Executive MBA

The Lisbon MBA Executive is intentionally designed for maximum professional impact with minimal disruption. Because our classes follow a part-time immersion format once per month (Thursday through Saturday), the program is built to be “work-compatible” for leaders based in Portugal or traveling from abroad.

On average, you should expect to dedicate approximately 10 hours per week to individual study and team-based projects outside of the monthly classroom sessions. While the hours are variable depending on each student’s background, your time will be focused on real-world practical cases, simulations, and group work rather than just traditional exams only.

Our faculty also understands that “life happens.” Because the curriculum focuses on practical application and real-world cases rather than only rigid academic testing, you have the flexibility to integrate your study hours into your specific life rhythm, whether that’s during a long-haul flight or after the kids are in bed. We don’t just teach management.

Furthermore, the practical, team-based nature of the Executive MBA serves as a built-in support system. Unlike a traditional degree where you study in isolation, our program relies on a “sprint and support” model. Your cohort becomes a professional family; when one member faces a particularly intense week at work or a sleepless night with a newborn, the team steps in to help carry the project forward

This spirit of cooperation is essential; it transforms the workload from a burden into a shared challenge.

To better accommodate the complex schedules of professionals nowadays, we recently restructured our calendar to offer maximum flexibility and focus. Moving away from the traditional model of attending campus every two weeks, the program now follows a concentrated immersion format. Classes are held once per month in three-day blocks:

• Thursday, Friday, and Saturday
• Full-day sessions from 09:30 to 17:45

For those traveling from outside Lisbon or managing heavy international travel schedules, this monthly cadence ensures you only need to coordinate your logistics once every four weeks, making the program truly “work-compatible” on a global scale. Recognizing that elite performance requires the right environment, the program is all-inclusive during campus days. We provide coffee breaks and lunches that serve a strategic purpose: they eliminate the “logistical noise” of finding meals, allowing you to maximize your time for high-level networking and peer-to-peer problem-solving.

Finally, we ensure the pace is sustainable for the long term. The academic calendar respects your personal and professional life by including scheduled breaks during Easter, Summer, and Christmas holidays, allowing you to recharge and return to both your company and your studies with renewed energy.

Many students are corporately sponsored because employers see the program as a high-return investment. The part-time, monthly format ensures you remain fully integrated at work, allowing you to bring innovative frameworks and global insights directly into your projects each week. This creates an immediate impact: you apply real-time solutions to internal challenges and upskill your team as you progress. When discussing the commitment with your employer, frame these sessions not as time away, but as a strategic laboratory for developing the leadership and professional perspective required to drive the company’s future growth.

The short answer is no: company sponsorship is not required for admission. We welcome many self-funded students who view the Executive MBA as a personal investment in their future. However, because our program is designed to deliver immediate value to an organization, many candidates find that their employers welcome the idea positively to support them once the mutual benefits are clearly outlined.

At The Lisbon MBA, we highly value and encourage corporate partnerships. For a company, sponsoring an employee, or a group of employees, is a powerful tool for large-scale upskilling. It transforms high-potential managers into global leaders who bring fresh frameworks, innovative problem-solving, and an international network of connections directly back to the company’s daily operations. To support this, we offer specific benefits to our corporate partners, including reduced tuition for organizations that commit to developing their talent through our programs.

If your company does not have a corporate partnership with the Lisbon MBA or a formal sponsorship policy, you can still negotiate support by framing the MBA as part of your total compensation or professional development package. Many students successfully secure funding by:

• Negotiating bonuses: Proposing that a performance-based bonus be redirected toward tuition.
• Utilizing training budgets: Accessing departmental “Learning & Development” funds that are already allocated for executive growth.
• Proposing a “Consultancy” model: Highlighting that the projects you complete and the knowledge acquired during the MBA will be focused on solving your company’s specific internal challenges.

Whether through full or partial sponsorship, or a corporate partnership agreement, our team will always be available to provide the best support or materials to help you and your employer find the best path forward.

Career development and leadership growth at The Lisbon MBA Executive are designed as complementary but distinct pillars, each following its own rhythm throughout the program.

Leadership development is embedded from day one and continues through to the end of the MBA. From the outset, participants are challenged to deepen their leadership identity, decision-making capacity, and strategic perspective through the curriculum, experiential learning, peer interaction, and faculty-led reflection. This continuous leadership focus ensures that students immediately apply insights to their professional contexts while progressively strengthening their executive presence and impact.

Career development, by contrast, follows a more phased and intentional structure. Rather than being front-loaded, formal and structured engagement with the Career Management Center (CMC) typically begins in the second year of the program. This timing allows participants to approach career conversations with greater clarity, self-awareness, and strategic intent, informed by the academic and leadership foundations established during the first year.

Beyond individual support, students are integrated into a broader executive ecosystem through workshops, career counseling, networking events, and other opportunities. These experiences are designed to support leadership development and organic, meaningful career progression.

We maintain a transparent and high-integrity relationship with corporate partners. For employer-sponsored participants, CMC engagement is primarily focused on leadership development and networking, while access to recruitment–related services is typically limited. Access to recruitment-focused services may be reviewed if circumstances change or if the employer approves full access.