Contrary to the stereotype that MBAs are routinely destined for the worlds of management consulting and investment banking, an increasing number of MBAs now reinvent themselves as entrepreneurs.
And there is a growing array of statistics to back this up. Although Oxford's Saïd Business School has existed for only 15 years, its graduates have produced more than 170 companies, which have collectively raised more than US$1bn in venture finance. Upon graduation, roughly 10 per cent of the International MBA class at Spain's IE Business School consider themselves entrepreneurs and five years after graduation, around 25 per cent are involved in entrepreneurial activities. Given this, it is perhaps not surprising that business schools increasingly offer courses in entrepreneurship, and the focus of a great deal of research is now on unlocking the secrets of entrepreneurs. For example, London Business School has recently announced the new Deloitte Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Of course, sceptics routinely suggest that real entrepreneurs have no need of an MBA. Most MBA-entrepreneurs counter that the qualification does make a difference. For some, it gives them space to think. "When you're working in the rat race it is hard to really take time out to think. I was working all the time, but then on the MBA programme I was encouraged to think about what I'd like to be doing in five years. I thought I would like to be part of a team selling a business or, at least, running a successful business," says London Business School MBA graduate Dominic Lake, co-founder of the Canteen restaurant chain.
Other MBA-entrepreneurs benefit from the direct input of their teachers. The range of subjects included in an MBA - everything from accounting to marketing - also appeals to entrepreneurs. It can act as a bridge. "I was an engineer before doing an MBA and really didn't have much financial knowledge, almost zero, and subjects like strategy and marketing I didn't really know much about either," says Lorenzo Caffarri, co-founder and director of ubiCabs, and a London Business School alumnus. "I knew how my job worked, basically managing projects and optimising processes. I can do that pretty well, but the rest was not my cup of tea. As an entrepreneur you have to do everything - from the legal side to accounting, marketing, business development and IT design. You have to be a man of 1,000 talents."
All of this means that entrepreneurship is now firmly embedded as part of the MBA mainstream. Imperial College Business School in London has long been one of the standard bearers of everything entrepreneurial in the b-school world. Its Entrepreneurship Hub helps to translate new insights developed by academics into practical tools and guidelines for entrepreneurs and managers.
Oxford's Saïd's Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation unites entrepreneurship research, teaching and practice at the University of Oxford. An Entrepreneurship Project forms a compulsory part of the Saïd full-time one-year MBA programme. It challenges students to develop a complete business plan and present it to a panel of venture capitalists and other practitioners.
Many of the resulting MBA entrepreneurship projects evolve into successful new ventures. In addition, Saïd has a £1m venture fund, run by students from the current MBA class, and has just established the Oxford Investment Alumni initiative - a group of University of Oxford alumni interested in new business opportunities, contacts and seed capital funding. On MBA programmes, entrepreneurs have never had it so good.
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