Students given taste of life in boardrooms
Jan 15 2009 by Iain Laing, The Journal
AT Durham Business School, MBA students are facing the pressure of working in the boardrooms of North East companies to prove they have what it takes to be a leading company director.
The Boardroom Activity is part of the Business School’s MBA programme and is designed to give students experience of life in the boardroom which allows them to put theory into practice with a real business.
The living-case study aims to replicate the strategic challenges that face leaders in the demanding arena of the boardroom to enhance the business skills of each MBA student.
“It’s a very challenging experience, particularly having to work in cross-cultural teams. This year students have been focusing on companies which, due to the current economic crisis, have been changing on a daily basis – this has proved to be a real test for them,” says Dr Julie Hodges, director of full-time MBA programmes at the Business School.
The activity takes place during the first term and culminates in boardroom meetings involving teams of six to seven students, with an experienced company executive to chair each session and provide guidance, direction and feedback.
Company executive Mike Burrett chaired one of the teams. He is the senior vice-president at ION Geophysical Corporation Inc, a company which develops seismic technologies for the global oil and gas exploration industry. The company has operations in the Americas, Europe, China, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and Africa.
This is Mike’s second year chairing a team of MBA students, an experience he finds highly rewarding. His continued interest in higher education has been stimulated through his own experiences of completing an MBA 15 years ago and Mike counts himself fortunate to have benefited from having mentors, both during his studies and throughout his 25 years as a practising general manager. Mr Burrett said: “The students working on my ‘company board’ this year were looking at Nampak, a company based in South Africa, manufacturers of the most diverse range of packaging products in the world. They came from India, Korea, China and the UK. With such cultural diversity, their individual expectations and interactions needed to be carefully and thoughtfully managed. I think Durham’s Boardroom Activity provides a first-class environment for students to sharpen their skills and the outcome results in graduates with a much broader perspective on real-life business situations.
“The quality of their research, data analysis, solutions development and presentation is very impressive.”
