This text is part of the special management and manager training booklet

Since Kevin J. Johnson took over as Director of the Master of Business Administration (MBA) program at HEC Montréal in June 2021, he has made a number of changes. “We carried out a first transformation with the hybrid formula in September 2022 and are preparing several new products for September 2023,” says the program director. On the menu: Frenching foreign students, creating new disciplines and strengthening issues of ethics and social responsibility.

Between 2019 and 2022, the HEC Montréal MBA went from June 6th to^e at 2 o’clock^e Canadian ranking in the Bloomberg Businessweek ranking, which only considers 117 schools around the world for this ranking. While he cannot dream of outclassing the world’s Stanfords, Harvards and Whartons, Kevin J. Johnson hopes to create an HEC Montréal MBA profile that will be recognizable to all.

HEC Montréal, which has developed its MBA program over the years in consultation with employers and students, draws heavily on these developments. “We train future leaders who will enter organizations as middle management. So what they need is an education that will be relevant for a very long time. »

Hybridization, flexibility, yes, but not too much

The health crisis has caused a lot of upheaval, but Kevin J. Johnson wanted to build the program on the skills learned through distance learning as soon as he arrived.

“Quebecians have been telecommuting since the pandemic, but we required 100 percent attendance for all of our students, including part-time students, who all have jobs and often have young children. We therefore wanted to offer them the opportunity to complete part of their courses remotely. HEC Montréal therefore created zoom rooms with 12 to 15 screens on all walls. If the student turns on their microphone, everyone can see them. “We wanted to break down the barrier between face-to-face and remote. We are the only MBA in Canada that works this way and one of the few in the world. »

The part-time formula offers classes on Tuesday and Thursday evenings in the hybrid formula and in person on Saturdays. The director is pleased that more than 50% of the students are still attending the hybrid courses. “Presence is required, he says, but if the part-time student needs distance, that’s possible. »

An MBA is a lot of content and above all a method that relies on teamwork and networking. For this reason, HEC Montréal will not go much further in the hybrid formula, which is not offered to full-time students, and will only move very cautiously in terms of time flexibility. “In an MBA, teamwork and networking is 50% of the experience. If we offer too many formulas à la carte, we destroy the network and our value creation. »

Franchising of foreign students

This move to a hybrid formula is just the first transformation introduced in 2022. For the start of the 2023 school year, one of the big pieces is called MBA+, a Frenchization program for non-French speaking foreign students.

“We have students from Quebec, but also a lot of foreigners. We offer the full-time MBA in French and English but would like to offer something different. The three keywords are Frenchization, socialization, integration. »

The MBA+ extends the training by five months. Before the start of the school year, six weeks of preliminary French lessons follow, followed by language lessons throughout the year. The following summer, they are offered cultural and business visits, ending with a three-month internship in French in a Quebec company.

And according to Kevin J. Johnson, HEC Montréal is the only management school to offer the MBA in French among the very select club of schools accredited by the most prestigious accreditation body, the Association of MBAs (AMBA). “We know how to do an MBA, we know how to do it in French, we have the network in Quebec to support it,” says the director, who is very excited for the first cohort of the MBA+ im arrive next school year. “Registration is just the beginning. »

New in shared trunk

HEC Montréal’s MBA program is 54 credits over a year – a huge workload considering a regular student completes 15 per semester. A large proportion of these credits are linked to compulsory common core courses covering about fifteen disciplines ranging from accounting to ethics, including organizational design, microeconomics and marketing.

So far, students have had the option of doing a generalist common core or directing it to a specialty called strategy and management for about a third of the credits. From September, a second option will be introduced: strategy and sustainable development. “We already had a strong reputation for sustainability and we decided to build on that,” reveals Kevin J. Johnson. In fact, the HEC Montréal MBA ranks 30th^e among the 150 programs evaluated worldwide for the sustainability ranking by the Toronto-based company Corporate Knights. This reorientation strengthens the Ethics and Social Responsibility degree course, which has been compulsory for several years.

According to the director, the workshops of the so-called “Experiential Course of Leadership”, which are compulsory for all students, deepen the topics of inclusion, diversity and justice, which have become part of everyday life for all managers. “You can’t miss it anymore,” says Kevin J. Johnson, who completed his entire psychology degree before earning his doctorate in management.

“Our policy of imposing their work team on students is also part of the logic of promoting co-education and diversity. We don’t want them to be limited to their profession and demographic category. »

The overall spirit of the HEC Montréal MBA is to provide students with both intellectual and technical rigor but also a better understanding of people. “We still don’t understand people well, which is why the humanities profile is central to the management degree. »

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