The director of the oldest university in Chile explains that the UChile MBA program - ranked second in our MBA 2024 Ranking - covers all management areas required for running a business, combining traditional business training with emerging knowledge, including AI, Digital Transformation and ESG.
It was in 1994 when the MBA of the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Chile began as a full-time program, as an undergraduate continuation and with a stay of a few months at the ESADE Business School, Spain.
Thirty years later, this program has increased its number of students fivefold, targeting mainly working people, defining its offer based on six formats: full-time, part-time, executive , global MBA, blended and mining industry. Along with that, face-to-face classes have expanded from the century-old Beauchef halls to modern facilities in the Chilean capital and also online .
In addition, this MBA has dual degree or exchange agreements with seven international academic institutions with world-class MBA programs, and optional business immersion trips to China and Europe, among other strengths cited by Christian Diez, who has been Director of the UChile MBA in Industrial Engineering since 2011.
Download the full edition of the 2024 MBA Ranking here
In conversation with AméricaEconomía , Diez detailed the foundations of this MBA program from the University of Chile and how they plan to offer academic excellence. It should be noted that this higher education institution has two faculties that offer different MBAs: one in the Department of Industrial Engineering of the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences ( FCFM) and another in the Faculty of Economics and Business (FEN). Both programs are considered in the ranking.
In recent years, every MBA seems to have a bias or specialty, from healthcare to AI. What about the pure MBA?
If you look at the major business schools in the world, in Europe, the United States, or Asia, the major MBA programs are general. Harvard, Stanford, Babson in Chicago, or Wharton in Pennsylvania, do not have MBAs with a specialization in banking or artificial intelligence. It is another thing to have an up-to-date MBA program, with modules on digital transformation, artificial intelligence, change management. But that does not mean that I am giving you a master's degree or a specialization necessarily in that subject, but that these subjects, which are relevant in today's business world, are incorporated into the schools.
General MBAs continue to be very important in Latin America as well, and the vast majority of our students are from the general MBA.
Anyway, one of his MBAs focuses on mining.
Yes, we have an MBA specializing in the mining industry, since it is the most important industry in Chile in terms of the GDP per capita it generates, but the rest of our versions are general. Some of them involve a stay abroad, or are developed in conjunction with our partner universities - Cranfield University in the United Kingdom, the ICP Business School in France, the HHL in Germany, Macquarie University in Australia, the University of Michigan in the United States, the University of Columbia in Canada, and the ITAM in Mexico - but the curriculum is general. Therefore, both the functional aspects of Marketing, Finance, Operations, People Management, Strategy, as well as soft or managerial skills are covered. And that is the core of the MBA.
How do you work to update your MBA curriculum? How often do you do it?
The content of the compulsory courses is constantly being updated to reflect the current reality. Thus, even if the name of a branch has been marketing for two decades, it will always have new aspects. But, in addition to constantly adjusting the content of the compulsory courses, there is an offer of elective courses that often go deeper into the topics that are being discussed. For example, we now have elective courses on Digital Transformation, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning , Change Management and Corporate Governance that are relevant for those looking for an MBA.
How does that play out? With what entities?
This content update process is a mix that results from identifying what is happening in the business world, or when we are interviewing candidates. Many times it is there that you understand what an MBA student is looking for and what is motivating them. Also, in the case of the mining industry, we have many industry executives who teach classes in the program and know first-hand the needs and trends of the sector.
Another source of content is the professors themselves who are specializing and are at the forefront of knowledge and, therefore, know what they are covering in these topics. There are also topics that, for example, we detect long before they appear in the company, such as artificial intelligence, which was born as a field more than twenty years ago, but has only now been incorporated into the MBA curriculum.
Why is taking an MBA always going to be a good option? It depends on your career and your life plans, of course.
I'll start with a general idea: an MBA is not for everyone. An MBA makes sense, in my opinion, when a professional, usually within a company, although there may be other organizations, aspires to grow in the hierarchical structure of the organization, and that means taking on a leadership position, an assistant manager, a manager, even adding a general manager or a board member, because the technical knowledge that you have, whether you come from the financial area, the marketing area, or human resources, allows you to do your professional work more technically. But, as you go on to have people in charge, budgets, and understand how this unit that is under your supervision fits into an entire organization, that's where an MBA is the way to go.
Why should an executive follow the MBA program at the University of Chile?
First, because we are the first university in the country, we have prestige and a historical tradition of 160 years. And the weight of a university that gives you a diploma is important: unlike other services or products where there are newer brands, here the history, the tradition, the prestige that there is in a diploma, gives you a certain peace of mind that during the professional life that you are going to have, that diploma will continue to be valuable or will increase its value versus institutions that disappear or that later are in conflict and you made an investment and you were left with an accreditation that later loses value.
In this sense, the MBA is not limited to any undergraduate degree, if what the applicant is looking for is to learn about business.
If you look at MBA programs around the world, they are not designed for engineers, or even for people with a business background. In our MBA program we have a variety of people from different careers and different nationalities, as 20% of our students are foreigners. The requirement is to have a university degree and three years of work experience, ideally in an organization that makes sense for the program.
And in terms of knowledge, our program covers all areas of management, something that happens less and less in Chile and Latin America. We have seen that, for some strange reason, in Latin America versus the United States or Europe, the functional areas here in Latin America are not equally balanced. Many MBAs in our region have some courses in finance, marketing and people management, but few in operations. In any world-class MBA you will see that they are on par in relevance, and in our program we have three courses in finance, three courses in operations, three courses in marketing, three courses in people management. That allows us to provide a balance of the different functional areas and also depth.
In terms of what is coming, what emphasis are you seeing that is strongly impacting business and that you have incorporated into the MBA?
Today, the ESG aspect is seen in a relevant way, as the social impact of a company is highly valued. This is something we cover to a certain extent, but we are also careful, because sometimes there are trends that become fads: before there was reengineering, then everything was Lean Management , then came Agile… In my opinion, for someone who is training for an MBA, the most important thing is to understand the fundamentals. If you do not understand the economic fundamentals well, we gain nothing by talking to you about the latest trend that is being seen in business. And usually people are weaker in this.
