Rotterdam school of Management, Erasmus University compact logo
  • Degree

    MBA

  • Starting date

    October 2025

  • Duration

    Part-time | 21 months

  • Fee

    Fee 2024: €72,000

  • Language

    English

  • Format

    In person

The RSM Global Executive MBA is a transformative and intensive 21-month journey in leadership development, tailored to your needs and objectives. It empowers you with the knowledge, the insights into your personal leadership style, the skills and the strategic vision your need to lead your business with clarity, confidence and integrity. Delivered in Rotterdam, one of the world’s key economic hubs, the RSM Global Executive MBA connects you to a global network of thought leaders and change agents. You experience all the dynamics of international leadership and business, where it happens, as it happens.

  • An intimate cohort of senior leaders limited to 40 participants.
  • Strategic leadership and global perspectives on threats, opportunities and trends in the digital age.
  • Customised learning with core curriculum, tracks and a range of electives.
  • Your own leadership development programme and roadmap based on personalised diagnostics.
  • Experiential study trips with senior-level guest speakers and company visits.
  • Strong alumni network of nearly 50,000 change-makers across the world.

This programme is offered by Rotterdam School of Management b.v.. For more information about the legal structure of Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, visit this page.

Do you have any questions?

Would you like extra information? We are here to help!

What do you want to know?

Leadership Development

Achieve strategic leadership excellence with our Global Executive MBA.

Admissions

If you share our vision of business as a force for positive change, we would love to hear from you.

Fees and Finance

Read more about the tuition fee and funding options here.

Book a Class Visit

Experience what it's like to study for an MBA at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University.

Contact Us

Do you have any questions? Don't hesitate to get in touch!

Apply Online

Ready to take your career to the next level? We invite you to register for our programme.

Programme overview

Meet our students

Meet current and previous International GEMBA students.

Johanna Cardenas

Global Executive MBA Class of 2025

Colombian and Spanish 

M&A manager at Azelis in Belgium

Joseph Zekry

Global Executive MBA Class of 2025

Egyptian & Belgian

Owner of ZekryTech

Leonardo Palú

Global Executive MBA Class of 2025

Brazilian

In between jobs, most recently head of sales and circular business at RHI Magnesita

Alex Lucouw

Global Executive MBA Class of 2025

South African

Scrum Master at Wärtsilä

Shambhu Sharma

Global Executive MBA Class of 2024

Indian, lives in NL for 12 years

Delivery manager at TomTom

Claire Koplimaa

Global Executive MBA Class of 2024

American 

Chief of staff to the CEO at Qventus

Eelze van der Veen

Global Executive MBA Class of 2024

Dutch 

EVP IT at a logistics company

Ayoub Saboumazrag

Global Executive MBA Class of 2024

Moroccan

SVP Global IT & Group Deputy CIO at Majorel

 

Candy Yu

Global Executive MBA Class of 2024

Taiwanese and Dutch

Co-founder, owner and supervisor of Spire Corp 

Dipen Shah

Global Executive MBA Class of 2024

Dutch 

Head of protein sciences at ZoBio BV

Why this programme

Select the play button to start the video.

5 reasons to do a Global Executive MBA at RSM

  • Immerse yourself in experiential learning outside the classroom
  • Follow a high quality, Triple Crown accredited study programme
  • Join our mission to be a force for positive change and make an impact after you graduate
  • Develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to be a successful leader
  • Become the strategic leader that you were meant to be
Class profile

To view the full class profile of Global Executive MBA Class of 2025, please click here.

Curriculum

Complete your Global Executive MBA (GEMBA) over 21 transformative months. To help you develop as a strategic leader, our GEMBA programme offers you a highly personalised educational experience.

It includes a self-assessment of your development needs, (team) leadership challenge, personalised strategic leadership development plan, data-driven monitoring of your progress, one-to-one coaching, a choice of 3 electives and more.

Personal Leadership Development is interwoven throughout your Global Executive MBA experience. The Strategic Leadership Development track focuses on the development of the competencies that managers will need to bring to the table to successfully serve as a strategic leader. These skills and attitudes comprise a both personal leadership (PL) and strategic leadership (SL) component.

Because of its flexible, modular format, you will be able to experiment with new approaches learnt on campus back at the workplace as you progress. 

If you would like to read more about the GEMBA curriculum, please click here. To see the class calendar and see if this part-time programme is a fit for you, please click here.

Global Experiential Learning courses (GEL)
Strategic Leadership Development (SLD)

Build a platform for your learning journey and lay the foundations for impactful management in a world that is in transition. You’ll learn how big data, artificial intelligence and the evolving internet economy affect decision-making and marketing. You’ll also explore concepts and techniques essential to operations and supply chain management. 

  • Strategic Leadership Development track (10 EC)
  • Global Marketing Management (4 EC)
    • This course integrates psychological and economic theories used in traditional marketing strategy with new insights and techniques based in data science to offer substantial efficiency in marketing endeavours. We will discuss the implications of big-data and the evolving internet economy on traditional durable goods as well as newly emerging product domains. Additionally, given the exceedingly interconnected world, we will discuss the social, environmental, and ethical implications of marketing in this new era.
  • Managerial Decision Analysis (3 EC)
    • Complexity in decision making comes from many factors. This course focuses on the difficulties arising from quantitative decision making in an environment with uncertainty and risk and presents different methodologies to deal with them in real-life problems. The course exposes you to common decision-making pitfalls and discusses how decision making is likely to change over the next decades due to the rise of Artificial Intelligence.
  • Global Operations Management (4 EC)
    • This course will introduce you to concepts and techniques that are essential for the design, planning, control and improvement of global service and manufacturing operations. You will explore topics such as capacity, inventory and supply chain management and learn basic tools for analysing operations problems, methods for managing an aspect of operations in a real situation, as well as providing a strategic view, typically using cases, of that aspect of operations.
  • Topics in Global Business and Management (1 EC)
    • The rapid changes in global business and society mean that new perspectives are needed to prepare strategic leaders for an uncertain future. This course will not only invite top-level executives, experts, and faculty to help you to envisage and understand which global mega-trends may be coming our way, but will also offer an introduction to some practical tools (such as scenario-analysis, for example) to help strategic leaders to navigate an uncertain future.
  • Global Experiential Learning: Leading Digital Transformation & Study visit (3 EC)

Analyse the concerns of global strategic leaders:  how can my firm outperform its competitors?  How can we make decisions based on financial information? How can we manage people and develop the organisation with purposeful meaning? 

  • Strategic Leadership Development track (continued)
  • Strategy in a Global Arena (4 EC)
    • Strategic management is concerned with what is perhaps the most pressing issue for strategic leaders: how can I make my firm outperform its competitors? To formulate value-creating strategies, managers must identify core competencies, analyse industry environments, and develop new ways of outcompeting their rivals. The overall aim of this course is to help you to think like a strategist and contribute to C-suite level strategic decision-making.
  • Financial Accounting and Analysis (3 EC)
    • This course provides a common language and a toolbox to make rational decisions that involve monetary value. Understanding this subject matter will make you a more professional manager. Moreover, understanding the limitations of financial analysis and accounting will enable you to challenge management plans more effectively. This course gives you the foundational knowledge that any C-suite member needs to use and evaluate financial information and contribute to discussions and decision-making with respect to finance and accounting.
  • Leading and Managing Global Organizations (4 EC)
    • Managing people and organisational development is a mission critical C-suite competency that no business can afford to do without. Managers of globally active businesses need to continuously readjust their organisations to volatile or uncertain environments; navigate international and culturally highly diverse contexts; develop and engage with a competitive workforce based on the business’ value proposition; and engage in informed decision-making using evolving techniques such as people analytics, big data, and artificial intelligence. In sum, leading and managing a globally active organisation at a C-suite level requires specific knowledge, skills and attitudes. This course seeks to hone and develop these skills, so you can develop and lead organisations with purpose.
  • Topics in Global Business and Management (continued)
  • Global Experiential Learning: Leading Entrepreneurship and Venturing & Study visit (3 EC)

Dive deeper into key aspects of business through a range of electives. You will also take a look at strategic governance and discuss some of the toughest financial decisions senior managers have to take.

  • Strategic Leadership Development track (continued)
  • Elective 1 (3 EC)
  • Elective 2 (3 EC)
  • Elective 3 (3 EC)
  • Topics in Global Business and Management (continued)
  • Corporate Governance (3 EC)
    • Corporate governance is about getting “the rules of the game” right within which firms can secure resources, develop their core activities and business models, secure their societal licence to operate, and create and capture value for their shareholders and stakeholders. Rather than presenting an optimal corporate governance set-up that suits all firms, we will discuss the ownership and governance choices ofthe firm as a matter of strategic design and decision-making.
  • Corporate Finance in a Global Environment (4 EC)
    • Visionary business leaders of the future need a toolbox that helps them to tackle some tough strategic decisions. In this course, we discuss some of the toughest financial decisions senior managers may have to take, such as: What is the best capital structure for my company? Should I diversify my company or should I focus, and what is the impact on my corporate cost of capital? What are the financial pros and cons of having a stock market listing versus being privately held? Given your company has a stock market listing, what can you do to improve the stock’s liquidity? How do you redistribute the net profits of your corporation?
  • Global Experiential Learning: Leading Corporate Strategy and Development & Study visit (3 EC)

To wrap up your studies, you will apply foundational concepts and insights from economics to analyse some of the most relevant trends and issues in global businesses today.

  • Strategic Leadership Development track (continued)
  • Economics for Global Business Managers (3 EC)
    • This course seeks to enable you to apply foundational concepts and insights from micro- and macro-economics to analyze some of the most relevant trends and issues in global businesses today. Specifically, this course will discuss concepts such as incentives and behavior, market power and market structures, asymmetric information, vertical integration, and outsourcing, for example, to analyze phenomena such as the international fragmentation in trade and FDI, economic crises and contagion, the role of multinationals in global business, regulation, trade agreements, as well as other current phenomena that are important for strategic leaders in global business.
  • Global Experiential Learning: Leading with Impact in Emerging and Developing Economics & Study visit South Africa (3 EC)

 

Customise your knowledge and skills development. Choose from a wide variety of elective courses, which are updated every year. Topics span multiple disciplines, including leadership, sustainability, finance and operations. Examples of electives offered in previous years:

  • Leading and managing change
  • Mergers and acquisitions
  • Creating customer value
  • Influencing with integrity
  • Innovation leadership
  • Design thinking
  • Innovation ecosystems
Learn from industry leaders

RSM’s GEMBA and EMBA students have the exclusive opportunity to engage with several C-suite executives through our Meet the Strategic Leaders sessions throughout their programmes.

This speaker series provides you with direct access to learn from influential global business leaders, fostering valuable insights and inspiring discussions. The sessions are part of the GEMBA and EMBA curriculum.

Previous speakers have included:

Danielle Rainha

Global CHRO and board member at SHV Energy

As Tempelman

CEO at Eneco

Faculty

World-class thought leadership on global business.

Our faculty are leading thinkers, researchers and practitioners of global business. Their research is published by top academic journals, and their expertise is regularly sought by the Financial Times, Harvard Business Review and a host of leading newspapers and media outlets. RSM professors investigate the most pressing and relevant dimensions of global management, and their thought leadership informs the decisions of C-suites and boards of some of the world’s leading business organisations. 

Global scholars

RSM faculty research the most critical issues facing businesses around the world. From innovation to entrepreneurship to supply management and beyond, they shed critical new light on the challenges our organisations face in uncertain times. The Erasmus Research Institute of Management is ranked among Europe’s top three think tanks. Joining the EMBA programme at RSM will give you the opportunity to interact with world-class scholars on the critical issues that face your business and your leadership.

Industry leaders

No one understands today’s business climate better than those who actually navigate it every day — the leaders of industry and government. At RSM, you’ll get their expert perspectives first-hand, learning from big-name professionals who share invaluable insights about the real world, directly with you and your peers.

At RSM, we are porud to claim:

  • More than 50 years of experience in business and management education
  • One of Europe’s top 10 research facilities
  • A consistent ranking among Europe’s top-ranked business schools
  • A place among the 1% of schools worldwide with Triple Crown accreditation
  • One of the world’s largest and most-cited business school faculty: 250 senior researchers and 150 PhD students
  • 35 research centres and initiatives
  • 150+ International partner schools.

Faculty Members

Teaching the Global Experiential Learning (GEL) course in the GEMBA programme is an invigorating experience. The course, focused on "Leading Digital Transformation," allows us to dive deeply into the multifaceted challenges and opportunities posed by digitalization. The enthusiasm and rich perspectives that students bring to this course make each session a rich mosaic of thought-provoking discussions. I find myself equally enriched by these interactions and am already excited about the fresh perspectives the next cohort will offer.

Ting Li, Professor of Digital Business

A photo shows Professor Ting Li of Rotterdam School of Management

Decision-making is the compass of destiny, guiding us through a vast sea of possibilities in an ever-changing world. Through an engaging curriculum, we will delve deep into the intricacies of risk analysis, the nuances of behavioral biases, and the art of effective problem framing, equipping them with the tools to make informed and unbiased decisions in complex scenarios

Ioannis Fragkos, Associate Professor in the Department of Technology and Operations Management

FAQ

Do you have any questions about our Global Executive MBA (GEMBA) programme? Find answers to commonly asked questions in our FAQ section, covering programme structure, faculty, admissions, and more.

Global Executive MBA
  • Senior-level executives, including those nearing executive board roles.
  • Reflecting on past decisions and addressing senior-level challenges based on actual experiences.
  • High maturity, extensive experience, and a global perspective.
Executive MBA
  • Mid-career professionals seeking career acceleration.
  • Addressing real-time leadership and management challenges in current roles.
  • Considerable professional maturity with a focus on career growth.
International Full-time MBA
  • Early-stage professionals seeking significant career changes.
  • Exploring hypothetical scenarios, case studies, and foundational management knowledge.
  • Varied backgrounds, typically early in their professional journey.

There are different characteristics to the kind of students that are doing a GEMBA. To have a better understanding of the class profile, please click here

The GEMBA programme doesn't have an official ranking yet because it's relatively new. However, with this year (2024) marking its third consecutive successful run, the programme becomes eligible for ranking. It's worth noting that RSM’s Full-Time MBA is currently ranked 61 globally, and the GEMBA programme shares the same faculty and environment.

The existence of three different MBA programmes is primarily driven by the tools, knowledge, and attitude (TKA) required for your current and future roles. Your TKA needs often vary at early, mid, and senior levels. Therefore, we provide you with the appropriate TKA tailored to your current and near-future circumstances.

To make your choice clearer, consider the following guidelines: 

  • If you’re in the early stages of your career, say between 3 to 5 years, then consider inquiring about the FTMBA.
  • If you're at a mid-career stage, around 5 to 8 years of experience, and you're aiming for or already in a junior managerial role at an operational level, the EMBA is likely the best fit for you.
  • If you're at or beyond the senior-career stage with 10 years or more of experience, and your background includes senior managerial responsibilities or you're about to delve into strategic decision-making, then the GEMBA programme is probably your ideal choice.

In any case, reach out to us if you are not clear about your choices, we will gladly help you determine the best possible match. 

A GEMBA class is inherently composed of senior individuals. Usually international and intimate, with around 25 – 30 students often including senior decision-makers. Discussions in this setting are primarily centered around broadening leadership, strategic, and global perspectives. Additionally, a GEMBA class is characterised by inspiration, non-technical, highly structured, and a focus on investigating concepts and their practical application. Rather than dwelling on theory endlessly, the emphasis is on understanding and discovering practical applications for the topics discussed.

It's advisable to attend a GEMBA class after completing a preliminary qualification or CV assessment and having a consultation session with the Admissions & Recruitment Manager. This ensures that both parties are confident that you will benefit from attending the class. Reach out to rmaduro@rsm.nl to have a conversation about this.

To access the complete list of Frequently Asked Questions, please click here.

Get in touch with our Global Executive MBA Recruitment & Admissions Manager for detailed information and to discuss your MBA aspirations.

Explore more

Listen to our podcast

Dive deep into industry insights and leadership tips from global experts on our podcast. Explore key topics and gain a deeper understanding of the unique benefits and experiences the Global Executive MBA offers.

Watch our webinars

Gain valuable insights into our MBA programmes with recorded webinars covering case cracking, consulting careers, GMAT tips, and more. Watch these sessions to explore the GEMBA programme in greater detail.

Book a class visit

Would you like to learn more about the GEMBA programme? Book a class visit and get a firsthand experience of what it's like to study for an MBA at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University.