After the Ferrari and the Rolex, is an Executive MBA (EMBA) the final accessory for the person who has everything? While a standard MBA has always called for students to have deep pockets, a sympathetic bank manager or even more supportive families, the cost of the executive version has traditionally been covered by a candidate’s employer. But over the past few years, more and more EMBA participants have chosen to take on the financial burden themselves, either because of corporate cost-cutting or the career freedom that paying direct gives them once the programme is over.

Most of these individuals still fit the standard EMBA profile – experienced managers and professionals looking for a leg-up to the board or partnership. However, with others the reasons for deciding to stump up fees well in excess of €40,000 are altogether less clear. Which prompts questions about whether the EMBA has become yet another accessory for the wealthy, alongside the cars, the baubles and the apartment in Mayfair or the 16th Arrondissement.

At first sight one might wonder why Rena Sindi, for example, should bother investing a sizeable chunk of time and cash in studying for an Executive MBA at Cambridge University’s Judge Business School. As the daughter of Nemir Kirdar, the billionaire founder of investment firm Investcorp, she used to be one of Manhattan’s ‘beautiful people’, later assuming a similar role at the heart of London’s social scene.

As someone who is certainly no stranger to the finer things in life, and with a thriving business promoting the launches of luxury goods, what could possibly motivate Sindi to return to long hours poring over books and sitting in lecture theatres? Never content to be a ‘lady who lunches’, she has always run her own businesses, first in New York and now in London. But while confident about her softer skills, Sindi felt that she needed to sharpen her grasp of the numbers if she wanted to take a business to the next level. “The Judge EMBA allowed me to do this, even though I have no real background in accounting and finance,” she explains.“And its one-weekend-per-month approach works much better for me than having to commit to large blocks of time, as I have two children that I want to be around as much as possible.”

Given that Kathy Magliato is one of the world’s top female heart surgeons and a published author, the casual observer might also ask what possible reason she might have for taking on the extra commitment of an EMBA programme. But this is exactly what she did when she joined the class at UCLA Anderson in California while pregnant with her second child. For Magliato, the motivation was to add a business perspective to her skillset. “It’s been like a springboard for the mind,” she says.” I approach problems differently now and I honestly think it’s changed my life.”

It’s a view mirrored by Alan Cohen, who was mayor of Ithaca in New York state before opting for the discipline of formal business training and international exposure, taking an Executive MBA at one of the highly rated schools, HEC Paris.

“The programme has opened my eyes to new possibilities, and given me the broader perspective to be able to operate on a truly global stage,” he says.

Of course, the quality of life isn’t just measured by financial considerations or professional achievement. For Jim Perry – vice president of Affordable Care, a nationwide dental practice based in North Carolina – it’s family, and particularly his three young daughters, who come first. But that hasn’t stopped him taking the OneMBA executive programme run jointly by schools in the USA, Mexico, Brazil, the Netherlands and Hong Kong.

“I’m up at four every morning to study before going to the office, which means I’m pretty tired all the time and just don’t have the time that I used to have to spend with the girls,” he says. “In effect I’ve had to put my life on hold for a couple of years, but I’m convinced that it’s the right decision. If I’m going to achieve what I think I’m capable of, then I need the knowledge, experience and contacts this programme will give me. And that’s not for me, it’s for my family, so the long-term gain is worth the short-term pain.”

SHARING THE REWARDS

Everyone had reason to celebrate when the winner of the Zayed Future Energy Prize, supported by CNBC, was named

The old phrase “everyone’s a winner” – beloved by award-ceremony hosts – was actually true at the 2011 Zayed Future Energy Prize (ZFEP). Scooping the $1.5m award, the Danish wind-turbine behemoth Vestas generated gasps by announcing that the world’s largest renewable energy prize pot would not be cashed in Denmark. On taking to the podium to collect the award from the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vestas chief executive Ditlev Engel declared that the money would be distributed in a number of directions.

Half the prize money, said Engel, will go to WindMade, a new NGO created by Vestas and including such partners as the UN Global Compact, WWF, the Global Wind Energy Council and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The remainder of the cash prize was donated to Vestas’ fellow [non-financially rewarded] finalists.

So while the runners-up – Amory B Lovins, the sustainable-development guru and founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, and the clean-energy investor E+Co – each received $350,000, much- needed funds will also go to three other parties: Bunker Roy’s Barefoot College, created to train women in rural areas to install solar energy, First Solar, a nascent US firm, and Terry Tamminen, the policy virtuoso at Seventh Generation Advisors and the real environmental power behind former Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“We quickly agreed that we should seize this opportunity to extend the impact of the prize through redistributing the cash, otherwise none of these outstanding colleagues would have been rewarded financially,” Engel explained. “I thought it would be both a strong signal and very useful, too. I did attach one firm condition, though: they must spend the money to support their own further development within renewable energy."

The gesture was immediately applauded by ZFEP director general Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, who said: “This exemplifies that Vestas understands the vision and mission of the prize."

In its third year, ZFEP received 391 official submissions (a 30% increase on last year) and 959 third-party nominations from 69 countries. The award’s panel of judges, helmed by the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, featured luminaries such as Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson (President of Iceland), Khaled Irani (Jordan's minister of energy and mineral resources), Lord Foster (founder of Foster & Partners), Lord Browne (managing director of Riverside Holdings), and Susan Hockfield (president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

“Vestas clearly stood out for a number of reasons, and most importantly, for dynamically changing wind-energy technology, something that requires imagination, vision and dedication,” says Pachauri. “Innovation doesn’t come about through a flash in the pan – it is something that requires enormous perseverance, clarity of purpose, efforts and resources.”

This year’s ZFEP was very much about rewarding long-term achievement rather than emergent potential. Since baking its first turbine blade in “someone’s oven” more than 30 years ago, Vestas has pursued a future where wind power forms part of a mainstream energy triumvirate with oil and gas. Last year the company’s turnover stood at a healthy €6.6bn, despite harsh global markets, and today more than 41,000 Vestas onshore and offshore turbines, in 65 countries and five continents, generate 60 million MWh of energy each year. In 2009 alone, the turbines it produced and shipped saved 163 million tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere – enough, it claims, to more than offset the United Arab Emirates' 2006 emissions.

Engel says Vestas is constantly looking to break new ground. For example, he says its cost-effective new V112-3.0MW turbine unlocks previously inaccessible wind resources by efficiently tapping into low and medium wind-speed sites. At locations with an average wind speed of 7m/s, the V112-3.0MW produces power at an average cost 2% lower than a typical wind turbine on the market. At 8m/s, that saving rises to 4% below average.

Vestas has also used its leadership to further the progress of the industry at every opportunity, whether it is through advising on legislation in Ghana, the Netherlands and Jordan, or by sharing its wind-training solutions with the world at large, an initiative that has so far reached 70,000 external pupils, volunteers, policymakers and other influences.