Simmons College School of Management

Simmons students can now earn their MBA degree with a concentration in Entrepreneurship designed specifically for women entrepreneurs. You will build your network; learn critical skills of marketing, strategy and finance; work with an entrepreneur one-on-one; and be ready to launch your own venture. Come experience the all women's business school environment of the Simmons School of Management.

The Entrepreneurship Program enables participants to:

• Identify and evaluate new business opportunities and entrepreneurial practices
• Develop and execute a professional business plan
• Receive one-on-one guidance from faculty
• Convene with Entrepreneurs-in-Residence and members of our Board of Advisors including angel investors, entrepreneurs, lawyers, and venture capitalists, in addition to an extensive and committed alumnae network
• Work with an entrepreneur or build a venture through a guided six week full-time practicum
• Build and tap into a network of women entrepreneurs who become a lifelong resource

Overview

The MBA Concentration in Entrepreneurship is a set of 3 graduate courses that are carefully designed to lead you through the process of imaging and designing your own venture — whether that is a new start-up or an enterprise within an existing firm. The program includes innovative, experiential course-work and finally an intensive field experience working with an entrepreneurial CEO or launching your own venture.

Course One: Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship — Explore creativity and innovation as the roots of entrepreneurial behavior. Where do good ideas come from? How can we be more creative? How does innovation play out in industries, products and firms? What is your personal and professional orientation to new venture creation, whether expressed as a founder or team member — of a new or existing firm?

Course Two: Business Plans and Proposals — There is no better exercise for understanding the interwoven nature of marketing, strategy, finance and operations than to develop a business plan. In this course you will learn the nuts and bolts as you build a business plan based on a concept of your choice. Expert guest speakers add richness to our learning as we explore how to define and serve a market, the multiple ways of legally establishing a for-profit business or social venture, growth options and their implications, and funding for the new venture. There is also an extensive commitment to practice in "the art of the pitch". Selling yourself and your idea makes it all happen.

Course Three: Additional elective course tailored to student venturing — Once you understand the process, the next step is experience and additional training. Working with the advisor, students select a third elective, which may be an internship, to round out their entrepreneurship concentration requirements and to take their own entrepreneurship activities to the next level.

Elective courses of particular value to most entrepreneurs (others also available):

• Internship (GSM 501)
• Marketing in the Age of Social Media and the Internet (a new elective planned for Summer 2011)
• Sustainability Analysis (GSM 516)
• Health Economics (GSM 612)
• Venture Capital (a new elective planned for Fall 2011)
• Research Design and Analysis (GSM 526)
• Sustainable Supply Chain (GSM 548)
• Project Management (GSM 564)
• Philanthropy, Policy, and Fundraising in the Non-Profit Sector (GSM 563)
• Financial Management in Non-Profit Organizations (GSM 560)

Fellowships and Tuition Waivers

Fellowships and scholarships (including tuition waivers) are awarded on a competitive basis. Recent awards included:

• The Class of 2007 Entrepreneurship Scholarship Fund
• Bright Horizons Entrepreneurship Certificate Fellowship
• EILEEN FISHER Entrepreneurship Certificate Fellowship
• The Will J. Reid Foundation Scholarship
• The John Hancock Fellowship to Support Entrepreneur Women of Ethnic Diversity
• The Dean's Scholarship for Entrepreneurship

For more information please contact somadm@simmons.edu or 617-521-3839.