From Mitt Romney in the U.S. to William Hague in the U.K., a lot has been made recently about high-profile business leaders venturing into politics. In some ways, intuition holds that a good business leader would make a successful politician. For example, leadership and negotiation, staples of an MBA’s skillset, are extremely important in the political arena.
And some MBA programs are even beginning to integrate politics and public policy coursework into their curriculums. Yale School of Management now offers a course called “Washington and Wall Street: Markets, Policy, and Politics;” while the George Washington University School of Business offers an MBA concentration in Business-Government Relations. And Michigan Ross School of Business MBA students now have the opportunity to learn about Washington first hand during a week-long course called “Business and the Public Policy Process: How Washington Works and What Issues Matter.”