PROGRAM
WHY USI
The USI EMBA is a modular, Advanced Master in Management degree, taught in English, by an exceptional international faculty at the Università della Svizzera italiana.
Classes are taught in self learning for one day, and on site in Lugano for two consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday, on a monthly basis and for a duration of fourteen months. The program is composed of eleven core and three advanced courses. The Entrepreneurship module will be held in California, United States, where students will have the opportunity to absorb Silicon Valley’s culture of innovation.
The curriculum concludes with a three month keystone consulting project, under the guidance of a professor, and culminates in the defense of the resulting thesis.
Roads to Disruption
In today’s world, entrepreneurs and executives must face two new, yet significant, factors that affect political and economic environments, alter social relations and deeply impact businesses, their operations, and their processes.
The first one is the Digital Revolution. The advent of big data, machine learning, and new technologies require new organizational approaches and competencies.
The second one is Sustainability. The need to create and maintain a sustainable society for future generations must be an integral part of a successful business strategy.
Each function, in every organization, must understand their implications and apply the appropriate transformations to obtain a competitive advantage in their markets.
In today’s environment, simply closing the managerial skills gap is not enough anymore. In order to prosper in this new reality an innovative and visionary approach is required. It is essential to question the validity of existing models with a pioneering, and not merely adaptive spirit and develop new paradigms.
Università della Svizzera italiana’s Executive Master’s in Business Administration program embraces this spirit of innovation and is constantly evolving to ensure the highest education standards to the participants.
USI EMBA distinctive features
- Innovative content, focus on digital transformation, change and sustainability
- Distinguished, world- class faculty and guest speakers with extensive experience: both from leading international business schools and from strategic consulting companies around the world.
- Weekend format: Lessons are Saturday and Sunday. In this way, Executive MBA participants can continue working full-time while they study, simultaneously advancing their careers and their professional and personal development.
- Personalized learning experience: thanks to the small class size of twenty participants, exchanges between participants and faculty are meaningful and tutoring ensures that each individual gains the maximum from the courses.
- Highly international student profile, 12 years average of working experience
- Personalised career development services
- Study in thriving Lugano, Switzerland, at the center of Europe’s cultural and business hubs
CURRICULUM
The USI EMBA 12 starts in September 2023 and continues through March 2025. Classes are held in Lugano every month, for fourteen months and are taught partially on line and on site. The first day is asynchronous, followed by one transformational weekend: Saturday and Sunday from 8.30am to 17.30pm.
The program consists of eleven core courses, one of these will be abroad (California, USA), three advanced courses and a three- month project work at the end of the program.
Classroom teaching is combined with online learning. After each course there will be the open book assignment.
Core courses
Analytics for Business
Using quantitative tools to analyze business information and to develop a company’s strategy is a requirement for business leaders. This course covers an introduction to probability, statistics, optimization, all used in understanding business trends and improving efficiency.
Financial Performance Measurements and their use
This course provides the necessary information and tools to understand financial accounting and reporting. In addition, it offers an introduction to the useful concepts and frameworks that form the basis of managerial accounting.
Economics
How to think like an economist? This course delivers core insights from micro-economics and also explains how macro-economic forces affect the business environment. It trains participants to apply economic reasoning in order to successfully manage a business and to extend this knowledge to new concepts, including sustainability and the digital revolution.”
Organizational Behavior
How do individuals, groups and organizations learn? Why do some groups perform well while other don’t? What is leadership and how can you become a leader? These are the type of questions that will be discussed in OB.
Marketing
Without a market, is there any point in having a product? Understanding consumers, competitors and product development is critical to most businesses. Moreover, in today’s increasingly global market branding takes on a new dimension. Finally, this course looks at the new channels and tools available for product promotion.
Human Resources Management
Hiring is critical for most organizations, but how do you get it right? What is performance and how do you evaluate it? How do you create the right incentives for your valued employees? This course looks at all these aspects of managing employees.
Leading Digital Transformation
Digital transformation is about adapting businesses to a “new normal”. As digital technology, society and businesses co-evolve into this “new normal”, creating multiple levels of change and uncertainty, business leaders must think thoroughly about their business models and the new drivers of value creation and value capturing.
Conceptual and practical understanding will be developed through interactive lectures, cases, several videos, and applied workshops.
Finance
Understanding the finances of a company is essential. This course teaches the logic underlying the firm’s financial decisions: investment, financing, and payout policies.
Operations Management
How can you develop reliable yet flexible supply chains? Where is the best location for production? How and why would you introduce quality systems in your organization? These are some of the issues dealt with in this course.
Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship
Creating new enterprises is vital for the economy, and so are the processes inside organizations for creating innovative products and services. In this course the discussion will be around creation of new companies as well as ways in which existing organizations can stay or become entrepreneurial again.
Negotiation
The negotiation process is a part of every manager’s day-to-day activities with people inside and outside the organization, people whose cooperation is essential to attain your goals. Having negotiation skills is not a choice for an execvutive, leader or an entrepreneur; it’s a must.
Advanced courses
While the core courses are the central pillars of the program, the advanced courses, offered towards the end of the 18-month period, give participants the opportunity to take a more in-depth view on selected topics and issues. Using their negotiation and leadership skills, the Executive MBA students will have the chance to exert their influence on the choice of the advanced courses. The list of advanced courses proposed by internal and external professors consists of:
- Blockchain technologies: business application
- Project Management
- Lean Six Sigma
- Redesign marketing strategy around business
- Creativity and innovation
Keystone project
Once the core-curriculum has been completed, the participants, with the help of the relevant professors, finalize their project. The 3-month keystone project is generally done inside the EMBA participant’s company. An integral part of the advanced management learning experience, the project positions the participant as a consultant. Using their new skills and professional experience, the participants work on a strategic issue for their company under the guidance of a USI Professor.
Seminars, conferences and workshop
In the last few years we have been organizing seminars with senior managers from different industries, such as chemical, banking, pharmaceutical, fashion or the telecom industry. These University seminars will be open to the program participants, in addition to the special seminars and talks organized with international and local speakers.
USI METHOD
Global in scope, regional in focus. Global in scope is the collaboration with an international faculty using strategic case studies from all over the world. Regional in focus means having a personalized and applied learning experience due to the small class size and based on the Swiss tradition of excellence.
Our approach accelerates intellectual development, gives greater strategic vision and immediate applicable knowledge. It is practical, focused on group work, practice-based learning and self-reflection. You use and build on your own experiences to improve your leadership skills and manage complex projects.
Assignments, balanced between practice and theory, business simulations, small group work activities with classmates from diverse backgrounds and experiences are some distinctive features of the USI EMBA design.
You will return from each module to your organization with new skills to better identify, frame, and solve complex business problems; the confidence to make important business decisions in an uncertain and rapidly changing environment; and the leadership skills to drive fundamental change in your organization and industry. The USI EMBA also allows you to test your new skills under the expert guidance of USI’s top faculty during the keystone project at the end of the program.
ADVISORY BOARD
Gianluca Colombo
Professor, Director EMBA and Dean of the Faculty of Economics, USI
Tamara Erez
Director Centro Studi Villa Negroni
Paola Franzetti
USI EMBA Representative, Senior Legal Counsel
Barbara Hoepli
President The Swiss Chamber of Commerce in Italy
Daniele Lotti
Head of EOC Ente Ospedaliero Cantonale and President of SES, Società Elettrica Sopracenerina SA
Jean Pierre Pedrazzini
Senior Partner Egon Zehnder International (Suisse) SA
Franco Polloni
Head Central Switzerland, Ticino & Italy Region, EFG Bank
Julia Renaux
USI EMBA Representative, Client Relationship Manager
Gianluca Colombo
Professor, Director EMBA and Dean of the Faculty of Economics, USI
Tamara Erez
Director Centro Studi Villa Negroni
Paola Franzetti
USI Emba Representative, Senior Legal Counsel
Barbara Hoepli
President The Swiss Chamber of Commerce in Italy
Daniele Lotti
Head of EOC Ente Ospedaliero Cantonale and President of SES, Società Elettrica Sopracenerina SA
Jean Pierre Pedrazzini
Senior Partner Egon Zehnder International (Suisse) SA
Franco Polloni
Head Central Switzerland, Ticino & Italy Region, EFG Bank
Julia Renaux
USI EMBA Representative, Client Relationship Manager
FACULTY
Truly international faculty
All of our highly experienced and qualified academics have international backgrounds. The USI EMBA faculty members are selected for their excellence in applied research, experience working in the private and public sectors and their teaching roles in executive education programs at top business schools.
They are experts in helping executives apply the latest management theory to their work and they take a multidisciplinary approach to their subjects, encouraging participants to do the same. Additional external faculty members from renowned business schools offer a number of advanced courses.
GIANLUCA COLOMBO
Professor of Entrepreneurship and Management at USI.
PAULO GONÇALVES
Professor of Operations Management at USI. PhD (MIT Sloan), M. Sc. (MIT), M. Sc. (USP)…
ERIK LARSEN
Professor of Strategic Management at USI. Co-Founder of the USI EMBA. PhD (Copenhagen), M. Sc. …
FILIPPO CARLO WEZEL
Professor of Organization and Management at USI. PhD (Bologna), M. Sc. (Bologna).
FRANCESCO CIABUSCHI
Professor of
International Business
KOSTIS CHRISTODOULOU
Visiting Professor of Quantitative Methods. PhD (London Business School), M. Sc. (LSE). Kostis …
ERIC NOWAK
Full Professor of Financial Management and Accounting
KANDARP MEHTA
Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship and Negotiation
LUCA VISCONTI
Full Professor of Marketing
Dean – Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society
LAURENT FRESARD
Full Professor of Finance
GIANVITO LANZOLLA
Visiting Professor of Strategy and Digital Transformation
PROGRAM CONTACTS
CRISTINA SAPORITI
Program Manager
LISA PAROLINI
Marketing Coordinator
GUEST SPEAKERS
Paolo Besani, EMBA
Partner HDPB srl and Chairman Innovation Mould srl
Jean Pierre Blaison
Human Resources Director at Alfred Dunhill
Riccardo Braglia
CEO and Managing Director Helsinn Holding SA
Michele Buttazzoni
Group Integrated Logistics Manager at Gucci Group
Francesco Caporali, MBA
Managing Partner at CAPCOST Srl, Business Up Sagl
Dr. Marco Cavadini
Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich
Dario Duse, MBA
Managing Director at AlixPartners
Cristiano Gellera, MBA
GCC Suisse Sagl, Studio di Ingegneria Gestionale
Raimondo Gissara
Founder & Partner at #be
Lorenzo Leoni
Managing Partner, TiVenture
Paolo Orsatti
Managing Partner, TiVenture
Francesco dell’Endice
Founder & CEO, QualitySense AG
Olimpio Pini
President Pini Swiss Engineers SA
Paolo Ciccarelli
Chairman & CEO, Schmidt Milano
Augusto Mitidieri
CEO Sintentica SA. Winner of CEO of the Year 2018
Marziale Brusini
Director Region South, Sunrise Communication
Cesare Maifredi
General Partner 360 Capital Partners
Diego Gilardoni
Senior Advisor PLTFRM, Global Business and Communication Expert
Lelio Mondella
General Manager LVMH
Luca Esposito
Leading EMEA Sales Director | Cloud | SaaS | CX | CRM
Monica Ferrario
Country Manager Kilpatrick Group Sa.
Andrea Frei
Culture Consultant
Daniela Fusar Poli
National Sales Manager ASSOS of Switzerland, Cyclist – Italian National Team
Michele Genovesi
Board Member, Group Head of Business Development at Soho Flordis International
Stephen Norman
SVP Ventes & Marketing, Groupe PSA
Groupe PSA
Daniele Lotti
Head of SES – Società Elettrica Sopracenerina, Head of EOC – Ente Ospedaliero Cantonale
Santiago Imperatrice
CEO & Founder Latitude 46
Web & Digital Marketing
Prof. Mauro Baranzini
Professor Emeritus Università della Svizzera italiana
Marco Cerulli
Civil Engineer & Risk Manager
Consultant & Coach for Managers & Leaders
Management Consulting Service
Anna Maria Rugarli
Sustainability & Responsibility Senior Director EMEA, VF International
Andreas Rudolph
Regional Director, Lee Hecht Harrison
Marco Romani
Senior Advisor for Strategy Management and Energy Diversification Development Executive Director
Luca Peyrano
CEO and General Manager at ELITE
Francesco Siccardi
CEO Medacta
Vincenzo Martino
Managing Director presso MFG Consulting
Marco Pozzo, EMBA
CEO at ALESSI
Alexander Rehm
Senior Executive Coach, Associate Lecturer for Leadership
Cristina Spagna
President and Managing Director of Kilpatrick Group
Emmanuel Toniutti, PhD
Chairman International Ethics Consulting Group
Ryan Vannin
Founder of Plastical sagl
Pieralvise Zorzi
Senior Marketing Consultant
Sebastiano Cobianco
CEO Ex Machina
Ronnie Kessel
CEO Kessel Auto SA, Owner Kessel Racing, CEO Kessel Immobiliare, CEO Kesmon Meccanica
Piergiorgio Balbo
Executive Vice President Operations presso FIAMM
Olimpio Pini
Presidente presso Pini Swiss Engineers SA, Lugano
Gianluca Carnabuci
Professor EMBA, Faculty of Economics, USI
Bhavesh Naik
Senior Director, Product Development, Sourcing and Innovation, VF International
Karl Heinz Salzburger
Former Vice President & Group President, VF International VF International
Ernesto López Pino
Group HR Director, LLX Global Business Services
Alessandro Palmarin
Co-Founder & Sales Director presso NIO Cocktails Srl
Aldo Puglisi
Responsible for Digitalisation and Business Process Reengineering Hupac Intermodal