Academics

Our 22-month curriculum is designed to give you the immediate skills and tools necessary to propel you to the next level in leadership. We accommodate busy professionals with a variety of ways to take classes and learn. From learning about how to tackle business challenges head-on through the core curriculum, students can customize their MBA experience with electives. With flexible schedules to accommodate busy professionals, you have a wealth of options to learn from world-renowned faculty and have access to the same campus resources, faculty, electives, and support — regardless of which scheduling option you choose.

Our 22-month curriculum provides you with:

Immediate skills and tools necessary to propel you to the next level in leadership

A world-renowned faculty instructing you on how to tackle business challenges head-on through the core curriculum

Ways to customize your MBA experience with electives

We accommodate busy professionals by:

A variety of ways to take classes and learn

Access to the same campus resources, faculty, electives and support — regardless of which scheduling option is chosen

Flexible schedules

“UCLA Anderson EMBA has developed a program and schedule offering that makes it possible for me to have an enriching MBA experience and balance my demanding career. The monthly schedule empowers me to stay connected with my classmates and the Anderson community. I love that I’m being challenged with the same academic rigor as any other Anderson MBA student; the educational experience has not been eroded by an abbreviated on-campus schedule.”

Therese Banks (’19)
Vice President and General Manager of US Small Merchant Client Management, American Express

Standard Program of Study

*EMBA Electives offered. There are many options for fulfilling your 16 units of elective credit.

Learn More About Our Flexible Schedules | Learn More About Electives

Fall	Winter	Spring	Summer
September–December	January–March	April–June	June–September
Leadership Foundations - Data & Decisions - Organizational Behavior	Financial Accounting - Economic Analysis for Managers - Leadership Module 1 - Optional Electives*	Marketing Strategy & Policy - Financial Policy for Managers - Leadership Module 2 - Optional Electives*	Optional Electives* - August Elective* Block Courses - International Business Residential

Course Descriptions

Leadership & Managerial Skills	Leading individuals, groups, and organizations effectively is key to managerial excellence. Yet, for managers worldwide it has been shown to be the most difficult challenge in their career. This module is designed to help you meet this challenge by helping you to gain self‐awareness (to explore and assess) and to help you develop as a leader (to develop) with the aim to guide and empower employees in their journeys of change.
Economic Analysis for Managers	Focuses on analyzing the functioning of markets, the economic behavior of firms and other economic agents and their economic/managerial implications through a selected set of topics that are motivated by real-world observations of business operations. Topics to be covered include fundamental market forces, consumer and firm behavior under various market structures, sophisticated pricing strategies with market power, decision-makings under uncertainty/risk/information asymmetry, strategic interactions in game-theoretic situations and a variety of behavioral insights.
Macroeconomics & International Finance	Introduces macroeconomics with a strong emphasis on international finance and trade. Learn to develop simple models of the goods and services, asset, capital, and labour markets and apply these models to understand and interpret current and historical macroeconomic developments. Having both the theoretical framework and empirical knowledge in place will allow you to navigate uncertainty more precisely and confidently.
Corporate Finance	The module aims to provide a strong conceptual foundation for finance. Finance theories will be used to solve practical problems faced by financial managers. Key topics such as time value of money, portfolio risks, value bonds and stocks, cost of capital, non-technical fundamentals of cryptocurrencies and digital assets and blockchain-based methods of raising capital will be covered.
Marketing Strategy	To encourage strategic thinking about marketing, this module integrates theory and practice from the core disciplines of Marketing Strategy, Cross‐Cultural Consumer Behavior, Brand Management, Digital and Social Media Marketing and Analytics and Business Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility.
Competitive Strategy & Business Policy	The module concentrates on the strategic responsibilities of leaders and with a primary focus on what they do to achieve success. Proven valuable in practice concepts and frameworks that are rooted in the theory of strategy and management will be introduced. Key concepts relating to strategy, customers, competition, competencies, and the broader environment, will be combined with analysis of difficult choices senior leaders make to achieve their intent.
Organizational Behavior	Introduction to organizational behavior for executives, including but not limited to optimal decision making, fostering motivation, and other topics on psychology of leadership. Lecture, discussion and experiential applications of course concepts.
Financial Accounting	Familiarizes the manager with functions of accounting by focusing on the use of external financial reports for evaluating corporate performance and use of accounting information for internal planning and control.
Logistics and Operations Management	Introduces the functional areas of logistics and operations management, with a focus on more current developments and their strategic and managerial significance.
Data Analysis & Management Decisions	Studies statistical model building with emphasis on managerial interpretation of statistical summary data. The course also covers classic statistics through multiple regression analysis to support subsequent courses in finance and marketing.

Fall	Winter	Spring	Summer
September–December	January–March	April–June	June–September
Management Communication (Elective) - Competitive Strategy & Business Policy - Leadership Module 3 - Optional Electives	Introduction to Strategic Management Research (SMR) - Introduction to Business Creation Option (BCO) - Operations & Technology Management - Leadership Module 4 - Optional Electives*	BCO/SMR (Concludes) - Leadership in Practice - Leadership Module 5 - Optional Electives*

Course Descriptions

Management Communication (Elective)	The purpose of this course is to improve your management communication skills, primarily in the areas of presenting and communicative persuasion.
Competitive Strategy & Business Policy	Study of general management task of forging a corporate competitive strategy. Emphasis on economics of business rivalry within a variety of industrial settings and implications of changing environments on business strategy.
Leadership Foundations III	Further exploration of leadership strengths and weaknesses, with emphasis on individual leadership and organizational change. Readings, cases, decision simulations, peer coaching and discussions.
Strategic Management Research (SMR)	Preparation of strategic overview of selected company entailing collection and analysis of primary and secondary data, including (but not limited to) interviews of corporate executives, corporate financial and marketing data, industry reports and customer and competitor interviews and/or surveys.
Operations & Technology Management	Analysis of strategic and operating policies and decisions for systems that produce goods and services. Examination of role of comprehensive planning, inventories, scheduling of resources, distribution systems and system location. Comprehensive operating problems.
Strategic Management Research (SMR) — Continuation	Further research and analysis of one strategic issue facing selected company and identified in course 470B. Presentation of final reports and evaluation of student efforts by corporate personnel.
Leadership in Practice	Addresses practical decision-making challenges leaders face when confronting decisions alone and in groups. Students learn to recognize cognitive biases in themselves as well in others and gain skills to re-calibrate group dynamics in order to achieve better results. These skills are taught experientially through participatory simulations and post-hoc analyses. Examines a range of ethical considerations in business decisions involving the individual, corporation, society and international business. Analysis of cases for classroom presentation and discussion.

Tailor Your MBA With Electives and Specializations

UCLA Anderson offers various specializations that provide an opportunity to customize your MBA experience. You have the option to pick electives tailored to your professional goals and are designed to fit many schedules. Beyond Anderson, you can also take advantage of classes at other top graduate schools at UCLA.
Below are the electives typically offered on EMBA weekends and during the summer. Please note that a minimum of 4-units required during the summer session.

Entrepreneurship & Venture Initiation
Advanced Financial Policy For Managers
Venture Capital & Private Equity
Brand Management
Financial Modeling & Corporate Valuation
Business Law
Technology Management
Leadership Communication

Business Plan Development
Strategy and Structure of Corporate Buyouts
Customer Assessment & Analytics
Mergers & Acquisitions
Macroeconomics
Business Strategy in Emerging Markets
Patterns of Problem Solving
New Product Development

Who You Will Be Learning From

UCLA Anderson students have access to world-renowned faculty. As experts and practitioners in their field, they bring real-world experiences and global perspectives to the classroom. Learn about some of the faculty who also teach in the Executive MBA program below.