Bologna Business School launches the ‘BBS Women Initiative’ and creates 30 new scholarships for Masters in management
24 November 2021A new initiative on women’s leadership to encourage participation in advanced management training programs
BBS Dean Max Bergami: “Companies need balanced top management teams, because leadership diversity is increasingly important.”
Bologna, November 24, 2021 – Bologna Business School launches a new initiative on women’s leadership, with a series of actions aimed at encouraging the participation of women in executive and professional post-graduate courses, which are still predominantly attended by men. In this way, the School intends to support women’s access to the development of managerial skills.
“If we look at MBAs for newly graduated students, the composition of classrooms sees both genders equally represented, with women often performing better. As you go up, in terms of experience and professional level, the percentage of women drops to below 30 percent in part-time MBAs,” said Massimo Bergami, Dean of Bologna Business School. “BBS, on the international scene, has more than satisfactory figures with an average participation of women close to 40%, but this is not enough.”
For this reason, BBS has decided to launch the ‘BBS Women Initiative’, which includes a series of actions aimed at fostering the growth of women’s leadership in companies and more generally in organizations. The plan includes a solid program of 30 scholarships over the course of a year, a number of ad hoc courses, a series of meetings and workshops aimed at deepening the issues concerning gender balance and other projects that will be coordinated by a Board that will be chaired by Eugenia Bieto, in the past general director of ESADE – Escola Superior d’Administració i Direcció d’Empreses, the prestigious international business school, located in Barcelona.
For executive courses, the initiative starts immediately with 10 scholarships, of which 5 are total and 5 are partial – at 50% – to attend the Executive Master in Business Administration and the Hybrid MBA, both in English, whose enrollment will close in mid-December. The scholarships will be aimed at financing the enrolment fee: 30,000 Euros for the EMBA and 20,000 for the Hybrid MBA. Both courses last over a year, with a part-time structure and some online activities, so as to reconcile participation in the course, the pursuit of professional activities and the private commitments of participants.
“We work on skills to foster greater competitiveness for both genders and lay the groundwork for the next generation of leaders. This is a delicate issue, but there is no doubt that it is necessary to create greater awareness, encourage the construction of professional networks and work on the difficulties that still exist in companies and society,” said Massimo Bergami, Dean of Bologna Business School. “As a school, we believe that where gaps exist, we must intervene to fill them: the society of the future needs women in leadership positions, in order to foster a greater richness of styles in the way of facing the challenges of uncertainty and change.”
“With this initiative we will contribute to the creation and dissemination of knowledge on the characterization of women and men in leadership roles, which increasingly require integration and inclusion of knowledge sets, relational and listening skills, empathy and a participatory style,” said Ilaria Manghi, Co-Managing Director of BBS. According to Paola Giuri, Professor of Innovation Management and Associate Dean for Faculty of Bologna Business School, “the School’s mission is to provide students with diverse learning experiences, including through the gender balance of the School’s faculty, a goal that is increasingly present in the composition of the Faculty of our programs”.
