Henley launches world-first MBA programme

Puleng Makhoalibe, head of the School of Innovation and Branding at Henley Africa

The MBA+ for Creative Activists and Innovators programme is evolved from Henley Africa’s world-first MBA for the Music and Creative Industry.

Puleng Makhoalibe, head of the School of Innovation and Branding at Henley Africa, said the programme consists of Henley’s international, triple accredited executive MBA, with additional workshops and speakers focusing on the progressive business ideas and practices of the creative economy.

“Students learn to build new forms of business models, work on creative and innovative projects, manage creatives and creative work, and understand their working future with the emphasis on industry 4.0 and design thinking,” she said.

“Whether you’re in banking or filmmaking, consulting or music, mining or media, this MBA+ option exposes you to the secrets and methods of invention, design, building a new business and working with intangibles and intellectual property. Students learn not only how to work with creatives and be more creative, but also how to monetise ideas and build businesses and organisations under pressure,” she said.

Dean of Henley, Jon Foster-Pedley, said that in the past, being a manager and being a creative were different things. “No more. As we build the complex, diversified economies of the future to extend and augment those narrow and historic economies built on a few sectors, such as mining and agriculture, so we have to be creative as well as organised, innovative and productive.

“Our future Africa will be inventive, dynamic and transnational, not staid, hesitant and local – and our place is in building that future. Everyone’s work now requires imagination. You can’t rely on the past anymore; you have to be comfortable driving innovation-led business. Your security lies in change, not in more of the same; in continual improvement, in creating new answers and in working with vision and courage.

“More of you is needed at work. It’s a whole-person environment. And even if this isn’t the case for you now, you can bet that it will be in the near future. This is a different way of being and we have created a different MBA option as an addition to our world top 1% MBA, to help build new skills, solve bigger problems and launch new businesses. This is an MBA for anyone with an eye to participating in the complex global workplace that is our inevitable future,” he said.

Apply online at www.henleysa.ac.za. Applications close on the 27 May 2016.

About Henley
Henley Business School was the first business school to be established in Europe, in 1946, and has since built a pedigree of outstanding education for business and the public sector, recognised worldwide in international rankings, in accreditation, for its quality of students and breadth of alumni.

We build the people who build the businesses that build Africa, and our alumni work in senior positions in government, industry, media, business schools and NGOs. We are part of the University of Reading, ranked as one of the world's top 1% universities, and one of the global top 200 for research. Although steeped in science with over 17 research centres, we believe business is more than science and requires confident, engaged managers and leaders who can create and deliver outstanding value through their organisations and so build a better, prosperous Africa.

Registered with the Department of Education as a Private Higher Education Institution under the Higher Education Act, 1997. Registration Certificate no 2010/HE10/001.