In the first face-to-face week, we welcome you and your classmates with an Opening Ceremony. This is an opportunity to network with your cohort and build the foundations for a life-changing, 17-month journey. You will lay the groundwork for intense leadership transformation through immersive workshops, gaining key skills such as effective communication and team building, which you will utilize throughout the program.

During this week you’ll participate in workshops such as:

• Negotiation
• Team Building
• Personal Communication
• Manging People in the Digital Era
• Navigating the GenAI Landscape 
• Industry-specialized conferences

The objective of this course is to improve participants’ knowledge in the area of negotiation, by combining theoretical instruction and hands-on exercises, including practicing and developing negotiation tactics and skills. This program is designed to teach participants the “art of negotiation” as an effective tool in their careers as well as personal lives.

During this workshop, you’ll learn and experience key team-building principles that create trust and attitudes to collaborate at the highest level of performance. Not only will you increase your awareness of and understand key success factors in building, participating in and leading effective teams, but you’ll also apply scientifically proven team-effectiveness concepts and tools to create high-performing teams.

Moreover, you will familiarize yourself with how to effectively manage assessment and feedback to continuously improve your leadership skills, while learning to give and receive constructive feedback. You’ll identify your own strengths and areas of development in key areas of emotional intelligence such as communication, self-awareness, self-regulation and influence as you create an impactful Personal Development Plan.

Communicating ideas effectively is extremely important, with a high correlation between business and political success and an ability to successfully present information. The Personal Communication workshop is specifically designed to boost communication skills in a world where we consume and deliver information in ever-greater quantities and media.

In the digital age, leaders’ communication continues to evolve. Whether through videoconferencing, web-based meetings or online video marketing, modern communications methods have one thing in common: the camera.

This workshop examines the similarities between communicating with an audience of thousands or a small group during a daily business meeting, imparting the skills to present yourself well in person or on camera. You’ll learn how to stand out from the crowd to your competitive advantage.

A strong employee base is one of the most crucial assets to any organization. The way we manage people can have a huge impact on almost every aspect of the business environment and performance, from culture to turnover to bottom line profitability.

Through this course, students will gain a better understanding of how to manage a company’s human resources more effectively. Covering key topics such as diversity in the workplace, agility in team settings, and managing people in a remote environment, the course prepares students for success in today’s context. With added subjects on big data and people analytics and upskilling the workforce for the digital economy, this course will provide you with the complete toolkit to measure, manage and promote positivity among employees in the digital era.

This module introduces students to the core concepts of social entrepreneurship, social innovation, measuring social impact, achieving sustainability and social financing. It teaches participants the differences between a social enterprise, a social business, and corporate social responsibility. Special attention will be given to social enterprises that address the needs of the poorest segment of the world’s population.

In this seminar you will analyze the opportunities, challenges and tensions facing social entrepreneurs, gaining a nuanced perspective and understanding of what drives people to help others as well as their purposes and motivations.

In this comprehensive two-part workshop, students leverage generative artificial intelligence applications by delving into their history, current applications and future trends. The three main objectives are understanding AI's transformative impact, mastering prompt engineering fundamentals and exploring emerging trends.

Participants discover key milestones contributing to AI deployment, plus best practices and challenges in implementing GenAI models in production environments. It also addresses the advantages and limitations of prompt engineering, providing hands-on instruction on designing powerful prompts. Finally, it examines complex techniques and future directions in this evolving field, equipping students with insights to navigate the changing landscape.

• Financial Reporting and Analysis
• Economic Environment and Country Economic Analysis
• Management Accounting
• Leading People and Change
• Marketing Management
• Strategy

An introduction to corporate financial reporting from a global perspective with the primary objective of preparing students to read, analyze and interpret financial statements. A key focus of this module is empowering participants to use accounting as a tool for decision-making with analytical, creative and critical thinking.

This course comprises three parts:

1. The fundamentals. This part introduces the key concepts and principles behind the accounting system and financial statements. It also includes an appreciation of the influence of the institutional context (IFRS and local GAAPs).
2. How companies report financial information regarding specific transactions, such as sales or investments. The emphasis is on managers’ financial reporting decisions, and how these decisions influence the data available in financial statements.
3. A broad overview of how different stakeholders (e.g. analysts and lenders) use financial statements for decision-making. The approach goes beyond the fundamental ratio analysis and analysis of cash flow statements. It considers other elements such as pro forma measures, the influence of the environment in which financial statements are prepared, and the ethical implications of accounting decisions.

An exploration of the most important economic theories and concepts that relate to the macroeconomic and microeconomic business environment. Students will learn to use these concepts and tools of economic analysis, and acquire a more formal vision of why and how different economic policies—such as labor, fiscal, monetary or trade policies—operate. You will assess the implications of different macroeconomic contexts in different countries to acquire a holistic, global perspective. Using the case method with real data from different countries, students will learn to interpret economic reality from an applied and critical perspective.

It is vital that organizations use economic information for their decision-making. The role of management accounting is to provide managers with the information they need for different aspects of their role, supporting strategy and operations in both the short and long term.

Management Accounting focuses on the main source of information related to cost estimation. This course reviews different cost behaviors to understand their relevance for decisions such as launching products or services, cost reduction, pricing, income statement calculation or analyzing customer profitability.

Cultivate self-awareness to develop leadership skills and maximize every individual’s contribution to an organization’s success across different levels and in confronting changing situations. Participants will learn to lead people and change by applying concepts and frameworks to case studies and engaging in self-assessment, simulations, in-depth discussions and group exercises.

In a changing and increasingly competitive environment, effective marketing is essential. Despite the changes that occur in the market, the marketing process remains as follows:

• Identify the needs and desires of consumers.
• Evaluate the competitive environment.
• Select the most appropriate target audience.
• Offer a relevant value proposition.
• Develop a customized marketing strategy.
• Implement it correctly.

Marketing Management will teach students the essential models and tools that allow us to understand and meet consumer needs, ensuring a successful marketing strategy that outcompetes competitors. You’ll gain the insights necessary to offer relevant products and services, at an appropriate price, through the best distribution channels. What’s more, you’ll learn to communicate this message in a way that secures customer action, satisfaction and loyalty.

An examination of why some firms perform better than others. The course will introduce the main concepts, theoretical frameworks and analytical tools that will allow participants to understand how firms gain and sustain a competitive advantage, as well as how to successfully execute strategy.

Through an in-depth discussion of cases and articles, participants will familiarize themselves with challenging strategic decisions. This course goes beyond a simple application of the theoretical tools and frameworks, instilling a strategic mindset to gain a deep understanding of how to shape competitive behavior that enhances performance across different contexts.

During the second residential week, you will return to Madrid to continue developing your leadership abilities, with a strong focus on onboarding new people and driving change. These skills will be further enhanced with workshops on influence, persuasion and negotiation, alongside training on effective collaboration with diverse teams.

The objective of this course is to improve participants’ knowledge in the area of negotiation, by combining theoretical instruction and hands-on exercises, including practicing and developing negotiation tactics and skills. This program is designed to teach participants the “art of negotiation” as an effective tool in their careers as well as personal lives.

You will become a more powerful negotiator through the IE methodological approach (the IE Business School protocol to structure participants’ thoughts and better prepare for negotiations) and by using the case method, group work, role-playing exercises and one-on-one practice.

An introduction to the fundamental tools for designing solutions based on a deeper understanding of user needs. You will explore the leading methodology of the human-centered design movement—design thinking—which focuses on creating user-centered solutions that combine creativity, idea generation and implementation through prototyping.

Design thinking is an industrial design concept born in the 1990s, and is now used by businesses, governments and NGOs around the world.

Social entrepreneurs—creative, passionate individuals committed to finding practical solutions to the world’s social ills—have existed for centuries. They are leaders who see a social or environmental problem and feel a compelling urge to correct it, usually through non-profit ventures.

What is the main challenge companies are dealing with? What is critical to succeed today, for organizations and individuals? What can help you boost or hinder your professional career? Your ability to successfully deal with and manage change.

The objective of this workshop is to prepare you to effectively deal with change, and make it happen. Participants will acquire an understanding of change management best practices and their role as change leaders or participants. Gain experience applying tactics in a no-risk environment, readying yourself to use these knowledge and skills to support current and future organizational change:

• Developing a common language for understanding change.
• Sharing individual experiences within and between teams.
• Analyzing a change management business case.
• Developing and implementing a specific action plan.
• Drawing important insights and conclusions.

This 10-session, hands-on learning experience emphasizes sustainability's crucial role in business resilience and adaptability. To achieve this, it is taught alongside topics like reputation enhancement, cost reduction, regulatory preparedness and innovation. Participants collaborate to develop actionable sustainability strategies for real-world contexts, driving impactful business solutions.

Ultimately, the challenge fosters innovative thinking and equips students to incorporate sustainability into versatile business strategies. It prepares future leaders for evolving market expectations and regulations, empowering them to drive change and create competitive advantages through responsible business solutions in a rapidly growing global market.

Improve your personal and professional influencing skills—from pitching a great business idea to building support for a new initiative, negotiating a salary or promotion to agreeing with a partner about where to go on summer vacation.

This course considers the ethical aspects of influencing and how its effectiveness depends on many external factors. Explore the many tactics involved in the process and the psychological biases we all share to become a better influencer and build resilience in your own convictions.

This module builds on the course from the first term to help participants further develop their leadership skills.

Comprising 15 sessions in total, the first 10 will take place online with the final five delivered in person during the second residential period. With this second installment, participants will gain more in-depth knowledge and frameworks regarding how to effectively manage people and drive change

Business operates in both the market and nonmarket environment—or the space where formal and informal rules governing market competition are set and enforced. Successful corporate strategy aligns firms’ capabilities with the demands of both.

This course introduces the systematic analysis of the political, societal and natural factors that shape the nonmarket environment. Participants learn how to analyze and proactively manage this environment through integrated market and nonmarket strategies.

This course enables students to confidently conceive, lead and execute digital transformation initiatives. The main goal is to prepare today’s managers to absorb, digest and understand the evolution of digital technologies, as well as to draw conclusions about the impact and potential effects of such technologies within industries, companies and individuals.

Achieving competitive advantage requires more than just having the technology; it requires a change in mindset, training, and extensively redefining roles and functions. By examining and discussing real-world examples and cases across different industries, participants will develop a greater attention towards digital technologies.

They will also gain a set of digital skills and expertise required for general managers. We will explore the application of digital technologies for various purposes, including their implications for communications, business processes and services.

This finance course covers fundamental concepts in corporate finance, equipping you with a set of tools and analytical frameworks. With an emphasis on financial decision making and based on real-life examples, this course will cover: how to analyze investment decisions within a company; how to estimate a company’s cost of capital; popular decision-making criteria such as Net Present Value (NPV) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR); how to think about financing decisions and capital structure; and dividend policies.

Operations are transformation processes that add value to organizations, in both physical products (manufacturing) and services. In this course, students will learn how operations management interacts with other functional areas of an organization, as well as the economy as a whole.

You will gain specific skills and insights into key operational areas such as system and process analysis and design; quality and inventory management; and planning and project management. Emphasis will be on global operations, the impact of innovation on product life cycles, operations automation, lean processes, and the environmental and sustainability aspects of operations.

Business decisions are often characterized by risk and uncertainty—too complex to be assessed through intuition alone. Using quantitative data to understand these uncertainties is therefore crucial for making informed judgments and defending them in front of your peers, superiors and stakeholders.

The Data Analytics module is designed to provide you with a basic set of tools so that you can develop meaningful insights from quantitative information. Through this course, you will also acquire the fundamental numerical skills to perform well during the core phase of your degree. While this course serves as a prequel to our core data analytics courses, the topics covered will also form the basis for other classes in finance, economics, marketing, accounting and operations management.

Thus, this course acts as a gateway to basic mathematical concepts and managerial statistics. You will learn about topics such as linear equations, probability theory, descriptive statistics and linear regression analysis in an enjoyable and interactive way—allowing you to gradually become more and more confident when thinking about numerical information.

Throughout the third term, you will take part in a course to prepare you for the Final Exam. This will be carried out alongside your elective subjects and coaching sessions. 

For entrepreneurial activity to translate into economic growth, entrepreneurship education needs to focus less on the “start” and “small” side of things, and more on how companies of all ages, sizes and sectors scale. After all, successful founders and entrepreneurs we know today are famous not because they started, but because they scaled. 

 A scaleup can be described as any organization undergoing rapid growth. Most businesses are surprised to see that past practices don’t work as well when doubling or tripling in size. That’s because scaling a business is qualitatively different from starting it. Scaling up requires a growth mindset and important decision making in areas such as purpose, product, process and people. 

In this period, you will also work with a mentor on your Entrepreneurial Venturing Final Project, for which you can choose from the Startup Creation or Corporate Entrepreneurship courses. 

In this online module, you will learn the main statistical analysis methods required for making managerial decisions with data. Designed to give you an overview of the most commonly used statistical tools, this course teaches you when to use them, what evidence they provide, and what decisions you can make. This course lays the foundation for data analytics for decision making and can be paired with other data analytics courses to further solidify these skills.

In the third face-to-face week, you’ll get the opportunity to prepare your pitch for the final exam. This mock pitch will be held under the same conditions as the real one, challenging you to complete the presentation in the allotted time. After you have finished, the professor will help identify any areas of improvement whether with regard to the content or the presentation style.

The final presentation will take place alongside your work group and in front of a panel of judges. You will have to present your final master’s project and answer any questions the judges may have.

In this module, you will reflect on how to lead in times of conflict and disagreement, and how to lead people with integrity and authenticity amidst uncertainty. You will discover how to manage people even when you don’t have the answer, and are facing significant challenges in your managerial role.

The purpose of this course is to examine the best ways to manage and orient your professional trajectory, while connecting with the IE Talent & Careers services available for you. The module will also explore the areas you need to work on to better manage your career.

The Industry Specialized Conferences are a series of lectures where executives from different industries discuss their sector’s current context and explain how it works. They will also share their visions of how to achieve success in their specific area of expertise. Alongside gaining insights into various market contexts, this a great opportunity to broaden your business knowledge and learn from other industries.