Educating Execs: Canadian University Dubai, UAE

When asked to explain why an entrepreneur-in-the-making should even consider getting a MBA, Dr. Farooq Haq, Assistant Professor and Chair in the School of Business Administration at Canadian University Dubai, pointed toward the various benefits the degree could bring to the potential business executive of the future. "Any aspiring entrepreneur will ultimately need a good grasp of fundamental business practices, so a MBA does offer a solid platform from which professionals can go on to establish and grow a successful business," Dr. Haq says. "It provides the multi-disciplinary academic skillset that an entrepreneur would need to apply in order to oversee their venture, particularly in the early days, and also helps to develop the strategic and leadership qualities that are required as a business grows."

"At CUD, the MBA program develops these skills and qualities, while also offering students the opportunity to specialize in a particular discipline," he adds. "The General Management concentration is popular with business leaders, but this can also be combined with a second concentration if fields such as marketing or finance, which adds a further dimension to a student's understanding of enterprise operations. Students are provided with the platform to explore entrepreneurship, develop their entrepreneurial skills and engage with extracurricular activities that focus on innovation and business start-up." And the results of CUD's efforts in encouraging entrepreneurship among its students are quite evident- besides graduates who are active entrepreneurs in the fields of retail, real estate, media and more, CUD students have also been showing off their startup chops at competitions like Dubai Startup Weekend, Dubai's Young Entrepreneurs and the UAE's M-Government Initiative.