THE 12-WEEK MBA

An alternative way to learn the business essentials, focusing on the skills and knowledge required at all management levels, in all functions, and across all industries.

The 12-Week MBA's unique premise is that there is a core set of business skills that entrepreneurs and future leaders of organizations can learn and will need regardless of their industry, function, or level. But those core skills - value creation, people skills, and decision-making - can be learned in less time and at lower cost than in a traditional two-year MBA, where the typical content becomes obsolete by the time students have graduated. If you strip away the function-focused and industry-specific expertise that a two-year MBA provides, you are left with two core topic areas that are applicable to managing any organization anywhere: numbers and people. The 12-Week MBA is focused on these core skills needed to lead a business today and throughout the next decade.

Bjorn Billhardt and Nathan Kracklauer's 12-Week MBA will align with the fast-growing online learning platform Abilitie, in which both authors are employed. Abilitie is a leading force in the "mini-MBA" programs disrupting the 100-year-old MBA market and reaches 1000 companies across 35 countries and in addition to offices in the US, has permanent offices in London and Karlsruhe, Germany. Abilitie has also been written up in Financial Times and Forbes.

The 12-Week MBA complements traditional learning methods and draws on case studies and data from organizations of all shapes and sizes including major corporations such as GE, Facebook, Nokia, Peloton, Dell, and Unilever; family-owned small businesses such as Sparkler Filters and Billhardt Industriebürsten; and the authors' own experiences running Abilitie and its predecessor, Enspire Learning, Inc.

Bjorn Billhardt is CEO of Abilitie. Abilitie's leadership programs have educated over 20,000 learners across the world. Prior to launching Abilitie in 2015, Bjorn founded and bootstrapped Enspire Learning, Inc., an e-learning development company that grew to $5MM in revenue and 50 employees. Bjorn also worked as a corporate trainer for BAAN, a Dutch software company, and McKinsey & Company, a strategic management consulting firm. Bjorn holds a BA from the University of Texas and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Bjorn lives in Austin, TX with his wife and three young boys. He is a native of Hamburg, Germany and came to the US as an exchange student in high school.

Nathan Kracklauer leads Abilitie's research and development efforts. He joined Bjorn's first start-up company, Enspire Learning, in 2002 and was the principal author on courses for organizations such Harvard Business School and the World Bank. Nathan has facilitated leadership seminars at organizations such as Bank of America, GE, Nokia, and at executive education programs at IMD Business School, London Business School, and the MIT Sloan School of Management. Nathan lives in Karlsruhe, Germany with his wife and two young girls. He is a native of Falls Church, VA, but has spent his life in several cities across the US, Germany, and Finland.