A First for Macedonia

At a high-level ceremony held on Wednesday 12 November in Skopje, Macedonia, MSM Dean Professor Wim Naudé and Rector of the University American College Skopje (UACS) Professor Marjan Bojadziev formally announced the start of the collaboration between the two institutions.

This collaboration marks a historic point in the development of higher education and management capacity promotion in Macedonia, as it will be the first internationally accredited Global MBA program to be delivered locally and indigenously in Macedonia.

The announcement was made at a press interview and launching ceremony attend by all the local press and TV stations, by key representatives of the Macedonian business sector, prospective students, and attended also by the Macedonian Minister of Education and Science, Mr. Abdilaqim Ademi, who welcomed the collaboration, noting the importance of education in management for strengthening the Macedonian economy.

MSM and UACS will offer an Executive 2-year MBA degree in Skopje, starting in March 2015. Macedonian students may have the opportunity of obtaining scholarships from the Macedonian government. The program will be delivered in English by MSM and UACS Faculty on the campus of UACS in downtown Skopje.

Speaking to the press, Professor Naudé stressed MSM’s commitment towards promoting the Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree in an affordable, flexible way without compromising quality, and by doing so in manner that promotes multicultural and sustainable management. He pointed to the fact that the Association of MBAs (AMBA) recently selected MSM as one of five finalists for the AMBA Innovation Award 2014 precisely in recognition for this role it has played across the emerging and transitioning economies over the past 20 years and more.

Asked why Macedonia, Professor Naudé mentioned the country’s combination of high and continued growth, its aspirations to join the EU, but also the fact that the country is in transition to a full market economy, and did not historically, at least since the 1950s, have a entrepreneurial culture and tradition of formal management education. “As Macedonia, a country with a relatively small population of 2 million grow closer to the huge EU single market, a higher premium will be placed on high skills, requiring substantial investments in human capabilities - and requiring them now”, Naudé said.

In recent years MSM has increasingly been active in countries in transition – establishing partnerships to bring the MBA and DBA degrees to among others Albania, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Poland, Romania, and Russia.

Click here for an interview with Prof. Naudé which appeared in the Macedonian newspaper Kapital on 14 November (interview in Macedonian)