Business Schools, Opportunities Rise in Africa

After spending more than a decade working in product development for Oceanic Bank in Nigeria, Henry Obike wanted to broaden his business skills and get an executive MBA in hopes of someday starting his own company. With few high-quality local options, Obike, 37, decided to apply to Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Mass, more than 5,000 miles from his job, wife, and four children.Then he heard about a new Executive MBA program set up in Accra, Ghana, by the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS Full-Time MBA Profile), known as CEIBS, a top-ranked international business school whose main campus is in the Pudong district of Shanghai. The CEIBS Ghana program was an instant sell for Obike, who joined its first class in the spring of 2009. Every two months, he and nine Nigerian executives fly to Ghana for eight days of classes taught by CEIBS professors in a building on Independence Avenue, amid Accra's thriving central business district. Says Obike: "It's the Harvard of Africa. Me and other Nigerians are really trying hard to take advantage of this opportunity because there's no other school like it .....More