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Executive MBA
in Sofia

Design your success with the AUBG Executive MBA

The Executive MBA at AUBG

The first Executive MBA to be established in Bulgaria, the AUBG EMBA has successfully educated professionals in the region for 20 years. Upon graduation, you join a supportive alumni community of business leaders and global change-makers. Taught by world-renowned professors, the program will introduce you to both the latest academic theory and real-world business examples. The intensive 16-month EMBA will equip you with the skills and knowledge to thrive in a complex global business environment.

Impressive Curriculum

The Executive MBA program is a sixteen-month (four-term) degree program to help you refine your management style and prepare you for increasingly responsible positions. The program integrates the fundamentals of business with contemporary perspectives and tools. Students complete four academic courses each term, attend monthly leadership seminars and participate in a team business trip to a top global destination.

Spring

Spring Semester Courses

  • This course focuses on ethical challenges facing businesses and business managers. It covers the societal environment within which businesses function, the social, political and legal arrangements and power groups that condition interactions within and outside the marketplace. It addresses issues of corporate leadership and social responsibility, and how they relate to managers and citizens of the world.

  • This course is designed to sharpen essential business and communication skills of students that will facilitate their successful performance in the EMBA program and will strengthen their professional profile. Using a combination of theoretical knowledge and practical learning experiences students will improve their public speaking and communication skills, their understanding of and ability to carry out research, and business communication skills. The course contains three modules 1 credit each: Business Communication (1 credit), Business Research Methods (1 credit), Public Speaking and Presentation Skills (1 credit).

    Key topics in this course will include:

    • Principles of effective public speaking, techniques for public speech and presentation, effective presentation skills;
    • Basic principles of business research: qualitative vs. quantitative techniques, research tools and their relevance to different research problems; research sources and referencing;
    • Effective business communications, principles of effective expression and communication, ethics and protocol in business and professional communications.
  • This course addresses macroeconomic concepts such as the impact of fiscal and monetary policies and critical private sector factors on GDP, interest rates, unemployment, government budget deficits, balance of payments, and inflation. Students analyze issues such as microeconomic concepts relevant to managerial decision-making, how to analyze demand and supply using consumer demand theory and production theory, the nature and determinants of profit-maximizing production and pricing, and how game theory is suited to solving business problems. The course also deals with the economics of competition within individual industries.

  • The Financial Accounting course is designed to introduce users of accounts to the accounting system in all organizations, terminology, regulations, and interpretation of Limited company's Final accounts. The course also introduces the concept of governance and corporate social responsibility. This is achieved through a variety of teaching techniques, including short presentations, case studies, debates, group work, and relating the topics learned to real-life situations.

Summer

Summer Semester Courses (3 credits)

  • Entrepreneurs require a foundation in several key areas in order to be successful. This course is focused on multiple topics including; how startups/new ventures are different than established businesses, the benefits/drawbacks of entrepreneurship, going from concept to new venture, avoiding common mistakes, strategic management (on the small scale), marketing for entrepreneurs, the role of culture in start-ups, pricing strategies, potential financing, and differences/impact of being in a transition CEE economy vs. an established entrepreneurial ecosystem.

  • In this course executives learn how to interpret and evaluate management information. Subjects explored include the use of financial information for management decision-making, planning, and control. Case studies cover performance measurement, cost behavior and cost allocation, budget development, and variance analysis. A review of the different costing methodologies is done and practical examples illustrate how to use them for decision-making purposes, and for improving the bottom line of the company.

  • This course covers the complete value creation cycle: from deciding which customers to compete for and which markets to target, to the design and implementation of a marketing program. It develops a solid grasp of marketing analysis including consumer, competitor and company, along with a systematic mastery of marketing tools. It also examines new product development, marketing resource allocation, competitive strategy, and domestic and export market strategies. To answer the latest trends in the area, students’ coursework is focused on the power of e-commerce and Internet marketing.

  • This course provides students with in-depth knowledge about the essence, functions, and styles of management. It also touches on organizational effectiveness by examining the role of executive leadership, information processing, organizational learning, cross-cultural differences, management innovation and organizational culture. Case studies and simulations provide an opportunity to develop recruiting skills, team building and negotiation skills within an organizational context. The course offers a global picture of organizational management, organizational structures, and organizational life cycles.

Fall

Fall Semester Courses

  • Valuation, capital structure, financial forecasting, corporate control and governance are explored here. The course helps to understand why so many entrepreneurial ventures in emerging economies fail to deliver on their initial promises. It covers the foundations of corporate finance, the role of the corporate finance function, and the elements needed for financial management, planning and decision-making in a business enterprise. Case studies illustrate the process of accessing external financing resources and of corporate acquisitions, privatization, and restructuring.

  • This course covers the policies, methods and techniques utilized in human resources management and human relations to ensure that the organization has the best human resources available and that these resources are deployed in the most efficient and effective ways to meet the organization's mission and to meet and/or exceed its goals. It focuses on both HRM Department and on functional managerial decision-making with regard to these activities: Recruitment & Selection; Compensation; Fringe Benefits; Retention; Incentive Plans; Labor Relations; Training & Development; and Performance.

  • How does a business grow from a local provider of goods and services into a regional and internationally successful venture? This course explores operating in, sourcing from, and selling into international markets, particularly within the EU, and also to North America. Topics include EU policies affecting business relations, currency transactions and exposure, tariffs and trade barriers, importing/exporting and related banking services, and financing, trade financing and supplier/customer credit.

  • Social Entrepreneurship, at its core, means attempting to mobilize the resources of the community, business, and government to address socially important topics and problems. It is an effort to generate new ways of functioning as a society and as individuals, new business models, but also ways of improving the current models in order to reflect the society’s demands. As a discipline, it combines studying entrepreneurship, innovation, ethics, corporate social responsibility, and a long list of other subjects. By definition, then, Social Entrepreneurship is a subject that must be studied carefully, especially by current and future business leaders. It helps us become better executives and better citizen at the same time. It helps us refine our business vision and improve our business practices. More importantly, it helps us redefine our company’s and our own individual place and contribution in society.

Winter

Winter Semester Courses

  • This capstone course deals with the overall management of the business enterprise and the need to identify and evaluate alternative paths to determine its direction, sustainability, and competitiveness. Topics include the identification and evaluation of strategies; assessing industry attractiveness; evaluating the firm’s capabilities, resources, and position; determining the optimal horizontal and vertical scope of the firm; entering into strategic alliances and joint ventures; and formulating and implementing strategy in multi-business organizations.

  • This course is designed to enhance the leadership capacities of students. Using the latest theoretical frameworks and leadership models, the course takes students through a process of understanding their leadership style and how it may fit within organizations. Through a combination of theory and practice, this course will increase students’ ability to act, reflect and focus (refocus) on their actions as leaders.

    Key topics in this course will include: assessing leadership characteristics in a variety of professional and social environments, analyzing and reflecting on instances of leadership in everyday life, articulating and communicating a leadership vision that is goal-oriented, and synthesizing a personal blueprint or check-list for action (personal leadership plan).

  • In today’s customer-focused marketplace supply chain management has become the key to competitive advantage. Here corporate managers learn to understand the details of daily business operations, the principles of operations management that are useful in both the service and the manufacturing sectors, including design, planning and control of goods and services production, and delivery operations. The topics covered include logistics, supply chain management and the role that the Internet now plays, just-in-time and business process re-engineering, inventory control, material resource planning and forecasting, enterprise planning solutions and total quality management (ISO 9000).

  • This course will be a continuation of the project work started during Semester 3 of the program as part of the Social Entrepreneurship course. Students will work on completing and executing the project designed and launched in the previous semester. The project will serve as senior thesis, which the students will present and defend in front of an academic committee.

Electives

Elective Courses (1 credit)

  • Electives are subject to change depending on faculty availability and student interest. The Graduate Programs team is continually developing new elective courses to adapt to the ever-evolving business landscape.

    • Project Management
    • Design Thinking & Innovation
    • Coaching & Mentoring
    • Product Management
    • Service Design
    • Win-Win Negotiations
    • Digital Marketing
Business Trip

European Business Trip

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Accreditation

The AUBG Executive MBA Program is accredited both in the United States, by the New England Commission of Higher Education, and in Bulgaria, by the National Agency for Evaluation and Accreditation.

More about accreditation


Meet the Executive MBA Faculty

The EMBA took my competence and experience to the next level

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There are many benefits when it comes to studying in this EMBA program.

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