Melbourne Business School ranked the best in Australia for entrepreneurs

"We felt at multiple times we were failures, we knew that we had no choice but to persevere, and that’s entrepreneurship at its core – perseverance and belief in yourself and the idea."

That's how Rob McElroy describes the experience of taking part in the Innovation Bootcamp as part of his MBA studies at Melbourne Business School.

"We had five days to come up with an idea for a new business. For me, the process we used is proof positive that it was possible," he says.

Melbourne Business School's MBA has been ranked the best in Australia – and in the top 50 globally – for entrepreneurship in the latest Financial Timesreport.

The ranking is based on survey data collected from the MBA class of 2013 as part of the FT 2017 Global MBA ranking. 

The top MBAs for entrepreneurship are rated by the percentage of graduates that started a company, are still operating it and use it as a main income source, as well as the gender ratio and equity of the cohort.

Eighty-three per cent of the Melbourne Business School graduates who started a company were still running it three years later, and 60 per cent used it as a main source of income.

Professor Kwanghui Lim, Associate Professor of Strategic Management, said the School had worked hard to make sure its MBA program equipped students with the skills and resilience they needed to succeed as founders.

"Innovation is important to our School because organisations require more skills from our graduates. These skills can help balance existing needs with ways to become more responsive to market and social changes," he said. 

"This involves developing leadership in students to craft new strategies, develop original approaches to markets and re-orientate culture, people and financials.

"Our MBA program is distinct within Australia because it's interwoven – not separate – to the other skills the students acquire, which instils in them a solid foundation to act entrepreneurially."

The Innovation Bootcamp is a yearly competition which pits teams of students against each other to develop a new business idea and pitch it to real-world industry investors.

Rob was one of the members of this year's winning team, whose business idea was for a big data platform for small to medium-sized retailers. 

The Innovation Bootcamp subject is offered as part of both our Full-Time MBA and Part-Time MBA programs. To find out more about studying at Melbourne Business School offers, visit our Degree Programs page.