Kelley’s New Global MBA With Manchester

Indiana University’s Bloomington campus

Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business and Alliance Manchester Business School are partnering to offer a global MBA program that will accept its first cohort of some 40 students in July.

The $65,000 program, aimed at working professionals with six to seven years of work experience, will be delivered via a mix of online and in-residence sessions, including classes on Kelley’s main campus in Bloomington, Ind., its satelitte campus in Washington, D.C., and at Manchester Business School in the U.K.

The majority of the curriculum will be online, with residencies making up between 20% and 25% of the program. The MBA can be taken in as little as two years or as long as five years, though most students would be expected to complete the program in two to three years. Graduates of the program would receive degrees from both schools.

The new program will compete with a number of existing offerings, including the $112,270 OneMBA, the five-school partnership that includes UNC’s Kenan-Flager Business School and features four weeklong residencies in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America, as well as IE Business School’s blended global MBA program that costs $49,000.

Nigel Banister, CEO of Alliance Manchester Business School

PROGRAM CAME OUT OF A PHONE CALL NEARLY TWO YEARS AGO

The partnership sprung from an approach by Manchester CEO Nigel Banister to Kelley nearly two years ago. Manchester was looking for a U.S. partner to jointly offer a global MBA, recalls Ash Soni, executive associate dean of academic programs at Kelley. “We had some interest in going more global at the time and were looking at a lot of opportunities. This was a great chance to partner with an equivalent school in Europe.”

During that initial conversation, Soni recalls, “Nigel said, ‘Let me tell you a little about Manchester.’ I said, ‘Nigel, you don’t have to. I am a graduate of Manchester University,’” laughed Soni, who graduated with a degree in engineering from the school in 1971.

The talks quickly progressed into campus visits from both sides until the culmination of today’s announcement. “This adds tremendously to our portfolio of programs,” says Kelley Dean Idalene Kesner. “One of the key reasons they called was we have not just some synergies but also a top online program which they understood and knew about. They saw two great schools marrying together our two approaches to give both of us a global MBA program. I was struck by the similarity of philosophies in our educational approach. We both believe in applied learning with very hand-on faculty.” It adds to us and their product line as well.”