China Eyed as Next Educational Frontier
By ANDREW BROWNE

Source


The way I explain it to my friends in the U.S. is that you cannot achieve 10% GDP growth per year by working a 35-hour week – even if you're as smart as the Chinese,' Mr. Quelch said. Above, the dean attended the Lujiazui Forum in Shanghai on May 20, 2011.

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SHANGHAI—If there was ever a need for business schools in China, it's now.

Breakneck economic growth has far outstripped the supply of management talent. Meanwhile, Chinese companies in both the private and state sectors are responding to government incentives to "Go Out" and compete against the best companies in the world—while juggling fierce competition, rapidly changing technology and shifting macro-economic forces at home.

No wonder some of the world's most prominent business schools are eyeing China as the next educational frontier.

China Europe International Business School got to China early. That gives it a head start in terms of faculty and facilities. Its new pitch: "China Depth Global Breadth," marrying insight into how China works with an international perspective that attracts students from China and around the world.

Dean John A. Quelch, a veteran of the Harvard Business School and London Business School, insists that despite economic turmoil in Europe, the CEIBS brand in China remains untarnished. "Germany is held in very high regard," he insists. Besides, he adds: "People in China take the long view."

Mr. Quelch talked with Andrew Browne in Shanghai. The following interview has been edited.

WSJ: Like everybody else in China, CEIBS seems to be investing massively in infrastructure. Tell us something about your expansion plans.

Mr. Quelch: The Shanghai campus will double in size by the end of 2013. We also have a campus that we opened in Beijing in 2010 and we currently have operations in Shenzhen that may convert into a fully fledged campus within the next two to three years.

We also have an appetite for going west, and looking at that hundred million people in the Chengdu-Xian-Chongqing triangle, who will eventually want their own business school and will not necessarily want—or be able—to fly to Beijing or Shanghai.

The reason why Stanford exists is because Harvard always thought that Californians would be happy to come east to Boston, and never imagined they'd want their own Harvard, a.k.a. Stanford.

WSJ: The No. 1 complaint of foreign companies in China is lack of management talent. Isn't that a huge opportunity for you?

Mr. Quelch: First of all, China's pace of expansion has outrun the speed with which managers can experientially develop themselves, and so our role is to be an accelerant. We take experienced or high-potential young managers, and we accelerate the speed with which they can assume more management and leadership responsibilities.

Second, because we cannot serve everybody—obviously—the admissions criteria that we apply and the rectitude of our admissions policies is extremely important to our overall economic impact.

WSJ: What's the mix of students between college graduates and mid-career managers?

Mr. Quelch: We focus on more senior executives even compared with a Harvard Business School. We graduate 1,000 people a year, roughly, 800 of them are executive MBAs; average age 40. The other 200 are MBAs; average age 30.

You have to have an extremely strong teaching faculty—very practical, very experienced—to be able to command the sustained attention and respect of 40-year-old business people.

We are the No.1 revenue-generating business school in executive education in Asia built around our unique ability to deliver both "China Depth and Global Breadth."