DCU Business School MBA’s in Silicon Valley Trip

DCU Executive MBA participants visited Silicon Valley and Stanford University, San Francisco last week, in a week-long international study trip. The trip encapsulated the themes of innovation, entrepreneurship and the digital which are vital ingredients for the success of all forms of industry and leaders.

In the age of global economic uncertainty, unrelenting quantum change and digitization, Silicon Valley is an engine of growth for the US economy, building revolutionary platforms for interconnected communities, instantly accessible knowledge and frictionless commerce. In many ways the entrepreneurs and businesses of the Valley are building a new age.

MBA participants visited and received incredible insights from the owners or senior staff of a range of start-ups, cloud companies, incubators and leading global technology companies. These included Google, Salesforce, Cloudflare, Oracle and Rocketspace.

This key to this study trip was its immersion of MBA participants in the energy, culture, environments and working ethos of San Francisco and Silicon Valley. They learnt how entrepreneurs generate new ideas, assemble great teams, start up new ventures and create successful innovative companies. They got insight into successes and failures and the relevance and design of business strategy, marketing and business plans.

Welcoming the return of the MBA participants to DCU, Dr Anne Sinnott, Executive Dean said “DCU Business School has been at the forefront of business education in Ireland for the last 30 years. With innovative programmes in areas such as E-Commerce and Digital Marketing, we recognise the importance of linking technology and business. Speaking from the home of the Irish Centre for Cloud Computing, the Dean commented that “this study tour of Silicon Valley helps to our MBA scholars are exposed to cutting edge thinking and next generation”.

Dr Claire Gubbins, Director of the Executive MBA Programme at DCU added “Today’s organisations must cope with constant external change and internal complexity. The DCU MBA programme is built on the foundation pillars of ‘transforming organisations’ and ‘inspiring future leaders’. This study trip delivered on both for all our MBA participants irrespective of what type of industry they work in. Insights into how innovation cultures are enabled were both seen and spoken about. The MBA participants spoke of how inspired they were post this trip; inspired to find new ways to lead, identify initiatives to develop innovation cultures and develop greater capacities for adaptability and learning”.