2022 Year In Review: Our Best Exec Ed & EMBA Stories Of The Year

It’s almost time to pour a bit of champagne for the year 2022. As we raise our glasses to the year the was, how should remember it?

The pandemic year that was somewhat less disruptive, relatively speaking, than 2020 and 2021? That happy year of record salaries and economic data before the economic reality came crashing down (if recession predictions come to pass)?

If you’re a follower of executive education trends and programs, 2022 was the year an M7 business goal dove into the online EMBA market, Northwestern Kellogg unseated Columbia Business School as the top EMBA program in the U.S., and where the highest cost executive MBA degrees topped $228,000.

We at Poets&Quants for Execs have covered it all.

In our final tribute to 2022, we offer 10 of our stories we think deserve another read. They include our quant-focused rankings and data dives, as well as selections for all the poets out there.

Johntá Austin, at left, poses with Mariah Carey, Jermaine Dupri, and Usher at the 2018 Songwriters Hall of Fame for which Dupri was nominated. Courtesy photo

1. This Kenan-Flagler EMBA Is Co-Author Of The ‘Song Of The Decade’

If it was your name called at the Grammy Awards for Best R&B song, do you know what your speech would be?

Johntá Austin, a 2022 Best & Brightest EMBA honoree, has an idea. The Atlanta native has two Grammy-winning songs, in fact — one with Mariah Carey and one with Mary J. Blige. “We Belong Together” was one of four songs Austin wrote with Mariah for her 10th studio album, “The Emancipation of Mimi,” and nabbed the acclaimed songwriter his first Grammy in 2005. Billboard later named it the song of the decade.

Austin, an Atlanta native, founded his company, Austin Entertainment Enterprises Inc., in 1995. He finished his executive MBA at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School in October. He’s also one of our favorite profiles of the year.

Read our full Q&A with Austin here.

 

Tejinder Singh is hoisted by his Wharton EMBA learning team at the San Francisco campus. Courtesy photo

2. How This Father, Global Product Manager & Wharton EMBA Finds Balance

Just before beginning his executive MBA at The Wharton School, Tejinder Singh, Ph.D., attended an introductory presentation by a program alum.

At any given time, the alum told the audience, you will be juggling three pressing commitments: work, family, and Wharton. And, at any given time, you will be failing at least at one of the three.

“So, you have to find a way to balance that and prioritize,” says Singh, a global product manager at Applied Materials, a semiconductor equipment company with a market cap of close to $100 billion. Singh is also a father of two children under the age of 7, and husband to a nursing student. And he is an EMBA candidate at Wharton San Francisco set to graduate in April 2023.

His advice for managing work, family, and a grueling executive MBA is worth the read for any aspiring EMBA. Read it here.

NEXT PAGE: Wharton goes online + Total cost of the top EMBAs