
$5650.00 + tax (5%)

Online

info_mark

Online format is delivered virtually in real time and are not recorded. 

Online format is delivered virtually in real time and are not recorded. 

Online

Participating organizations

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