Is An EMBA A Better Choice For A 28-Year-Old?

UVA Darden’s campus in Rosslyn, Virginia, for Executive MBA students

NEARLY HALF THE EMBA STUDENTS IN DARDEN’S LATEST CLASS WERE ABLE TO SWITCH CAREERS

Here’s the data on Darden’s Executive MBA Class of 2019 of 122 students.

55% Ended the program with the primary career objective of switching – pivoting from their current job and organization to a new role or function in a different company.
26% Ended the program with the primary career objective of climbing – seeking to move within their current company to a more senior position and/or a role that would offer greater challenge or fulfillment
19% Ended the program with entrepreneurship as their primary career objective; working toward the launch of a new business or expanding their existing business.

Career Switchers:

48% of those seeking to switch was able to do so during the course of the MBA program.
Those that switched had an average salary increase of 76%.
Average starting compensation (base + bonus) for those that switched during the course of the program was $153,000.
They went to a broad spectrum of industries (9 industries). 77% went to 5 industries including:
Consulting (27%)
Banking / financial services (20%)
Manufacturing (10%)
Technology (10%)
Healthcare / Bio-Pharma (10%).
The rest were scattered across real estate, consumer goods, media, and NGO’s

Career Climbers:

55% of those seeking to climb received promotions during their time in the MBA program.
Those who were promoted during the program reported an average compensation increase of 60%. This was based on:
The average compensation of $148,000 at the start of the program
The average compensation of $237,000 at graduation.
For the entire group of 18 climbers (those that were promoted and those that were not), average compensation rose by 45%. This was based on:
The average compensation of $143,500 at the start of the program
The average compensation of $208,500 at graduation
For those 8 climbers who had not been promoted, average compensation rose by 26%. This
The average compensation of $138,000 at start of the program
The average compensation of $173,000 at graduation

Entrepreneurs:

Of the EMBA 19’s for whom we have data, 19 (19%) identified entrepreneurship as their primary career objective (see above). Of those 19:
14 (74%) were aspiring entrepreneurs
5 (26%) were established business owners
Of the 14 aspiring entrepreneurs, 11 (78%) had made significant strides in developing their ventures
5 (35%) were well along in the development of their business concept and its value proposition.
3 (21%) were in the discovery phase, de-risking the venture by defining customers, markets, and the business model, developing a minimum viable product, and securing seed funding.
3 (21%) had launched their business and secured an average of almost $19,000 in pre-seed capital.

A partial list of companies the EMBA 19 Switchers moved to:

Amazon
Arvore Immersive Games
Bank of America
Blue Sky Specialty Pharmacy
Capital One
CarMax
Colfax
Danaher
Deutsche Bank
Ernst & Young
Fluid Edge Consulting
Gartner
Geosite
Greenscape, Inc.
ICF
Johnson & Johnson
M2B2 Creative
Marathon Energy
McKinsey & Company
Population Council, Inc.
Raytheon
Riveron
Silverstein Properties
Thought Logic Consulting
Trumpet Behavioral Health
Walmart
Wero Swiss
Zimmer Biomet
ZS Associates