The MBA and entrepreneurship

I was lucky to meet a Spanish guy engaging in an entrepreneurial business venture when I was in Madrid at an IE Business School dinner a couple of years back. The energy this guy bought to the dinner was amazing, he was preparing his start-up business plan and offered us plenty of insight into venture labs.

Whilst I can't remember exactly his business venture, I became interested in the notion of an MBA education and entrepreneurship. This is the real purpose of the MBA is to engage in entrepreneurial business activity and he was working towards bringing his start-up business from and idea to a reality. He was a student at IE Business School in Madrid and he also attended the free Coursera online offering Critical Perspectives on Management to round out his education.

What really got me interested was his participation in the venture labs to develop entrepreneurial business opportunities. This is an important component of modern MBA education, the ability to create new business ventures is at the core of MBA importance. Worldwide there are many business school graduates hitting the employment markets and not every MBA graduate is set to become a management consultant, CEO or board member. The purpose of the MBA education is to transform business orientated graduates who are willing to take risks to create the future businesses employing people to create value for shareholders and not just become employees of large corporations.