EMBA and not-for-profit organizations
At the Foster School of Business, we believe executives in the not-for-profit sector require the same high-level leadership skills, business knowledge and global perspective as executives in corporations.
While graduate MBA programs with a total non-profit focus may be right for many people, the Executive MBA from the Foster School offers highly motivated executives:
- Opportunity to learn from and share your perspective with accomplished professionals from a range of industries
- Obtain the level of financial, operational, and strategic skills required in today’s competitive, volatile economic environment
- Gain Leadership skills and a broad global perspective essential for working with your employees, boards of directors and corporations in the private sector
- If you ever decide to move into the private sector, you will have a broad perspective, sophisticated knowledge, and an Executive MBA with clout
We also know that our students in the corporate arena benefit from and appreciate the perspective provided by their colleagues from the non-profit sector.
What a not-for-profit organization executive says about EMBA
Herbert Bone
Class of 2009
Controller
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Being in the Program gave me the skills to help my organization continue to achieve its mission oriented goals by using tools that for-profit organizations employ.
Coming from a not-for-profit background, I was not very familiar with the various driving forces that for-profit companies encounter and how they position to obtain a competitive advantage. I am now aware of many different ways of viewing a situation and seeing how a company can exploit it to their advantage, given the people within the organization, the structure of the organization, or the products they produce. During our budgeting cycle, I focused on making senior leaders aware that we have to make difficult choices and cannot fund all of the areas that we would like. I was better able to communicate different values to our leaders than I would have before taking the Program.
One of the reasons I selected UW’s EMBA Program was because over the past 15 years, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center sponsored many employees to UW’s EMBA. They spoke very highly of the program, and I saw how the program helped them grow and develop more skills.
The Program’s team approach was very beneficial because I had not been exposed to many of the subjects in the program and learned from my teammates. Our team consisted of an accountant (me), a business economist, a marketing director, a public relations director, an operations director and an information technology analyst. The diversity in skills and viewpoints of my teammates helped me acquire new management tools and exposed me to the issues encountered by for-profit businesses.
Background: Herb has BA degrees in both Psychology and Business Administration (Accounting) from the University of Washington. He has worked at the Hutchinson Research Center for 18 years and for the previous six years, audited and consulted for the healthcare industry, primarily for not-for-profit organizations.
