International experience boosts North American women's career

March 11, 2013 - PRLog -- Women, now more than ever, are graduating with MBA degrees and many are choosing to study for them in Europe because of the international network, according to new research commissioned by London Business School.

The project, led by the Forté Foundation, a U.S.-based non-profit that works to advance women in business, interviewed a selection of North American women enrolled at the top five European MBA programs to gather qualitative insight and form a hypothesis as to what their profiles were. This was followed by an online survey of North American women enrolled at those five schools to verify and refine the hypothesis through the collection of quantitative data.  

An overwhelming majority (80%) of North American women say the reason they chose to study for an MBA in Europe was for the international network and their effective corporate governance. Additionally, 91% of those surveyed said that it was the diversity of their student classmates that attracted them to their European MBA programme.

“If you want to get noticed by CEOs of organizations, you need to have three things:  international experience, which speaks to your network and your ability to operate globally, P&L experience and knowledge of corporate governance,” said Wendy Alexander, a former Member of the Scottish Parliament, who now serves as the Associate Dean at London Business School for Degree Programmes and Career Services.  

“Women who have realized this will go the farthest in their careers, because they will have the X factor for the future: experience, expertise and cultural awareness. Moreover they will be highly qualified for global roles where they can shine early by delivering growth in new markets.”

As of November 2012, there were 141 North American women enrolled in MBA programmes at five of the leading European business schools: London Business School (45%), HEC Paris (11%), INSEAD (33%), IE Business School (7%) and SDA Bocconi (10%).  65 women responded to the online survey.

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 http://www.london.edu/programmes/executiveeducation/corpo...