Sabrina White
Vice-President, Market Development
Americas & Europe
Colleagues—
I started to begin this note with the greeting “Happy Spring!”- however the recent snowfall of 6 to 16 inches (depending on where you live in the area) has me thinking Mother Nature hasn’t quite made up her mind. Nevertheless, despite winter woes, Q1 has been busy for the team at GMAC. Allow me a few minutes to update you on three initiatives: Leadership Conference, the new Director for Master’s Program, and the winners of OCP Kahoot.
Leadership Conference
In January, approximately 150 B-school program directors joined us in Scottsdale, Arizona for the annual Leadership Conference (a partnership between GMAC and the MBA Roundtable.) The conference kicked off with an opening keynote by Jennifer Riel, author of Creating Great Choices; a book that explores the practice of integrative thinking. (She describes it as “solving wicked problems in new ways.) Other themes that surfaced during the Leadership Conference included:
- How do we as an industry reduce the friction in the funnel? How do we guide the 2.4m mba.com visitors through the pipeline so that more show up as applicants and enrollees?
- Will the influx of on-line programs with lower barriers to entry eventually cause quality challenges?
- How do we (the industry) create a “safe/healthy” culture for all students? Should we do more as an industry around the inclusivity of GME?
- Master programs different greatly by world region. How can US schools better position masters to candidates and employers?
If you attended the conference, do know that the presentations are available for your download. (If your supervisor attended, you might want to ask to see some of the decks. The evaluations indicate there were some really valuable sessions.)
Director of Master's Programs:
In reference to the last bullet around Master’s programs, when I wrote to you in January, I indicated one of my Q1 priorities was to hire someone to lead GMAC’s efforts in the Masters space. I am delighted to report that Rebecca Loades joined our team at the end of February and assumed the role of Director of Master’s Programs.
Rebecca brings a wealth of experience to the role having worked as a consultant for a number of organizations prior to joining GMAC. It is as a consultant, that we began engaging with her more than 10 years ago. Over the course of this engagement, she brought to GMAC (and the industry) an understanding of the Bologna Accord and the opportunities it created in GME. She was also instrumental in GMAC’s production of the CITO report (more than 10 years ago)- which provided a detailed analysis of GME in Europe. She has been busy this past month conducting calls, digging into research and identifying priorities for supporting this evolving segment of the GME market. Look to hear from her in the upcoming months.
OCP Kahoot
Christa (our OCP director) informs me that more than 350 students from 40 schools in the US participated in GMAC’s Kahoot College Bowl trivia game. The largest crowds came from Michigan State University, Florida International University, and University of California, Irvine and the participant winners were from the University of Pennsylvania, The Ohio State University and Syracuse University. Congratulations to you all! Thank you for promoting this event to your students and helping us build the pipeline of GME!
I will wrap up this note, but invite you to connect with me and/or any member of the team if you have questions or wish to share your thoughts, ideas or pain points.
We hope to see you this Spring.
Best,
Sabrina
Americas Market Development Team