By TMR / graphic by TMR

Harvard Business School (HBS) has denied any plans to establish a classroom in Malaysia similar to its centers in India and China.

In an e-mail response to The Malaysian Reserve, the HBS said it currently runs one custom executive education-programme – “HBS Malaysia Competing on Business Analytics and Big Data” – with the Center of Applied Data Science (The CADS) in Kuala Lumpur.

“The programme is for senior executives of Malaysian and Asean firms focused on helping participants harness the potential of big data to make more informed decisions at all levels of their organizations,” HBS chief marketing and communications officer, Brian C Kenny said.

He said 6,000 data professionals have been trained to-date at facilities provided by CADS.

In addition, the CADS is preparing to enter into an agreement to collaborate with HBX, which is HBS’ digital platform that has been designed to bring the dynamism of the HBS classroom to online learning.

The CADS-HBS agreement is to make the HBX Credential of Readiness (CORe) programme available to several audiences of aspiring data professionals from Malaysia and Asean countries, including fresh university graduates and mid-career professionals.

He said the initial pilot will include up to 1,000 participants in total.

HBS is commenting to The Malaysia Reserve’s report that the renowned institution has selected Malaysia to set up its third overseas campus outside the United States.

The report quoting sources added that the government and HBS – the Harvard University’s graduate business school – have reached an understanding to set up a site campus in Kuala Lumpur.

 

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Harvard Business School on Malaysian soil

By P PREM KUMAR

WORLD-RENOWNED Harvard Business School (HBS) has chosen Malaysia as the base of its third overseas campus outside the US, after China and India.

Sources close to the development told The Malaysian Reserve that the Malaysian government and the Harvard University’s graduate business school have recently reached an understanding to set up a site campus in Kuala Lumpur.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Razak is expected to make an official announcement on the matter, the sources added.

A delegation comprising HBS management officials and professors recently visited Malaysia for a final discussion and site visit.

“The delegation was also brought to visit some successful Malaysian firms, for them to discover the case studies and business journal potentials in this country as well.

“They (the delegation) were amazed at some of the corporate turnaround and success stories that the companies had to share,” said the sources, which cannot be named as the information is private.

HBS is expected to open a “Harvard Centre” in Malaysia, offering key executive leadership programmes.

Sources said HBS will emulate the concept of existing Harvard Centres in Shanghai, China, and Mumbai, India, here.

“The Harvard Centre will be offering their key leadership executive programmes which are well recognised in the global job market.”

As part of the understanding reached to date, the sources said the proposed Harvard Centre will train 10 Malaysian professors annually to produce Harvard-standard journals which can later be published by the US university.

“One professor from HBS will be based in Kuala Lumpur to train the local professors.

“The delegation felt that there are adequate resources in the Malaysian economy and corporate sectors to be written as journals, thus making it available in Harvard’s archive for future reference,” one source said.

HBS is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, US.

It offers a large full-time MBA (Master of Business Administration) programme, doctoral programmes and various executive education programmes.

HBS launched its first executive education programme in 1945. Since then, the programmes have been attended by almost 200,000 business leaders from 200 countries.

Currently, HBS offers over 120 programmes around the world that attract more than 10,000 executives each year.

It offers almost 70 openenrolment programmes currently in HBS Boston, Shanghai and Mumbai campuses.

Among notable alumni of HBS include central bank governor Tan Sri Muhammad Ibrahim, businessman Michael Bloomberg, former US President George W Bush, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Indian industrialist Ratan Tata.