Message from Program Director

As business enterprises navigate digital transformation, sustainability imperatives, and geopolitical shifts, the demand for versatile, strategic leaders continues to intensify. The MBA remains uniquely positioned to develop such leaders—not despite its century-long history, but because of its multidisciplinary foundation and inherent capacity to evolve with emerging knowledge and practice.

IBA introduced the MBA to Pakistan in 1955 with assistance from Wharton, making us the pioneer of management education in the country. Today, IBA-SBS is an AACSB-accredited business school as we continue that legacy of innovation. We have fundamentally redesigned our MBA and Executive MBA programs—from philosophy to pedagogy—to address the grand challenges facing Pakistan and the global economy: sustainable industrial growth, digital transformation, and organizational resilience in an era of unprecedented uncertainty.

Our MBA programs are mission-oriented and purpose-driven. We prepare managers and leaders who will drive Pakistan's industrial transformation—building competitive, sustainable enterprises that create value for all stakeholders. This is not conventional business education. We focus explicitly on creating managerial capital and leadership for established enterprises, because these enterprises shape and drive entire industrial system. Our pedagogical approach develops what we call TIES—Technical expertise, Intellectual agility, Emotional intelligence, and Social effectiveness—an integrated set of capabilities that distinguish effective leaders at every level of corporate hierarchy.

Unlike conventional programs fixated on knowledge transmission or single pedagogical methods, we take a whole-person approach to management training. We design learning experiences that shape attitudes and behaviors, cultivate judgment and wisdom, and build the practical competencies required for leadership in complex organizational environments. This comprehensive approach, embedded in an AACSB-accredited ecosystem of learning, ensures both rigor and relevance.

The MBA@IBA prepares professional managers for first-line management positions in established enterprises. We seek candidates who have earned undergraduate degrees in any discipline, accumulated 3+ years of post-qualification professional experience, and possess the ambition to embrace management as a profession. Our full-time, two-year program (60 credit hours, Level-7 NQF qualification) provides the fast track to professional management careers and the foundation for those aspiring for doctoral studies in business administration.

The Executive MBA@IBA, conversely, targets experienced functional managers aspiring to transition into general management roles. We admit candidates with substantial managerial experience—typically five years or more—who aspire to join top management teams and lead at the enterprise level. Delivered through an innovative weekend format over two years (60 credit hours, Level-7 NQF qualification), the EMBA accommodates working professionals while maintaining the same academic rigor and strategic focus as our full-time MBA.

Being offered by an AACSB-accredited business school, our programs provide global recognition and ensuring international mobility for our graduates. More importantly, they reflect our commitment to developing leaders who can navigate complexity, drive transformation, and build sustainable competitive advantage in an uncertain world.

If you have the drive to lead amid complexity, the ambition to shape organizational futures, and the commitment to contribute to Pakistan's industrial development, I invite you to join us. Let us partner in building your leadership journey.

Dr. Muhammad Shafique
Director MBA and EMBA Programs