A unique feature of the IMD Executive MBA (Switzerland) is the series of discovery expeditions to China, India and Silicon Valley (US) that alternate with the classes held on the IMD campus and are combined with distance learning through company assignments and individual leadership coaching.

The Silicon Valley expedition aims to help MBA participants discover the entrepreneurial mindset. Professor Jim Pulcrano, the expedition’s mastermind and leader, says:

“We decided a long time ago that having an entrepreneurial mindset is a key characteristic of our Executive MBA programme. And what better place to see it, feel it, and touch it than Silicon Valley?”

The IMD Executive MBA participants head to Silicon Valley each year to study life as it is, in companies, as well as in the cultural, economic, and political context in which they operate.

The so-called Silicon Valley Discovery Expedition is not just an exercise in industrial tourism. The objective of each expedition is to help EMBA participants rapidly absorb a large amount of knowledge about the world and the global business environment and to apply those learnings to their companies and work context.

The main goal of the expedition is to help the EMBA students to understand the mindset of the entrepreneur. One day they will be negotiating with an owner of a business enterprise and they need to understand the person they are dealing with across the table. More importantly, there may be a group in their midst that has that entrepreneurial mindset. Care should be taken not to crush any team that is probably generating more ideas and more profit than any other team.

During the discovery expedition, the EMBA class meets with 50 different companies, venture capitalists, and HR professionals. These people want to meet the IMD EMBA class because the participants come with good questions, questions that Silicon Valley professionals do not always hear. The EMBA participants have diverse backgrounds and the questions they ask are unique. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs value the different perspective that IMD EMBA students bring.

However, the students are the main beneficiaries. IMD EMBA candidate Anda Cristescu says:

“What I learned about entrepreneurship and innovation is that there are literally no limits to what we can do and it’s a matter of figuring out for yourself what it is that you are passionate about.”

Every year the IMD EMBA class comes to Silicon Valley with 5 Swiss startups that have come through the school’s startup competition. Students work closely with Swiss-based start-up businesses and their entrepreneurs prior to the Discovery Expedition and then, while in Silicon Valley, pitch their business to venture capitalists and angel investors. These fundraising pitches are the pinnacle of the expedition.

During the week in the region that houses many of the world's largest high-tech corporations, the IMD EMBA students are subjected to a fountain of ideas, new business models, and new ways of thinking. They see that there is another world out there. A world of innovation, ideas, and risk-taking that is probably different from the corporate world they come from, but also a world that an increasing number of companies aim to integrate in their culture.