Degrees train leaders to translate technology

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After completing a bachelor’s degree in economics in his native Serbia, Strahinja Trenkic worked as a derivatives broker, helping to trade financial instruments used to hedge exposure to various risks.

But Trenkic soon realized that he needed to acquire digital knowledge and skills to pursue a successful career in the financial markets. It also sells forex bots, automated trading systems that follow market signals to determine the best price at which traders should buy or sell a currency pair – but do not fully understand their complex mathematical algorithms.

“What interested me was the underbelly and how AI makes investment decisions,” he said. “For this, coding skills are needed and a better understanding of algorithms.” In the year In 2020, he decided to enroll in the Master of Applied Data Science at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, which teaches these skills.

Such programs are becoming very popular. Increased employer demand for digital skills has led to a significant increase in the number of students choosing technology-related business master’s degrees. The 2022 Masters of Tomorrow survey by education consultancy Carrington Crisp and EFMD Global accrediting business schools asked 1,668 prospective students from 26 countries what they wanted to study. Four of the top seven business master’s topics are technology-related, including artificial intelligence, e-commerce, and business analytics.

According to Andrew Crisp, co-founder of Carrington Crisp, the demand for digital courses is to increase job opportunities for graduates. “Every business is now a digital business,” he says. “Employers are crying out for people who understand these topics and can lead teams working on coal.”

Trenkic, now 28, chose the Frankfurt school for his masters because of its connections to several nearby financial institutions. He also got a scholarship. During the program, he worked part-time at the derivatives exchange Eurex in Eschborn, just outside Frankfurt.

Upon graduating this summer, he was hired by Eurex as a quantitative analyst, a role that involved building complex models to help provide market liquidity. The most important skill he learned from his teachers was the programming language he used. He got the job through a WhatsApp group for students and alumni, saying the degree Serb “opened new doors for me”.

As the demand for digital skills continues to grow, schools are not standing still: they have responded with new programs focused on areas such as blockchain and digital assets, product management and user experience design.

ESMT Berlin offers a Masters in Analytics and Artificial Intelligence from September 2023. ESMT Director of Early Career Programs Roland Seegers said participants will take courses from both computer science and business disciplines, preparing them to build bridges between technology and business teams. In digital companies.

“We’re not graduating coders, we’re still graduating managers,” he says. But we want to graduate data-savvy managers and create products that act as translators between engineering and computer science people and the business arm of the company. Companies are desperately looking for people who can make that connection.

Lara Cathcart, academic director of the MSc Financial Technology program at Imperial College London Business School, says prospective students are following the careers. In the year The program launched in 2018 and applications for the current intake cycle have increased by 65 percent compared to the first cycle. “Students see growth in the fintech sector and are attracted to it,” Cathcart said.

She says the program draws expertise from a wide range of college faculties, including the computing department. Participants will acquire quantitative and analytical skills, including in coding and programming, combined with knowledge of the financial sector, such as accounting and corporate finance, investments and portfolio analysis.

Investment banks and fintechs “don’t want students who just code,” Cathcart said. Employers “want graduates who can read a balance sheet and understand how financial markets work, while also having good technical quantitative skills.”

It’s not just the financial world that needs digital skills. Vladimir Melnyk is Academic Director of the MSc in Marketing and Digital Media at ESCP Business School in Europe. He said that the corona virus epidemic has accelerated the digital revolution of marketing by increasing the job opportunities for the graduates in digital marketing due to the shift to e-commerce.

The ESCP program prepares candidates to take on strategic and operational marketing roles in a variety of sectors, from technology to luxury goods, consulting and distribution. They are equipped to use a wide range of digital marketing tools, including analytics, which Melnyk says can play an important role in building a brand.

“Companies cannot always use all their resources to analyze all the data,” he said. “Students learn the skills, almost the knowledge, of how to process the data critically and decide what’s more important and what’s most important to the market.” The associate professor notes that the course is one of the most popular in ESCP. Founded in 2008, the program’s enrollment has grown from 20 students to 135 today. Candidates are strongly advised to have 12 months of professional experience prior to applying Entries are highly competitive.

With demand for similar programs outstripping supply, education consultant Crisp expects more schools to create degree courses for the digital age, or risk applications to competitors, including tech startups like Udemy that offer online video courses. “People don’t expect business schools to offer these courses, they go elsewhere,” he says.

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