26 / 07 / 2013

EMPLOYERS QUESTION MBAS AS EMPLOYEES RAVE

• By Maria Podtserob
• Jan. 31 2011 00:00
• Last edited 17:20

The first MBA programs in Russia appeared more than 20 years ago. But to this day, employers have assigned little value to diplomas from Russian business schools and have given preference to job candidates with practical skills.

Yet graduates have a shot at making full use of their MBAs if they establish a clear-cut career plan early on and set concrete goals for themselves, job experts told Vedomosti.

Alexander Bogza is a case in point. Bogza, now deputy chief executive officer of Eurocement Group’s Yevrobeton, enrolled in a master’s of business administration course in 2005. He made the decision for practical reasons: At that time he was working in export operations for beverage and dairy giant Wimm-Bill-Dann and needed more unconventional approaches for his work.

One of his colleagues recommended getting an MBA degree at the Graduate School of Business at the State University of Management in Moscow.

Bogza didn’t regret his decision. “I struck up new business acquaintances,” he said. Plus, he “climbed the career ladder,” he said.

In 2007, immediately after he finished the Graduate School of Business, he was approached with an ambitious project: A Kuznetsk shoe factory in the Penza region needed to be pulled out of bankruptcy. Bogza directed the entire restructuring of the business, and in a year and a half, the factory was producing more than 100 types of shoes.

“In restructuring the factory, I turned to my class materials, my notes from [school] and the books that we used for our studies,” Bogza said.

“An MBA changes your worldview,” he said. “A person can look at business and at his own career in a different way.”

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