Ulster University Business School has launched a ‘Mini MBA’ programme in partnership with American legal firm Axiom.
Designed to complement the company’s “Developing Leaders” curriculum the first cohort will compromise 15 of Axiom’s ‘talent pool’ from the local office in Belfast as well as their offices in Poland and Chicago.
Ulster University Business School, Dr Trevor Cadden explains, “We are already engaged with Axiom in Belfast providing financial and legal ‘continuing professional development’ training. This concept began with a blank page where we co-designed a programme that focused around Axiom’s key talent and how they could be equipped with the requisite skills to lead and manage the exponential growth the company is undergoing. From these joint design discussions, the ‘mini MBA’ concept was borne.
Davy McAlinden, Axiom Talent and Leadership Development Director added, “Axiom Law is the leading provider of tech-enabled legal services to some of the largest companies in the world. Our Belfast Centre of Excellence has grown from 6 to 250 staff in the last 5 years, and is now a market leader attracting some of the brightest, most innovative and creative minds in the legal industry.
“Axiom’s Global Learning and Development is based in Belfast. We offer our employees a sector leading training curriculum which has over 25 short courses, 15 on-line interventions and 4 management and leadership programmes. The Ulster University / Axiom mini MBA is our flagship programme.
“Axiom is very committed to developing our future leaders, but like all businesses realise that not everyone has the time to complete a full Executive MBA. We discussed this challenge with Dr. Trevor Cadden and his team in the University’s Business School, and key topics arose around leadership, strategy, finance and innovation. The mini MBA will give our leaders the skills, attitudes and behaviours to succeed in this environment and will ensure we have the best leaders who will help us enhance the growth of Axiom and prepare for the future in what is a fast-changing environment”.
Dr Cadden added, “The idea of a compact version is to expose participants to all the elements of an MBA, enable them to gain a stand-alone Level 7 Ulster University certificate and also bank credits against a full MBA should they wish to progress. The five-day immersion course will feature the latest management and leadership thinking through action learning tools and techniques. Participants will complete a piece of applied assessment of relevance to the organisation, which espouses our ‘theory through practice’ philosophy!”.