For the designers & makers of tomorrow

Degrees designed for real-world success

By 2050, the African continent will be home to more than a quarter of humanity. Add a working-age population that’s growing faster than anywhere else, and it’s little surprise that many are paying keen attention – from businesses of all sizes to ambitious upstarts across the world, like Sarah Löwentraut from Germany. 

“While it might have been easier to stay in Europe, I felt that studying in South Africa would offer a far richer learning environment — socially, culturally, and economically,” she says.

That search for an education that would challenge her assumptions and expose her to fresh contexts led her to the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business (UCT GSB). And she is far from alone — students around the world are attracted by the opportunity to learn in one of the world’s most dynamic regions.

Inside the most exciting business degrees in Africa

Two master’s programmes, one defining context

With UCT GSB, your choice of programme is another vantage point. Both the CEMS Master of Management Specialising in International Management (CEMS MIM) and the MBA Full-Time are based in Cape Town, a city that’s just as firmly rooted in the realities of the African growth story as it is outward-looking to the rest of the world.

Supporting your studies at the UCT GSB are 32 core faculty members and 70 visiting academics and executives from around the world. Their expertise informs the world and your curriculum in areas such as Emerging Markets Finance, Investment and Trade, Social Innovation and Sustainability, Values-based Leadership, and more. 

There are many ways to get involved with faculty research while studying here. Faculty researchers, PhD students, and MBA students regularly investigate organisational challenges. MBA students take part in hands-on projects focused on strategy and innovation in businesses, government agencies or civil society organisations as well.

Over at the Case Writing Centre, there are award-winning teaching cases that profile leading and emerging businesses in Africa to explore complex business challenges and the strategies for navigating them. Its new groundbreaking case series, Doing Business in Africa, showcases dynamic African businesses in an open-source, multimedia format called the “Deconstructed Case.”

“The UCT GSB is uniquely placed to lead some of the most important critical conversations about the future of business that are going on in Africa and around the world. Our faculty have tremendous expertise on issues such as social innovation, diversity and inequality, environmental sustainability, the role of business and society, and values-based leadership — very much including leadership under conditions of crisis and uncertainty.”

Dr. Catherine Duggan, UCT Graduate School of Business Director

Hear from the students

Study the future of business with the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business