The ME Program
The ME Program
The Master in Entrepreneurship (ME) is an 18-month program designed to help entrepreneurs leverage their time and resources, grow their business, and balance business and personal goals.
The ME is intended for owners, presidents, general managers, and heads of strategic business units (SBUs). It is designed specifically for the leader of an entrepreneurial business and focuses on developing high-impact organizational leadership skills and realistic approaches to value creation and growth.
The aim of the ME is to help entrepreneurs create a solid platform for long-term business growth, while taking into account the realities of the entrepreneur’s time and resources. Understanding that the entrepreneurial leader provides much of the energy and inspiration for the entrepreneurial business, the program takes an explicit approach to balancing business and personal goals.
The AIM Golden Batch
Students enrolled this year’s ME program will be part of the AIM Golden Batch as they graduate in 2018, when AIM celebrates its 50th anniversary.
The Curriculum
The Master in Entrepreneurship (ME) is an 18-month program designed to help entrepreneurs leverage their time and resources, grow their business, and balance business and personal goals.
The ME is intended for owners, presidents, general managers, and heads of strategic business units (SBUs). It is designed specifically for the leader of an entrepreneurial business and focuses on developing high-impact organizational leadership skills and realistic approaches to value creation and growth.
The aim of the ME is to help entrepreneurs create a solid platform for long-term business growth, while taking into account the realities of the entrepreneur’s time and resources. Understanding that the entrepreneurial leader provides much of the energy and inspiration for the entrepreneurial business, the program takes an explicit approach to balancing business and personal goals.
Program Launch (26 September – 13 October 2016)
The first 12 days is an immersive experience involving 4 days each week for 3 weeks. This continuous 12-day course aims to help students develop self-awareness, mindfulness, and an understanding of their personal definition of effectiveness; understand and manage their emotions; and find approaches for unleashing their passion, energy and self-motivation.
Term 1
The Entrepreneur’s Toolkit: Focus on Fundamentals
Focusing on key areas of the business with a bias to action and quick course corrections, the first term also has a strong focus on self-understanding and self-mastery. Midway through the first term, the entrepreneur is expected to create a one-year plan for the business as well as a one-year learning agenda.
Term 2
Building a Solid Foundation: Professionalizing and Systematizing
The key to a sustainable enterprise is a self-regulating operating system. This system must be flexible enough to react quickly to new opportunities but robust enough to impose discipline. After covering all of the main functional areas in the second term, the entrepreneur will have the foundation of the enterprise operating system in place.
Term 3
Crafting a Strategic Growth Trajectory: Scaling and Sustaining
Term 3 begins with creating a deeper understanding of business context and emerging trends. The aim of the third term is to help the entrepreneur learn to identify untapped markets, unleash innovation, and unlock capital. This term culminates with the crafting of a five-year personal plan and a five-year business plan.
Time Commitment
On-campus sessions are normally held whole days in sessions of two days every two weeks. At the beginning of the program, students attend the 12-day Program Launch: an on-campus foundation program delivered four days a week for three weeks. The program ends with ten days of on-campus sessions delivered over three weeks.
Balance personal goals and business vision
In an entrepreneurial business, the leader is often the main source of energy and inspiration. Sustaining this personal energy means being able to pay attention to personal goals and concerns, not just business targets. The ME takes an explicit approach to balancing business and personal concerns. At the end of the program, the entrepreneur prepares a personal plan and a business plan.
Learning by doing
The heart of the program is learning by doing. There are no essays or examinations. The business is the entrepreneur’s real-time laboratory. On-campus sessions are complemented through practical applications to the entrepreneur’s personal realities and business situation. Learning is enhanced by critique from faculty, entrepreneur mentors, and entrepreneur classmates. Instead of a thesis, the ME ends with a five-year personal plan and a five-year business plan.
Learning from Mentors
Each batch of the ME is managed by a core faculty that includes professors in each of the core areas of marketing, finance, operations, organizational management, and strategy. Entrepreneurs are organized into small sections of 35 to 40 students. Each section is assigned a class mentor and a class tutor, a two-person team responsible for managing class learning across the 18 months.
Students will also be able to consult functional area ME mentors as well as subject matter experts in specific topics such as marketing in the digital space, systems thinking, and negotiations. They will also be able to harness the diverse expertise of industry mentors on a per project basis. Site visits by mentors and tutors provide on-the-ground individualized learning opportunities. This pool of industry mentors includes AIM alumni who are founders and directors of ventures throughout the region.
Practitioner-based learning
AIM is a case method school. A significant proportion of on-campus sessions are devoted to discussions of management cases. These cases illustrate real-life problems in the form of narratives. These narratives provide Aim students with an opportunity to apply ideas, frameworks, and skills to real-life problems in a safe environment. The case discussions deepen understanding.
In addition, another significant proportion of on-campus sessions are devoted to reporting of applications to student businesses and personal situations. Critiquing and discussion of these projects among faculty and students allow the entrepreneur to learn from every classmate’s experience and situation.
Learning from Others
The ME is composed of owners, presidents and general managers and majority of on-campus sessions are devoted to discussions of real-life situations, including the entrepreneur’s actual situations. Through these discussions, each entrepreneur benefits from the advice of a whole class of other entrepreneurs.
ME students may an optional international study tour, which will provide them with a chance to understand the opportunities and challenges of other international markets.