Alumni story from GEMBA 2001, Ma Lie.

8 years ago, 52 business leaders, who were already very successful in their careers, made a big decision to come to CEIBS to start a reflective study journey. This decision would end up opening up a better career and a better life for the participants. This is the story of CEIBS Global EMBA Class of 2011.

In the first weekend of August, CEIBS Shanghai campus welcomed back Global EMBA Class of 2008 for its 10-year reunion. In 2008, the darkest moment of the global financial crisis, 60 top managers in different fields chose to come to CEIBS for further study. They wished to equip themselves with a positive mind to overcome uncertainty in the future.

Vanessa Alcalá experiences the world without seeing borders. She speaks five languages (Spanish, English, French, Chinese, German), has lived and worked in seven countries on four continents, and personifies what it means to be a global citizen. But the special power that has propelled the fashion industry career of this GEMBA 2017 participant is clearly her ability to focus on connections instead of differences.

Nowadays, when a major political event is imminent, the media will focus on the air quality more than ever. Having witnessed the “APEC-Blue” and “G20-Blue”, they have already started speculating on air quality and “haze” and whether it will affect this year’s Lianghui. 

A Canadian girl, who spent 20 years becoming a “China hand”, is now “venturing” onto the African Continent.

Thoughts about Shanghai’s Monday morning rush hour traffic are enough to make anyone want to go back to bed. Your bus could be hours late, your orders ignored on Uber, your wish to ride a bike could be cut short by a sudden downpour, and even if you’re driving your own car you’ll probably get mad as it’s moving only two inches a minute.

How did a young criminal lawyer doing pro bono work from his hometown in Barcelona end up running fashion label Mango’s East Asia & India operations in Shanghai? It all began when he broke up with his girlfriend.

Every autumn, CEIBS welcomes new students for the Global EMBA programme. This year, sixty business elites, highly successful but still facing challenges from both their personal and professional lives, come to the same life-changing decision: to come back to academia, where they can explore ways to make new breakthroughs.

There is a Chinese saying: at the age of forty, one understands the world. For the new students, the true understanding is about themselves - to stop worrying about the “challenges” and “crises” and to better manage their own lives and careers.