BACK TO SCHOOL.

Latin American execs join the MBA bandwagon.

ECUADORAN BUSINESSMAN ROberto Doumet Eljuri joins a growing number of midcareer executives in Latin America headed back into classrooms for an MBA. While executive MBA programs have been around since the early 1940S (the University of Chicago unveiled the first), they have picked up steam in recent years as competition rose across the region.

Latin American execs chasing these degrees are edging toward the top of their game. Their companies can't grant them sabbaticals--nor do these senior managers even want that--but they are hot to understand how business has changed thanks to globalization, electronic commerce, takeovers and international partnerships.

"These executives are bringing themselves up to date in many areas. They're making their resumes better," says Sam Podolsky, president of the Mexico operations for executive recruitment company Spencer Stuart. "Another important thing is that they're networking with other executives."

Doumet Eljuri, vice president of Grupo Eljuri, is counting on learning just as much from his more experienced classmates as his professors in his 20-month executive program at Michigan, which will cost US$95,000. "We're in a world of international alliances. Look at my classmates, people from General Motors, from Sun Microsystems," says the Ecuadoran, who plans to bring Grupo Eljuri's problems to trouble-shooting discussions required of the MBA students.

David Ardis, managing director of Michigan's executive MBA degree, which debuts with its first classes in August, also cites the networking opportunities. "People who have been involved in mergers and acquisitions and know some of the potential pitfalls, people who have been involved in labor disputes, in turnaround situations--that's where the informal learning opportunities are invaluable," he says.

The job must go on. Just like Doumet Eljuri, Santiago Perez wanted to gain an edge with an MBA, but he couldn't stop his life to go to school full-time. Perez manages a chemical company in Medellin, Colombia, travels frequently for work in country as well as to Ecuador and Venezuela, plus he has a wife and five kids. His solution was to enroll in a virtual master's program offered by Mexico's Instituto Technologico de Monterrey

He attends class two hours a week at a Tec classroom in Medellin. He spends about 10 hours per week doing his homework, communicating with his professors and fellow students via the Internet.

Perez, 40, has almost 200 classmates in the master's program, which is offered throughout Latin America but primarily reaches students in Mexico, Colombia and Honduras. The cultural diversity as well as geographic distribution of students enriches the classes, says Jose Luis Figueroa, director of the e-commerce program for Tec's Virtual University. Figueroa remembers how he used the Web site of the newspaper USA Today as the basis for homework in one of his classes. He told the students that they had to answer questions as if they were executives at the newspaper.

The groups in Mexico and Monterrey did their homework as requested, but the students in Ciudad Juarez, who were taking the class virtually, found the director of operations at USA Today and got firsthand information. "This [initiative] enriched the class and we ended up establishing a link so that the executive could participate in the class," remembers Figueroa, who says the students' experience with distance-learning technology brings out these opportunities.

Virtual experience. Tec began offering the virtual master's program outside of Mexico in 1995 in Colombia, where the Mexican school has cooperation agreements with local universities. Since then, Tec has opened more than 800 offices in Latin America, many inside the offices of private companies. Not all of the classrooms are used for the virtual master's program because the Monterrey-based school offers courses ranging from the undergraduate level to tailor-made management seminars for companies. Perez, for example, goes to class in a specially-equipped office located in the headquarters of insurance company Suramericana de Seguros in Medellin.

Tec's decision to move the class to the student has boosted the popularity of its master's program. Colombian Belisario Pena, for example, started his master's degree traveling every weekend to a Tec campus" in Bucaramanga, until the university opened a campus in his home town of Pamplona. His wife got a job offer in Mexico, so he went along and finished his degree in Monterrey.

The virtual MBA program accounts for only 1,500 of 80,000 students in distance-learning classes at the Tec. The largest concentrations of international MBA students are in Colombia and Honduras. "It's not that we sought to develop Colombia; things just worked out there," says Sanchez. Online students receive the same credit as they would taking standard classes and the price is the same--about $1,300 per course--as in Mexico. In Colombia and Honduras, the Tec charges 70% less. "Any other way the Tec would be viewed as a voracious organization, worried about pesos and centavos and not development," says Sanchez. "We need revenue because we are not subsidized, but [the reduced price] makes us look good before international organizations," an advantage that can translate into support and donations.

Jet-setting students. Latin Americans have been hurrying to another brand-new executive MBA program that boasts a flexible schedule. In June, Columbia University's Business School launched its joint international executive MBA program with the London School of Economics. Students meet in New York for four or five days one month, then the following month in London. After two years, they receive MBAs from both universities.

"We thought it would be perfect for people whose jobs have them traveling between London and New York. But we're getting people from all over," says Dina Consolini, association dean of Columbia's executive MBA programs.

"We have one student who works for Coca-Cola in Mexico City who goes nowhere near either city but he liked the schedule."

Other students include a Venezuelan lawyer whose clients promote international ventures in Latin America, a Chilean who handles Latin American markets for a Texas oil concern and the vice president of a Puerto Rican export company. Miami-based Latin American business people were also among the 65 students who met in London in June for the class.

The Columbia project typifies the partnership arrangements that have been bolstering the international component of executive MBA programs. The program at Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola in Peru is conducted in conjunction with California State and includes shared courses with Thunderbird University. The Universidad General Belgrano in Argentina and the Universidad de Los Andes in Colombia have both partnered with Tulane University, while the Universidad Catolica de Chile has an alliance with the University of Texas at Austin.

"These courses have been very important in creating opportunities for career advancement, better salaries or opportunities for international careers," says James Wright, coordinator of the executive MBA program at the University of Sao Paulo, which has partnered with Vanderbilt University. Interest has swelled since the degree was unveiled in 1993 because, he says, the curriculum is geared toward "the practical needs of a professional executive:' Brazilian executive MBA-style programs are also offered at the Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro, Fundacao Getulio Vargas, Fundacao Dom Cabral, Sao Paulo Business School and Ibmec.

"Latin America is one of the most rapidly growing areas for executive MBAs," says Maury Kalnitz, executive director of the Executive MBA Council, an international organization of universities with executive MBAs. He says corporations are welcoming the appearance of Latin American executive MBAs because they are often better tailored to the region's business realities, and because they are less expensive. Annual tuition at the University of Sao Paulo is about $22,000. At the University of Chicago, it's $71,000.

Technology opens doors. New technology has smoothed the way for executives like Doumet Eljuri to study far from their home countries. When he walks into his Michigan classroom for an orientation session in August, he'll be armed with a university-provided laptop (which he gets to keep), a business school e-mail address and primers on how to use the techno-links that will be key to his studies.

Aside from 10 days on campus each August, Doumet Eljuri and his classmates will spend no more than two days a month in Ann Arbor. The rest of the time they'll rely on the Internet, streaming video, video conferencing, chat room interaction and other technology to get through their classes and projects.

At 28, Doumet Eljuri will be decades younger than many of his classmates. He just squeezed past the minimum requirements for Michigan: at least 10 years managerial experience. "We've got a couple presidents of companies in the program. There are probably a dozen or more vice presidents. There's at least one executive vice president," Ardis explains. "There are CFOs in the program, too.

Doumet Eljuri calls the executive MBA the only formula that would have worked for him. "If I had abandoned my job and moved my pregnant wife somewhere for two years, leaving behind all my projects, it would have made me feel like I was stalling my career. It also wouldn't have given me the same experience," he says. "It's one thing to be studying an MBA with a lot of young people who have just graduated from college. It's quite another to be studying with a group of experienced executives."