A few minutes after recording the video of Jaap, I managed to grab hold of Donald. I believe I’m not mistaken in saying that the November residency attendants unanimously elected him the “joker” of the group. You will notice he cannot help it and lets his young heart show in this short clip as well, even if he speaks of serious things, like the commitment needed to be successful in the programme.
So I give you Donald!
We are happy to announce that the University of Cumbria MBA at Robert Kennedy College has been listed again this year on the Financial Times 2013 Online MBA Listing.
The University of Cumbria long history that dates back to 1822 has been combined with the unique expertise of our College to offer one of the most content and cost competitive programmes in the World.
The Financial Times listing highlights that the The University of Cumbria MBA at Robert Kennedy College is now one of the largest MBA programmes in world. (you can download the full listing and report here ).
Our Students come from all over the World our programme incorporates a one week residency in Cumbria, England and allows our graduates to enjoy the same benefits of full time students including attendance to the annual graduation ceremony at the Carlisle Cathedral.
We are currently accepting applications for the April 2013 and May 2013 intakes. If you are ready for this challenge you are welcome to apply now!
In the video below you can see the impressions of our students during the residential week at the University of Cumbria World class campus in the idyllic Ambleside
Are you ready for the challenger and start your MBA ? click to apply now!
Hello everyone,
Although I am in the middle of reading midterms for the January cohort, I could not resist the temptation to surprise you all with a new video from the Students4Students series. Today our special guest is Jaap, whom some of you will know either from the residency or from our online world.
I caught up with Jaap last year in York, and for reasons outside my control the video was delayed again and again, but now it is here. Jaap has some practical advice for those of you attending the York residency, and also some advice about the programme in general.
Switzerland says Ja and limits “fat cat” salaries
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see also the http://www.cnbc.com/id/100516799 CNBC article by Carolin Roth
With close to 68% of the votes and a winning result in each of the 26 Cantons, Switzerland has voted yes to the referendum to give executives pay binding decision rights to shareholders. The new rules will be part of the the Swiss constitution and will allow shareholders to vote, even electronically, annually on management compensation with veto powers.
It also bans the payment of sign-in and exit bonuses, m&a bonuses and consulting contracts.
The vote highlights the Swiss strong will to enhance transparency and give more power to shareholders. The recent issue with the former Novartis CEO exit package has further underlined the gap between shareholders and population understanding of a fair and competitive compensation to what was seen as an exaggerate exit bonus.
Swiss Competitiveness not in danger
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The main concern for these that lobbied for the referendum proposal to be rejected was that the competitiveness of Switzerland as a place to do business will be impacted, as many multinational companies might opt for other locations where the executives compensation doesn’t have to be decided by shareholders.
I think that this will not be the case and Switzerland will continue to be highly competitive for several reasons. First the WEF competitiveness survey, topped by Switzerland in the last few years, does not consider executive pay as a criteria. Secondly for executives Switzerland remains a highly competitive place to work due to the low taxation (30% on average vs. 48% of Germany and 45% of England) and very high quality of life.
Additionally the fact that shareholders have now the right to vote on executives pay doesn’t necessary mean that they will not approve competitive salaries. It will however enhance transparency and avoid further situation where a top manager, regardless of the effective performance, will receive lavish sign-in and sign-out bonuses.
Transparency in a post-financial crisis economy
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The 2008 financial crisis has left a mark in Switzerland too. The overall perception of the population is that top managers come and go leaving too often the problems behind them. Regardless of several instances of poor performance their paycheck remained unaffected and this is not acceptable. It also tries to end a short term top management mentality by banning sign-in and exit bonuses.
The recent EU decision to cap banking bonuses to one year’s base salary is another signal that this reform might be adopted by other European countries too (Denmark and the Netherlands already have a binding shareholder vote on executives compensation).
In Short
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– Swiss Vote on giving executive compensation voting powers to shareholders passed with a large margin potentially opening a new era in corporate transparency;
– Swiss Competitiveness should be largely unaffected by the change as the criteria that make Switzerland one of the most competitive remain.
– The 2008 crisis underlined the failure of a “hands-off” approach is among the reasons for the need of more transparency and shareholders power;
– Other European countries might implement similar rules, particularly in the banking sector, but will be much slower in doing so.
Hello everyone,
I’m sure you’ve missed me 😉 Life has a funny habit of getting in the way at times, so I have been very silently on the blog lately. Now however, I am back, with a new piece of advice from one of your fellow students, Patricia, whom I’ve met in Zurich last summer. Time flies – it will be almost one year ago soon!
Anyway, neither myself nor the MALICs present at the dinner managed to convince Patricia to stand in for a short video, but she promised she’d send us something once she’s home, and she did! Patricia works as a Senior Digital Inclusion Specialist, and here’s what she had to say about her experiencing in MALIC, with a particular emphasis on reading for the modules:
Patricia – MALIC lesson learnt
“This was taken the weekend of her wedding last year, so a very happy time for us as we had a quiet mother/daughter meal together.” ~ Patricia, Sep’2011 cohort, Qatar
I will add to this what I also told Patricia on listening to her recording for the first time: in reality, it is difficult to give a generic piece of advice in what concerns reading. We are all different, and different types of learners read differently – one may be very comfortable skim-reading, while another will find that unless they read everything cover to cover they can’t make sense of it.
Just as I was preparing this post this morning a further discussion on this topic was taking place in the Induction module, where Mike, another MALIC “veteran”, had the following to say:
My experience is that in the beginning you try to read the books from cover to cover but I found that I quickly became overwhelmed and depressed at my lack of progress, so you need to learn to read differently.
I learned to take a topic in a book and read that and then look for similar topics in other books to get a range of opinions on that topic. Some you can read properly if it sounds valuable and some you scan looking for things of interest. Try also to read all the Introductions in each book to give them context.
Doing this means you can get through up to 25 books or articles in a module without have to read all of them completely. Only read what is relevant and what fits into the section you are researching using the Power Point slides in each unit as a guide. You will find things of interest not covered in the slides which is also good.
I always tried to thoroughly read the essential books and not so thoroughly the recommended books, but do look out for the recommended books marked with a # as they are usually very good.
Mike, Sep’2011 cohort, Papua New Guinea
A New Year, a New Europe
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The ECB decision to keep interest rate unchanged underlines the great improvement in the Eurozone both in terms of Government and banks financing.
With good results from the Spanish auction and the Italian financing costs at the lowest in 3 years we now see confidence getting back to Europe. This will make 2013 a year of slow but firm European recovery.
Given the overall financing improvement the announced OMT, that was certainly very important to reach this point, will probably not even need to be deployed. This is pretty much what investor wants: to know that the ECB will be ready to intervene if needed and ensure a lower fragmentation among the various European Economies.
Financing for banks (e.g. through the recent issues Intesa and Banco Bilbao) has also considerably improved.
Throughout 2012 I maintain a positive outlook for Europe and I can only reaffirm this for 2013.
European Challenges
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Despite the great financial improvements several challengers remains: while Draghi pointed out that full employment is not within the ECB mandates the high unemployment in some European economies (especially youth unemployment) remains a big challenge for some European economies. We have also not yet seen a full improvement in lending which limits the potential of new investments, job creation and consequentially growth.
What European Governments needs to do is implement a set of measures to reduce unemployment and boast growth: a real challenge if combined with austerity !
Opportunities
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With interest rates at record lows and an increase of money supply equities remain among the most interesting asset classes for 2013. In terms of regional focus European companies with exposure and growth in emerging or higher growth markets remain attractive.
I would still recommend some allocation to Gold as a hedge toward the increasing money supply.
In Short
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– Europe will have a slow but firm improvement in 2013
– Lending conditions should improve and support the European recovery
– European-based companies with exposure to higher growth economies are still a good investment opportunity for 2013
– Gold remains interesting as an hedge but volatility is to be expected
As 2012 comes to an end, we would like to share with you one of the highlights of the year: the University of Cumbria graduations held at Carlisle Cathedral on the 22 November.
The graduations were attended by several MBA in Leadership & Sustainability graduates who received their degrees from the Chancellor of the University of Cumbria: the Most Reverend and Right Honourable Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York.
Graduations are certainly a major highlight of the year for Robert Kennedy College. Graduation time is when talented students from all over the world reach another height in their personal and professional careers, namely the University of Cumbria MBA. We congratulate Carol Aebi from Colorado, Richard Lau from Bermuda, Laura Caiello from Brasil, Zeljka Plancherel from Switzerland, Johan Poelstra from Poland and all the MBA class of 2012 graduates.
To inspire you in the upcoming year 2013, I am happy to share further photos of our graduations at the Carlisle Cathedral.
The gallery below features our proud 2012 MBA graduates and some of our faculty members including myself, Dr. Alistair Benson, our Deputy Dean Prof. David Duffill and the MBA programme leader Dr. John Luffrum
When do you plan to start your Online MBA or, if you are already a student, when do you plan to graduate? Feel free to leave you comments below !
Hello everyone,
I thought I’d fire just one last post before the end of the world 😉 So here’s Kaiss’ advice on reading – just like many of you, Kaiss is a busy person and it seems he found a good way of reducing slightly the amount of reading one must do to catch up with the field.
We too, of course, often tell students to read journal articles, both because they summarise the theory before making their own point, but also because they are more recent than some of the books out there – but who listens to the prof?
I give you Kaiss:
Hello everyone,
After a somewhat longish break, here I am again with some more videos from the Zurich residency last autumn (so far already, considering the 20cm of snow on my balcony!). Today’s student is Sean, who works for Vodafone as solutions architect and holds, as he says it, a Bachelor of Experience. Here’s his tip about wrapping your head around all these academic theories!
Enjoy, and drop a word off for Sean to say thanks – he had the impossible task of staying focused in a room of 30 MALICs having fun 🙂