BI-Fudan MBA program:

20th anniversary kicks off with a celebratory evening

A year-long celebration of the BI-Fudan MBA program kicked off on March 7 with a dinner, speeches, and dance performances in Shanghai.

More than 80 people – including management of BI Norwegian Business School and Fudan University, alumni, and friends of the MBA program – gathered for a festive dinner Monday night to kick off the 2016 BI-Fudan MBA year of celebration. It was the first of a string of events highlighting two decades of successful collaboration, and featured not only a ceremonial opening of the anniversary and a Chinese/European buffet but several performances, including four Chinese dancers expertly carrying out a traditional Norwegian folk dance.

Interaction as engine of innovation

Twenty years in, the BI-Fudan MBA program demonstrates what the meeting of two institutions and cultures can accomplish. Agood place in global rankings and more than two thousand graduates were among the feats highlighted in speeches Monday night.

In his address, Yin Zhiwen, Associate Dean of School of Management, Fudan University said that the program has brought together Chinese and Nordic strengths – the former's pragmatism and adaptive efficiency, the latter's egalitarianism and transparency. These and other qualities he mentioned have been channeled by the two universities to offer MBA students the best of both worlds.

Yet as became clear Monday night, the best of both worlds featured in this MBA program is not merely a sum of Chinese and Norwegian parts. It's a greater whole developed through a meeting of skill sets, teaching styles, working environments, and cultural insights that inform, challenge, and develop each other, thus playing together on one stronger team to win in the global competition.

As highlighted during the dinner by Lise Hammergren, Executive Vice President of BI Norwegian Business School, it's the interactions – between two great business schools, the best faculty of both, the program's engaged and competitive students and alumni – that are key to international success.

– It is through interaction that the program has grown and become successful. It's through interaction that we will continue to innovate and develop the program, and create economic growth for business and society, she said.

Indeed, such interactions is crucial reason why the BI-Fudan MBA was recently ranked number six among part-time MBA programs globally by the Financial Times. More importantly, as emphasized by both Yin and Hammergren, it's why more than 2,000 graduates through two decades of the MBA program and its Change-Management (CMP) predecessor continue to make headways in the management of companies in all kinds of business areas, whether operating in the Nordic region, China, or across other parts of the globe.

A strong alumni network

Those graduates, who now serve as executives and entrepreneurs and who continue to partake in a strong alumni network at events like Monday's dinner, have benefitted from the professional and academic experiences of two renowned institutions interacting to form the business practices of the future. In that sense, it's not a Chinese approach, or a Norwegian or European approach, but one that goes beyond established practices to build on the strengths of both.

It's also one that welcomes the continued inputs of its many alumni, who regularly meet to chat, discuss, and make new friends in an engaging environment offered by few such networks.This involvement will be emphasized through the anniversary year's events.

One alumna currently working as a Financial Controller in a multinational manufacturing company recalled the program fondly during the dinner.

– The classes offered a European-American style of analysis of management that was much more systematic than what we could get elsewhere in China. Our teachers included both Chinese and Norwegian faculty, there was lots of debate. And everyone came from a different professional background; we had classmates working in G.E., Motorola, China Mobile, the shipping industry, and some of the big banks, she said.

A glance into the crystal ball

The event closed with a performance by an artist, who dazzled the audience with a dance performance centered around a crystal ball. This hinted at the forward-looking emphasis of the BI-Fudan MBA anniversary year, which rather than just highlighting past successes takes a glance into the crystal ball, envisioning the continuing nature of the collaboration.

In the words of Associate Dean Yin Zhiwen, not only will this year see a series of bigger events celebrating the collaboration – he also looks very much forward to taking part in the 30th anniversary of the program in 2026.