Lights, camera, action! Film and TV executives are chalking up new skills in the latest management techniques. [Cartoon / China Daily]

EMBA course offers film and TV executives an opportunity to develop their managerial abilities

BEIJING - Kang Bao has to make four days available every month out of his tight schedule to take lessons to earn an executive master of business administration degree (EMBA) at the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE).

The chief executive officer (CEO) of Beijing Galloping Horse Film & TV Production, a fast-growing private film company, which once invested in John Woo's Rain of Swords, is enjoying his new identity as a student.

Although Kang joined the film company about four years ago, he has been in the film and TV industry for almost 20 years, during which he served as a director and producer.

The EMBA program of modern film & TV management was launched by UIBE and China Film Distribution and Exhibition Association (CFDEA) on Nov 18. It is the first EMBA program which specializes in the film and television industry in China.

The rapid development of China's film industry is a key factor promoting the course because more cinemas and increasing investment in movie productions require more talent with professional knowledge within the management.

"It offered me a great opportunity to learn the professional modern management skills of this industry in a systematic way, which I have always wanted to do," Kang said.

"The past working practices have given me much experience, and it's just the right time to go back to university for further education, which I'm in desperate need of," he added.

Management talent

"Sometimes we even recruit management talent from outside the film industry such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc to cushion the shortage of cinema managers," said Qin Hong, chairman of Beijing-based Stellar Group, one of the leading private film studios and theater chains.

"After the release of Avatar, we felt the urgency of personnel training in this industry particularly," Tong Gang, head of the film bureau under the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), told Securities Daily newspaper, adding that the combination of management and film proposed by UIBE and the association is innovative and has practical significance.

This course program requires that its applicants should have more than eight years of working experience and at least five years in management in addition to a bachelor's degree.

"In order to develop the international vision of students in the industry, one out of the three faculties is from abroad," said Tang Guliang, executive dean of the business school at UIBE.

"The idea was first put forward in a conversation between Xiao Feng and our former dean of the business school - Zhang Xinmin. Xiao is president and chief executive officer of Beijing Seaking International Movie Investment Co Ltd, who is also a famous director," Tang said.

Xiao is an alumnus of the fifth EMBA program at UIBE. He claimed to have benefited substantially after the two-year curriculum.

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"What I have gained most from the EMBA course is that I started to re-examine the opportunities within the film and TV industries and to reconstruct the integration of arts, technology and business with a new way of thinking," Xiao told China Radio, Film & TV magazine.

As an important promoter of the new EMBA program, Xiao said that the shortage of talented management is more serious in China than any perceived lack of technological ability.

"To develop an EMBA program is like running a restaurant because it must have its own characteristics," Xiao said. "With its differentiated and custom-tailored curriculum, more and more applicants will be attracted."

The school informs students of the curriculum arrangement three months in advance so they can ensure their presence in the class.

"The course is brilliant. What I have learnt from the class can be immediately put into practice in my daily work," Kang said after the first four-day courses.

"I hope all the students will find it's worthwhile to invest both money and time in the course after they graduated," Tang said.

The first EMBA program for the film and TV industry enrolled 37 students and covered business, media and entertainment industries, including Li Xiang, famous hostess of Hunan TV and president of Mango Films.

In the United States, there are many business figures who graduated from institutes of the arts, and in China there will be more artists graduating from business colleges in the future, Kang said.