Participants in the 2008 Advanced Management Program (AMP) from Strathmore and Lagos business schools attended a joint, one week long session at IESE Business School in Barcelona. The session ran from Monday, 24th  to Saturday, 29th November. It was the final AMP session this year.

Although AMP participants in previous years have attended sessions at IESE, this was the first time that executives based in eastern and western Africa had a joint session. The session enriched the networking feature of AMP.  The two business schools are exploring other possibilities for collaborations in future.

"We see a fit, but it is not that straight-forward; Africa is an extensive and diverse continent. This is an opportunity for participants based in Kenya and Nigeria to discover each other in a third country," David MacManus, Director of IESE's Executive Education team said.

"The initiative is part of IESE's commitment to improve the quality of management education in Africa," MacManus added. IESE aspires to help in African countries' economic development by fostering the skills of senior management, providing them with tools they need to respond to challenges they face, create jobs and a fairer distribution of wealth.

"The three schools have welcomed this initiative as an opportunity to enhance the learning process and the participants' networking opportunities," said Prof Javier Santomá, the Program's Academic Director.

"There have been challenges on the academic and organizational side since the module needs to build on and integrate two different programs and their participants, as well as coordinate faculty from IESE, Lagos and Strathmore," he said. AMP participants are senior executives. They lead companies in sectors as varied as telecoms, advertising, construction and financial services.