University of Pittsburgh/Katz Graduate School of Business focuses on leadership, customer focus and service or product innovation
The Advocate
University of Pittsburgh/Katz Graduate School of Business in Prague enterred the Czech educational market in 1990, and continues to offer The International Executive MBA Central European Program, a top-ranked MBA program for high performance professionals, providing world-class information and training that increases each individual’s value to a company.
The European Union widens the window of opportunity for talented Czech managers. What will they need to take advantage of this broadened vista?
"If you were to ask 10 global business leaders what makes or keeps a company successful, you would probably get 10 different answers. At Katz, we focus on such challenges facing business leaders and have found three key common ingredients: leadership, customer focus and service or product innovation. Core and elective curriculum subjects concentrate on these areas, and is what we believe every CEO needs, whether in the Czech Republic or commanding across Europe."
Is leadership something that can be taught?
"That is a longstanding argument. Some would argue that leadership is something innate in character, and others would say that you can develop and nurture it. Whatever the answer truly is, we try to pass along the techniques of leadership at the school. Our doctoral research, on which a lot of our reputation is based, allows us to constantly learn new things and implement them into our international executive program."
What are some of the elements of leadership a student can learn?
"Due to the increased complexities of running a business, leadership has become an even more responsibility for a manager. Leadership can be broken down into two components: a vision of where you want your company to go and the ability to persuade the entire organization to believe in this vision. Without both, you will not have a cohesive company direction."
Back to the EU. Do you think the conditions for doing business will change, and will executive education have to change to reflect the new environment?
"Well, Katz takes a global view of business education. International business is now far wider than just the European Union. Our programs are full of international businessmen and women, and professors who have international business consulting practices. Some of the changes related to the European Union have already occurred. One of the most obvious for international businessmen is the introduction of Euro. There are various standard currencies for international business transactions, and fluctuations between them are common. Our finance courses treat the fundamentals of these and international banking practices, theories and techniques for handling and hedging the courses of currencies."
What is Katz’s experience in the region?
"We have been here since the early days after the revolution. We were part of a UN and US government commitment to provide quality executive education in the region. Our contributions include what is now the School of Business at the Central European University in Budapest, Komenius University in Bratislava and the CERGE Institute in Prague. In addition, we worked with the Czechoslovakia Management Center in Celakovice, now the CMC Graduate School of Business, to provide the first private Western-style graduate business program. The University of Pittsburgh has granted over 200 MBA Degrees to participants from the Czech Republic. Our executive program here is now provided at the PwC Business Community Center in Prague’s centrum, and is linked to three other such programs in the U.K., Brazil and the United States. Next year our Asia component is planned for Singapore. We have been educating business leaders from this region for over a decade and our list of company clients is nearing 100. We are happy to have contributed to the generation of business leaders here who will be responsible for integrating this country, and its fellow accession countries, into the European Union. We will be continuing to serve the educational needs of business management in and for Central and Eastern Europe."