EXECUTIVE MBA
FURTHER YOUR EXECUTIVE POTENTIAL
ALLOW NEW POSSIBILITIES TO EMERGE
A TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING EXPERIENCE
Invest in yourself, your career and your organisation
The Executive MBA programme is a transformative learning experience targeted at senior managers and executive leaders who consciously want to enhance their ability to conceptualise, rather than their proficiency in functional management.
EMBA candidates will learn to:
- Go beyond knowledge and theory to include the felt experience of being in management
- Become more authentic in their engagement
- Find new purpose and fulfilment in their role and develop greater resilience in the workplace
- Develop the capacity to integrate multiple perspectives and strategies to build more holistic and sustainable organisations
* Application & Course fees are provisional for 2026, and are subject to annual UCT council approval. If you would like more information on fees for this programme, click here.
uct gsb EMBA Overview
The Executive MBA programme is a transformative learning experience made up of five courses and a minor dissertation over a 24 month period. Learn more about the UCT GSB EMBA. Learn more about which attributes and qualifications are required for the UCT GSB EMBA. The Executive MBA programme comprises five interactive courses and with a dissertation. The UCT GSB is committed to broadening access to postgraduate education through funding and scholarship opportunities. Explore funding options available to candidates.
WHAT OUR ALUMNI SAY
THINK AND LEAD DIFFERENTLY
Prepare yourself to lead in a world of new ideas
The UCT GSB EMBA will expose you to different ways of viewing the world, and build your capacity to integrate multiple perspectives and strategies for a more holistic and sustainable organisation.
For your convenience, this is a modular programme with a reasonable workload: five, two-week modules held at the UCT GSB Breakwater campus in Cape Town – South Africa’s most iconic and beautiful city.
Africa’s Top EMBA
The UCT GSB EMBA is top rated and internationally recognised
Ranked 1st
EMBA programme has achieved the top spot in Africa and the Middle East in the 2025 QS Executive MBA Rankings.
Ranked 85th
Ranked the EMBA programme among the top 100 globally in its 2024 rankings.
Ranked 11th
2025 CEO Magazine Global MBA Rankings
Study abroad
Spend part of your course overseas at one of our reputable partner schools
UCT GSB Executive MBA students can participate in an EMBA Global Network week at any one of our 31 Global Network partner schools. These place annually in June.
Global Network Weeks give UCT GSB EMBA students the opportunity to pursue intensive study at another network school – tuition-free. Alongside their counterparts from elsewhere in the network, students attend classes, tour local businesses, and meet with experts focused on current business problems.
Each school offers a week focused on a specific topic designed to address the current challenges senior-level professionals may face.
Visit the GNAM website for more information about the topics on offer during previous MBA Global Network Weeks.
Learn with the best
Our Internationally acclaimed researchers and teachers are all dedicated and gifted individuals who contribute directly to UCT GSB's reputation of excellence.
Professor
Associate Professor
Professor
Senior Lecturer
Associate Professor
Professor
Lecturer
Associate Professor
Associate Professor
Professor
Meet the Class of 2020
Our award-winning Executive MBA is enriched by the diversity and expertise of our students. Discover the driving force behind our EMBA: our students.
Meet our studentsFREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
The UCT GSB Executive MBA (EMBA) is aimed at senior level, experienced individuals who consciously want to enhance their ability to conceptualise and execute, rather than their proficiency in functional management. Whereas, the MBA programme at the UCT GSB is geared toward aspiring up and coming managers who want to hone their management skills, and as such, the MBA is strong on content in respect of the core disciplines of management
An Executive MBA is not full-time. Learning on the EMBA is interactive and collaborative and happens both in class and in the workplace between modules. Although contact time at the UCT GSB is only 12 weeks over the two years, the EMBA is an immersive experience that will require consistent attention in between modules.
You will need to bring yourself and your experience to the classroom and be prepared to learn from others as much as from your teachers. The interactive nature of the programme requires that you attend all contact courses and contribute to the collective experience. Courses are assessed through group and individual assignments.
Once you graduate from the UCT GSB you will join our alumni network which is a dynamic forum comprising more than 23 000 past GSB students in 68 countries worldwide. Many of the GSB’s alumni hold key positions in top companies or have started their own successful businesses. Alumni play a vital role in supporting and encouraging more recent graduates to follow in their footsteps and GSB students who find employment after graduation - particularly internationally - frequently do so through alumni contacts.
EMBA applicants have two options, they either have to write the GMAT or the MCPA. You can write the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT) and obtain an acceptable GMAT score of 550. The UCT GSB offers a five-day GMAT Preparation Course to help students prepare for the GMAT. Alternatively, candidates can choose to write the Management Career Path Appreciation Assessment (MCPA), which provides an indication of the candidate’s current and future capabilities.
TAKE THE FIRST STEP TODAY
Acquire new competencies and move your career to the next level!
Ideas Exchange
News and thought leadership from Africa’s top business school
UCT GSB’s EMBA Ranked Best in Africa and 11th Globally by CEO Magazine
The UCT GSB’s has reaffirmed its position as one of the world’s leading business schools in Africa and 11th globally for its EMBA programme in the 2025 CEO Magazine Global MBA Rankings.
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UCT GSB’s EMBA ranked 31st globally for Overall Satisfaction by the Financial Times
The UK’s Financial Times has ranked the UCT GSB's EMBA programme among the best in the world for alumni satisfaction in its 2024 rankings, with over 92% of alumni expressing satisfaction with their degree. This achievement places the GSB's EMBA in the FT's global Top 100 and highlights the School's dedication to delivering world-class education at the very highest levels.
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UCT GSB’s EMBA Programme ranks #1 in Africa in QS rankings
The UCT Graduate School of Business is proud to announce that its EMBA programme has achieved the top spot in Africa and the Middle East in the 2024 QS Executive MBA Rankings. This prestigious ranking confirms the GSB’s commitment to providing not just excellence in business education but truly transformative leadership development.
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UCT GSB's Executive MBA programme finalist in prestigious Evidence-Based Leadership Development Award
The UCT GSB’s EMBA programme was one of five finalists for the prestigious Evidence-Based Leadership Development Programme Award by the Academy of Management’s Management Education and Development Division – a testament to the UCT GSB's commitment to excellence in leadership education.
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The UCT GSB EMBA: a personal metamorphosis
Satish Antony [EMBA 2022] shares his deeply personal journey of growth and professional development through UCT GSB's Executive MBA programme, highlighting how the programme broadened his horizons, challenged his assumptions, and proved the importance of self-awareness for effective leadership.
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UCT GSB's Executive MBA Ranked Top 4 Globally for Diversity
The latest Financial Times Executive MBA rankings have been released and the UCT Graduate School of Business’s EMBA Programme has once again made the Top 100 – the only African business school to appear on the list. Moreover, it is in the top five globally for women’s representation.
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UCT GSB’s Executive MBA ranked among top 20 in the world for student satisfaction
Newest Financial Times ranking shows the Executive MBA at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business (UCT GSB) among the best of the best in alumni satisfaction and prior work experience, making it once again the only African programme to earn a spot on the prestigious list.
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Lessons Learnt: Advice for starting your career
Not many people can say they had to choose between completing their MBA and coaching the national female volleyball team, but Sean Lewis' career journey has been anything but linear. From high school teacher to working at Africa's leading premier ICT solutions services provider, and completing his EMBA along the way, Lewis has plenty of advice to share with graduates and career changers.
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Powering the continent’s growth through collaboration with entrepreneurs across Africa
EMBA alumnus Christophe Viarnaud is a man on a mission. The French national has made South Africa not only his home, but a country in which his passion for entrepreneurship and education has launched the ventures of scores of bright start-ups across the continent.
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MBA alumnus puts lockdown to good use
Steven van Rheede was part of the 2020 MBA class that, three months into the programme, quickly had to shift their studies online; it bore some unforeseen benefits, he says.
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Can we risk our society’s future on a system that produces the leadership we experience?
The events of the past two weeks have brought into sharp focus the devastating results of selecting leaders based on popularity over other criteria. To avoid shipwrecking our country, it’s time to design a better system of stewarding our collective needs.
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UCT’s Executive MBA programme is still number one in Africa
The QS 2021 Global EMBA Rankings have ranked the UCT Graduate School of Business’ EMBA programme number one in Africa and 51st in the world. This unique degree transforms executives by putting them into a better relationship with their lived experience to focus solving the complex problems of our times.
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We need leaders and managers who have the skills and moral compass to build a just world
We need leaders and managers who have the skills and moral compass to build a just world
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