The Johnson Cornell Tech MBA has been named Program of the Year by Poets&Quants, which covers business schools and graduate business education.

The one-year program, based at Cornell Tech’s new Roosevelt Island campus in New York City, was recognized for its proactive and practical approach to business education, focused on tech projects and interactions with startups and large tech and disruptive companies.

Many MBA programs are innovating the way they teach business skills. But, Poets&Quants said, “… Cornell Tech’s MBA program stands apart, a sparkling jewel of an educational experience that has been creatively designed to deliver on what the blooming tech industry sorely needs: ambitious and intelligent young professionals adept in product management skills. It is a program of and for the digital economy … .”

Poets&Quants noted the program’s three experiential pillars: an immersive first semester at Cornell’s Ithaca campus where students take core business courses with Ithaca-based Johnson MBA students; a Product Studio project in which students work with a cross-functional team of classmates that includes Cornell Tech law, engineering, health tech, and computer science students who develop a technology-driven solution to a real client’s strategic business need; and a Startup Studio project, in which student teams develop a new business idea from concept to launch.

The resulting MBA degree is issued by the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management. “Besides being an outstanding program in its own right, the Johnson Cornell Tech program has had great spill-over effects in Ithaca,” said Mark Nelson, the Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean and professor of accounting at Johnson. For example, the innovative studio curriculum inspired a digital tech immersion in Johnson’s two-year MBA program. And many Ithaca-based MBA students will spend a half-semester at the Cornell Tech campus in spring 2018 taking intensive course sequences in fintech or digital marketing with students in the Johnson Cornell Tech MBA program, Nelson said.

“To see such cutting-edge programming benefiting so many students is really exciting,” he said.

“All of Cornell Tech’s master’s degree programs are focused on developing pioneering leaders for the digital age, and the Johnson Cornell Tech MBA is a vital part of that,” said Dan Huttenlocher, the Jack and Rilla Neafsey Dean and Vice Provost of Cornell Tech.

“All our master’s degree students, across seven degree programs, work in multidisciplinary teams in the collaborative Studio curriculum, creating prototypes of digital products and services that solve real problems,” Huttenlocher said. “This Studio environment is at the core of what sets the Tech MBA program apart and uniquely prepares our students to make an impact in the technology world.”