Post Graduate Programme in Management for Family Business (MFAB)

ISB’s Programme in Management for Family Business (MFAB) is a general management programme aimed at developing the next generation of family business owners. The programme focuses on imparting best practices for family businesses and with an emphasis on entrepreneurship, business sustainability, portfolio expansion and leadership for business growth.

The programme comprises 24 courses which cover core management principles. These include basic courses such as Financial Management, Marketing Management, Operations & Economics as well as advanced courses such as Strategic Negotiations, Power & Leadership and Global Alliances, and Mergers & Acquisitions, among others. In addition, courses focused on Family Business cover topics such as Synergy, Vision & Strategy, and Governance of Family Business. As part of the International Immersion module, students get to spend a week at the prestigious Kellogg School of Management, one of the top business schools of the world, an ideal place as it hosts the Family Business Centre.  There are two optional immersion programs as well – one in Asia and the other in Europe.

Classes are held for one week every 6^th week during this 15-month long programme. The highly renowned faculty at ISB take classes for this programme too. Some well-known names include Prof. Dishan Kamdar (Deputy Dean, Academic Programmes, ISB), Prof Milind Sohoni and Prof Suren Mansinghka, among others.

A typical MFAB class is young (95% students aged < 30 years), having 4-6 years of average experience managing family businesses of various sizes (ranging from less than INR 50 cr to over INR 5,000 cr), spanning infrastructure, logistics, manufacturing, FMCG and mining, among others.

For entry to the MFAB, candidates are screened based on a variety of parameters including family business knowledge, leadership potential, past achievements, scale & complexity of business managed etc. Candidates also need to clear a Business Acumen Test (BAT) in order to gain admission.

Upon completion of the course, the MFAB candidates become a part of the ISB alumni network, which has 7,500+ alumni across more than 35 countries.

Overall, MFAB comes as a truly transformational programme, preparing the family business leaders of tomorrow. Arpit, MFAB Class of 2015, testifies, “The MFAB connected me with like-minded job creators from across the country, and thus broadened my horizons. The nature of the programme helped me quickly implement at work the concepts studied in class”.

* All the Student Diaries have been written by ISB Alumni. ISBmantra holds no responsibility on the completeness and accuracy of this information. However, we endeavour to obtain all the content from reliable sources and keep the information up-to-date.