Kyiv Mohyla Business School plans to develop corporate university (02/22/04)

Kyiv Mohyla Business School plans to develop corporate university

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - It boasts that it is the most innovative and even the best business school in Ukraine. Among the firsts it claims for itself it lists the first to develop a corporate chair and the first to publish a management journal. Now the Kyiv Mohyla Business School (KMBS) can claim another first: on February 18 it announced that it had joined in partnership with Pryvat Bank, one of Ukraine's largest banks, to develop a corporate university.

A corporate university is a concept that is well-developed in the U.S. and Europe, as many large corporations have such entities. What makes it striking for Ukraine is that it shows that a corporate awareness is finally developing within the Ukrainian business sector. Company leaders are realizing that in addition to their own business acumen they need well-educated managers to keep developing in a Ukrainian business environment that is becoming ever more competitive.

"It is a breakthrough," explained Pavlo Sheremeta, program director of KMBS. "They have realized that developing talent and cooperation with business schools is important. Earlier they thought that political connections meant everything. They didn't feel they needed to learn anything because they had already made millions."

Now Pryvat Bank, with 19,000 employees and more than 3,000 managers, will cooperate with KMBS to develop programs in management training and executive development for its personnel. The bank's managers will have the ability to submerge themselves in the KMBS philosophy.

Mr. Sheremeta explained that the ability to lead, yet innovate, is not only central to how the school functions, but at the heart of what it wants to instill in its students.

"Today a manager must be disciplined, yet creative, innovative. These are mutually exclusive things in many ways. But look at jazz music, there can be improvisation going on, yet a disciplined backbeat at the same time," explained Mr. Sheremeta.

To underscore the point, the school has invited jazz musicians to address their students and discuss and perform their music. Musicians are utilized as examples to make other points as well. Members of the first MBA class of KMBS conducted a live symphony orchestra. The point was to demonstrate that merely an ability to supervise is not enough for a manager, to truly be effective he must also inspire.

The school has not ignored rock 'n roll in its education programs. Sviatoslav Vakarchuk, lead singer of the very popular group Okean Elzy, has addressed the students on the need to create commercial ventures in areas in which they have interests - not simply where they see money flowing.

The students also go on "class trips." One such excursion took them to Mount Hoverlia, the highest peak of the Carpathian Mountains, which they climbed from the difficult side to get an appreciation for what can be accomplished when not going the easy route.

KMBS is not like your typical American business school in more basic ways as well. None of its students are fresh out of undergraduate school because three years' managerial experience is a central admission criterion, as is a college degree and fluency in English and Ukrainian.

The school's MBA program, which lasts three semesters and begins each September and January, is aimed at corporate managers and executives. It looks to fill its classes with accomplished Ukrainian business professionals looking to learn about the latest business developments, techniques and models.

Mr. Sheremeta explained that the KMBS goal is to create business executives of a world standard for Ukraine.

"We believe that if we took those just out of university, people who could afford to stay out of the Ukrainian job market for another year, these people would most likely look for jobs abroad, which is completely contrary to our goal," explained Mr. Sheremeta.

He pointed out, however, that the school does offer undergraduate level business classes to students of the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy.

While KMBS tries to keep its programs fresh, exciting and innovative by providing extracurricular activities with decidedly little connection to business, it remains grounded in the principles of a solid business education.

At the core of the KMBS theory of successful business leadership is effective work with people, numbers and ideas. For program participants this means learning to generate and differentiate ideas; sales and communication techniques; and metrics and prognosis modeling and other analytical techniques.

Program Director Sheremeta, confident that KMBS is the best such school in Ukraine, is keen to turn KMBS into an international leader as well. In December 2002 the business school developed a partnership with Northwestern University's Center for Technology Innovation Management (CTIM), which provided KMBS access to the center's huge academic, informational and technological resources. CTIM is closely associated with Northwestern's Kellogg School of Business, considered the best business school in the world.

The KMBS faculty, while still relatively small for a world-class business school, already has an international reach. It includes such noted academics as Michael Radnor and Jeffrey Strauss, both senior professors at Kellogg Business School, Prof. Basil Kalymon, who also teaches finance at Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, and Prof. Myroslaw Kyj, who teaches marketing at Widener University.

Mr. Sheremeta explained that while he was satisfied with the academic quality of his faculty, he needs to find more with the same, especially from Ukraine, which he said was not easy due to the school's demanding requirements for professors: strong teaching skills; management experience on the executive level or at least as consultants; fluency in English.

"There are about 20 professors in Ukraine who meet our criteria and five to seven of them are already with us," explained Mr. Sheremeta.

The program director said that, nonetheless, he would expand the faculty to allow individual professors to spend more time on research and publishing, the other impediment to the school attaining world-class stature. Although more work in this area is needed, Mr. Sheremeta noted with satisfaction that two of the business school's professors had already published in the Ivey Business School Journal, considered the second best in the world after the Harvard Business Journal.

Mr. Sheremeta said that KMBS had come a very long way in a short time since he was asked by National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy Rector Viacheslav Briukhovetsky to establish a business school.

"He showed me the fourth floor of this building from the courtyard and said, 'It's completely empty. I want you to make it the best business school in Ukraine,' " explained Mr. Sheremeta. "He gave me a barren floor and the KMA brand. He told me to go get the money. In four-five years I think that we have accomplished more than we could ever have imagined."

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