Hi,

I have 4 years of experience in IT project management and want to advance my career either in Business Operations or as a project manager at a major tech company like Google. Ultimately, my long-term goal is to attain a COO position.
Although I am based in Ukraine and mostly consider online job opportunities, I believe that networking opportunities in the UK and Switzerland would be beneficial.

I have a budget of up to 15k and have selected a few MBA Online programs. Which program do you think would be the best fit in my case?

University of London
Manchester Metropolitan University
Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University
Swansea Business School at University of Wales Trinity Saint David

I think Manchester Met and Hull are strong options: https://findmbaonline.com/board/general-forum/value-alternatives-to-unaccredited-mbas-58288 

It might be useful to first explore your goals a bit more clearly as there are two potentially quite different paths you are looking at. 

If you want a career as an IT Project Manager than an MBA isn't really needed, even at the likes of Google. You don't say what area of IT you manage projects in e.g. applications or infrastructure, but big tech companies tend to be more structured around product and platform lines now so Product Owner might be a better medium term goal than Project Manager. 

If your goal is to become a COO then you really need deep experience in operations and probably sales and marketing. There is a small but growing number of people from IT who progress to COO these days but typically they make that move from either a CIO or Transformation Director type of role. And they usually got to that first role via a different route than people who became a COO first.

Thank you for your answers!
Currently as a project manager I work mostly with team operations, budgets and people management. That's why I don't mention industry, because I've previously worked on an automotive project, and currently involved in a completely different project about a digital adoption platform. I am not a technical person, and I don't see myself in a roles like Product Owner or CIO.

My goal is to transfer from team operation to business/company operation as a path to COO. However, being realistic, I would consider continue project management but in more prestigious company as an accomplishment in terms of short-term success.

[Edited by Olena Shaparieva on May 17, 2023]

I don't believe that an MBA is the right option. This person wants to move into operations management or project management, and an MBA won't really deepen their knowledge much. A few alternatives, more or less in order or recommendation..


Online
- Strathclyde Business https://www.strath.ac.uk/courses/postgraduatetaught/operationalresearchonline
- Strathclyde Engineering https://www.strath.ac.uk/courses/postgraduatetaught/engineeringprojectmanagementonline
- London https://www.london.ac.uk/courses/msc-project-management 
- Essex https://online.essex.ac.uk/utm-landing-pages/project-management
- Aberdeen https://on.abdn.ac.uk/degrees/project-management/

On campus
- Newcastle & Groningen https://www.ncl.ac.uk/postgraduate/degrees/4120f/
- Manchester Engineering https://www.manchester.ac.uk/study/masters/courses/list/04201/msc-commercial-project-management/
- Alliance Manchester OM https://www.manchester.ac.uk/study/masters/courses/list/07783/msc-operations-project-and-supply-chain-management/course-details/
- Exeter https://www.exeter.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/courses/business/global-operations-management-msc/