Tag: Pakistan

MBA and business master’s degrees remain hot commodity despite recession fears and COVID challenges

RESTON, Va., June 29, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), a global association of leading graduate business schools, today released its annual hiring report, the GMAC Corporate Recruiters Survey – 2022 Summary Report. The report explores the state of employer demand for graduate business school talent (MBA and business master’s degree recipients) in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and includes responses from nearly 1,000 corporate recruiters and staffing firms around the world. While rising inflation and the war in Ukraine were just at the onset during the time when the survey was conducted in February and March 2022, hiring projections of graduate management education (GME) graduates remain bullish this year, with 92 percent of corporate recruiters expecting to hire newly minted MBAs. Promisingly, 2 in 3 responding corporate recruiters describe the current direction of their organization as expanding or growing (67%) and a similar proportion plan to increase their overall headcount (65%). Also, most recruiters (63%) project that demand for new business school talent will increase in the next five years, with business master’s hiring intention the highest among recruiters for East and Southeast Asia and Middle East companies.

“The latest GMAC findings of the Corporate Recruiters Survey show that nearly 9 out of 10 corporate recruiters feel confident or highly confident in the ability of business schools to prepare students to be successful in their organizations,” said Sangeet Chowfla, president and CEO of GMAC. “That’s an extraordinary figure. It shows that despite the pandemic and the limitations it brought on student mobility, public and mental health, and remote learning, business schools managed to find ways to build an impressive cohort whom corporate recruiters and staffing agencies worldwide continue to bank on as prime sources for talent.”

Other Key Findings

MBA starting salaries continue to provide a premium and Business master’s median starting salaries are on the rise

Recruiter responses suggest companies in the United States plan to offer increased starting salaries to business master’s graduates in 2022 compared to last year. In addition, median MBA starting salary levels eclipse those being offered to bachelor’s graduates by 22 percent to 40 percent across the world regions for which there is sufficient sample to report. Median starting salaries are largest in the United States, where the median starting salary offered to new MBA hires this year ─ US$115,000 — has remained unchanged for the past three survey years. In the current inflationary environment, the relative stability of median MBA salaries suggested by the survey findings means the real value of MBA salaries is declining.

In a likely response to combat the effect of inflation, corporate recruiters look to benefits packages—including educational assistance—to meet the changing needs of new graduates. Educational assistance like tuition reimbursement and scholarships has become an increasingly common benefit, with 54 percent offering it in 2022—up from 35 percent last year.

U.S. international hiring bounced back to pre-pandemic levels with potential of continued growth for 2022

The world regions with the highest percentage of recruiters affirming that they plan to hire international candidates in 2022 are the Middle East (52%) and Western Europe (40%). In the United States, this year’s survey results suggest an improving situation for international MBA and business master’s graduates. Looking back at last year’s actual hiring, 43 percent of U.S. recruiters confirmed they hired international talent in 2021—a bounce back from 35 percent in 2020 and 41 percent in 2019. In this year’s survey, 56 percent of U.S. recruiters say that they either plan to make international hires in 2022 (35%) or are willing to (21%), up from 48 percent that said the same in the 2021 survey. Furthermore, 83 percent of U.S. tech companies say they either plan to make international hires in 2022 (62%) or are willing to (21%)—the most of any U.S. industry.

“As travel restrictions ease around the world and student mobility continues to bounce back, we are thrilled to have more international students back on campuses across the country. Our mission is to help our students find success and our graduates reap the benefits of the strong job market in the U.S.,” said incoming GMAC Board Member and Dean of Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business Isabelle Bajeux-Besnainou.

Global corporate recruiters appear to be becoming more accepting of online degrees—with the noteworthy exception of the United States

The percentage of global recruiters who view graduates of online and in-person GME programs equally increased from 34 percent in 2021 to 60 percent in 2022, suggesting a significant growth in the acceptance of online programs. However, the notable outlier is corporate recruiters in the United States—where the lion’s share of the world’s online MBA enrollments are. Among responding U.S. corporate recruiters, just 29 percent agree that they view graduates of online and in-person GME programs equally, the lowest of any world region and down from 33 percent of respondents from the 2021 sample.

“The growth of online MBA programs has been so strong in the United States that for the first time, the total number of enrollments in online programs exceeded that of full-time, in-person MBA enrollments in the 2020-21 academic year, according to data from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB),” said Sabrina White, vice president of school and industry engagement at GMAC. “Business schools are presented a unique opportunity to align expectations and outcomes for graduates and employers as online delivery emerges from the pandemic as an important part of the graduate management education industry.”

About the Report
First launched more than two decades ago, the Corporate Recruiters Survey of 2022 was conducted by GMAC, together with survey partners EFMD and the MBA Career Services and Employer Alliance (MBA CSEA), in association with the career services offices at participating graduate business schools worldwide. In a change from previous years, GMAC Research worked with a market research firm to recruit additional participants to make the overall sample more globally representative. In total, 941 respondents from 38 countries completed this survey, including 539 corporate recruiters and 402 from staffing firms. Recognizing that nearly all responses in previous years came from corporate recruiters, only 2022 responses from corporate recruiters were leveraged to create multi-year comparisons. However, the robust sample of corporate recruiters and staffing firms allowed us to develop geographical snapshots in 2022 that were less apparent in previous years.

About GMAC

The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) is a mission-driven association of leading graduate business schools worldwide. Founded in 1953, GMAC provides world-class research, industry conferences, recruiting tools, and assessments for the graduate management education industry, as well as resources, events, and services that help guide candidates through their higher education journey. Owned and administered by GMAC, the Graduate Management Admission Test™ (GMAT™) exam is the most widely used graduate business school assessment.

More than 12 million prospective students a year trust GMAC’s websites, including mba.com, to learn about MBA and business master’s programs, connect with schools around the world, prepare and register for exams and get advice on successfully applying to MBA and business master’s programs. BusinessBecause and The MBA Tour are subsidiaries of GMAC, a global organization with offices in China, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

To learn more about our work, please visit www.gmac.com

Media Contact:

Teresa Hsu
Sr. Manager, Media Relations
202-390-4180 (mobile)
thsu@gmac.com

A PDF accompanying this announcement is available at http://ml.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/3388f75b-1d4e-4329-be0c-ca4a494b76ce

The new organization will help life sciences companies improve strategic decision-making and accelerate the mission of smoothing access to therapy from pipeline to patient

Yardley, PA, June 28, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Norstella, an organization that helps life sciences companies navigate the complexities of the drug life cycle, and Citeline (formerly Pharma Intelligence)—a leading provider of specialist intelligence, data and software for clinical trials, drug development and regulatory compliance—have announced an agreement to merge the companies.

By uniting Norstella, which is comprised of four prominent pharmaceutical solutions providers—Evaluate, MMIT, Panalgo and The Dedham Group—with Citeline, the combined company will be well positioned to help life sciences companies reach patients faster by providing clients with the intelligence and answers they need from early clinical development through to commercialization. This move reflects the shared goal of becoming an end-to-end solution provider, helping patients access life-saving therapies.

As life sciences companies drive innovation toward more specialized therapeutics across all disease areas including oncology and rare disease, and patient populations become more targeted, they need to make critical decisions about how to bring the right drugs to market, how to construct clinical trials leveraging the latest innovations in real-world data and data science—and with end points that consider future payer reimbursement decisions—and, ultimately, how to reach patients in need.

“Accelerating innovation and ensuring that every patient gets the therapy that they need is our North Star,” said Norstella CEO Mike Gallup. “By bringing clinical and commercial intelligence together—along with real-world data—the combined company will be well positioned to deliver on its mission.”

Together, Norstella and Citeline will play a critical role in helping pharmaceutical manufacturers plan for and overcome barriers to access, not just during clinical trials but at every stage in the drug development life cycle. Citeline’s solutions, including its portfolio of clinical trial products, provide insights that improve the speed and efficiency of clinical trials and reduce risk. Now, the Citeline solutions—along with MMIT’s PAR data and other complementary Norstella data assets—can be powered by Panalgo’s Instant Health Data Analytics platform to provide transformative answers that will improve workflow and decision-making and, ultimately, help products get to market and to patients quicker than ever before.

“At Citeline, our mission is to accelerate the connection of treatments to patients and patients to treatments. Ultimately, this marriage of commercial and clinical capabilities will advance the mission and enable the pharmaceutical C-suite to manage portfolio strategy like never before,” said Ramsey Hashem, CEO, and Jay Nadler, Executive Chair, of Citeline. “This includes deciding which drug to bring to market, what new indications to pursue for a drug and how to target patients for clinical trials more quickly and with reduced cost. And now, this includes understanding how to design clinical trials that yield the types of data that payers need to make appropriate reimbursement and formulary decisions.”

“It’s about making a difference in the lives of patients,” said Gallup. “This move will help us make our vision of a more innovative, accessible healthcare marketplace a reality.”

The merger is expected to close in the second half of 2022 subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

About Norstella
At Norstella, our mission is simple: to help patients gain access to life-saving therapies. Norstella consists of several prominent organizations—Evaluate, MMIT, Panalgo and The Dedham Group—that have united to offer a full range of pharmaceutical consultancy services and solutions. As one organization, Norstella provides life sciences clients with the right tools and expertise to navigate complexities at each step of the drug development life cycle, from pipeline to patient. For more information, visit Norstella and follow on LinkedIn.

About Citeline
Citeline (formerly Pharma Intelligence) powers a full suite of complementary business intelligence offerings to meet the evolving needs of health science professionals to accelerate the connection of treatments to patients and patients to treatments. These patient-focused solutions and services deliver and analyze data used to drive clinical, commercial, and regulatory related-decisions and create real-world opportunities for growth.

Our global teams of analysts, journalists and consultants keep their fingers on the pulse of the pharmaceutical, biomedical and medtech industries, covering it all with expert insights: key diseases, clinical trials, drug R&D and approvals, market forecasts and more. For more information on one of the world’s most trusted health science partners, visit Citeline.

Melody Udell
Norstella
312-618-5968
melody.udell@norstella.com

Blair Dawson
Citeline
919-413-4616
blair.dawson@informa.com

No. 1 PMS and No. 1 guest messaging platform join forces to integrate guest engagement solutions seamlessly into day-to-day lodging business operations

“The term contactless is becoming far too synonymous with hospitality,” said Richard Castle, COO and Co-Founder of Cloudbeds. “We want more contact between lodging businesses and their guests to create purposeful touchpoints, answer questions and provide guidance through the entire guest journey. Research shows that engaged guests spend more, leave better reviews and the majority prefer to communicate via digital channels — Whistle makes it all possible. Whether it’s a booking engine chat or front desk text request, Whistle positions Cloudbeds customers to be a part of the guest journey from discovery to post-stay, removing barriers that might hinder a booking or positive review.”

Whistle leads the industry in guest engagement with unified communication tools, digitized arrival experiences and more. Current customers include major hospitality brands and hoteliers around the world, including Choice Hotels, Accor, IHG and Four Sisters Inns, among others. Founded in 2015, the company has been rated the no. 1 guest messaging software by Hotel Tech Report for five consecutive years.

Whistle will play an important role in the company’s vision for creating a fully frictionless solution that enables guests to engage with lodging businesses on their own terms. Simultaneously, it will give lodging businesses a unified platform to more efficiently manage points of contact throughout the entire guest journey.

“Our goal has always been to give lodging businesses a unique, easy-to-use solution that simplifies and streamlines the way they communicate,” said Christopher Hovanessian, CEO and Co-Founder of Whistle. “Cloudbeds has a clear vision for building a better, more frictionless hospitality experience via a unified platform. Together, we can make a greater impact on the industry that benefits not only the guest, but also the property staff and the lodging business itself.”

Following its Series D funding announcement in November, Cloudbeds has doubled down on its commitment to “more reservations, happier guests” with three acquisitions and the introduction of several new product offerings to address major pain points for both operators and guests. Driven by an aggressive product roadmap, the company has nearly tripled in size over the past year, with more solutions set to roll out in Q3 designed to help hoteliers grow their businesses.

For more information, visit cloudbeds.com/whistle.

Cloudbeds will share further details about the acquisition at HITEC 2022 in Orlando, during a press event at 1:30 p.m. ET in Booth # 1701 on Tuesday, June 28.

About Cloudbeds
Cloudbeds provides the platform that powers hospitality, driving streamlined operations, increasing reservations and revenue, and enabling memorable guest experiences for lodging businesses of all sizes and types across the globe. The award-winning Cloudbeds Hospitality Platform seamlessly combines solutions for front desk, revenue, distribution, guest acquisition, and guest engagement in a single unified system, enhanced by a marketplace of third-party integrations. Cloudbeds was named No. 1 PMS and No. 1 Hotel Management System by Hotel Tech Report in 2022 and recognized by Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 in 2021. For more information, visit www.cloudbeds.com.

Contact:
Angela Petersen
angela.petersen@cloudbeds.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ea0d94df-2649-42d8-8e49-c59efe9665e5

 

TORONTO, June 23, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Audax Private Equity (“Audax”) today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to make a strategic growth investment in BlueCat Networks (“BlueCat” or the “Company”), a leading provider of mission-critical, infrastructure software. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in 2001, BlueCat is a leading provider of mission-critical, infrastructure software for network control, automation, and security. BlueCat’s Adaptive DNS™ platform is a dynamic, open, secure, scalable, and automated resource that supports the most challenging digital-transformation initiatives, such as adoption of hybrid cloud, virtualization, and rapid-application development. Some of the largest global enterprises, including 30% of the Fortune 100, trust BlueCat to provide the foundation for digital-transformation strategies such as infrastructure and application modernization, and manage cybersecurity risk through protective DNS security.

“Since our founding more than two decades ago, BlueCat has strived to ensure reliable, secure, and rapid access from users and devices to clouds and applications — making DNS an enabler of digital transformation and cloud adoption. This investment represents a significant milestone for our company, customers, employees, and all of our stakeholders, as we commence the next phase of our growth journey. Audax has a lengthy and reputable track record of successfully partnering and working collaboratively with software and technology companies in infrastructure and security, in particular by deploying its Buy & Build strategy to expand offerings and move into adjacent markets, and we look forward to benefiting from the firm’s value-add resources,” said Stephen Devito, Chief Executive Officer of BlueCat Networks.

“Having helped some of the biggest enterprises in the world overcome the compounding complexity in their networks, BlueCat possesses a high quality and innovative business model that is primed for both organic and inorganic growth,” said Iveshu Bhatia, Managing Director at Audax. “Importantly, BlueCat is positioned well to capitalize on the growth in network complexity driven by device expansion, cloud adoption and security requirements with its existing customers, and accelerate new customer growth through additional investment in channel partnerships. We are thrilled to have the unique opportunity to work closely with Stephen and the entire BlueCat management team to help take BlueCat to the next level,” said Timothy Mack, Managing Director at Audax.

Doug Grissom, Managing Director at MDP, said, “It has been a pleasure to work with Stephen and the entire BlueCat team and help them grow the business and extend BlueCat’s leadership as the trusted partner for companies implementing digital-transformation initiatives. We are confident that BlueCat has a bright future ahead in partnership with Audax.”

The transaction is anticipated to close in the third quarter of 2022 and is subject to certain closing conditions, including the waiting period required by the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. Upon closing, Audax will own a controlling stake in BlueCat, with MDP fully realizing its investment in BlueCat.

William Blair and Nomura Securities International, Inc. are serving as financial advisors to BlueCat. Ropes & Gray is serving as legal counsel to Audax and Kirkland & Ellis is serving as legal counsel to BlueCat and MDP.

About BlueCat

BlueCat is the Adaptive DNS™ company. The company’s mission is to help the world’s largest organizations deliver reliable and secure network access from any location. To do this, BlueCat re-imagined DNS. The result – Adaptive DNS™ – is a dynamic, open, secure, scalable, and automated resource that supports the most challenging digital transformation initiatives, like adoption of hybrid cloud and rapid application development. The company is headquartered in Toronto and New York and has additional offices throughout the world, including Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Singapore.

Learn more at bluecat.com.

About Audax Private Equity

Audax Group is a leading alternative investment manager with offices in Boston, New York, and San Francisco. Since its founding in 1999, the firm has raised over $30 billion in capital across its Private Equity and Private Debt businesses. Audax Private Equity has invested over $9 billion in 150 platforms and over 1,100 add-on companies, and is currently investing out of its $3.5 billion, sixth private equity fund. Through its disciplined Buy & Build approach, Audax Private Equity seeks to help platform companies execute add-on acquisitions that fuel revenue growth, optimize operations, and significantly increase equity value. With more than 300 employees, Audax is a leading capital partner for North American middle market companies. For more information, visit the Audax Private Equity website: www.audaxprivateequity.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

About Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC

Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC (“MDP”) is a leading private equity investment firm based in Chicago. Since MDP’s formation in 1992, the firm has raised aggregate capital of over $28 billion and has completed over 150 investments. MDP invests across five dedicated industry verticals, including basic industries; business and government software and services; financial and transaction services; health care; and telecom, media and technology services. For more information, please visit www.mdcp.com.

Contacts

For Audax:
Julie Rudnick / Zachary Tramonti
FGS Global
Audax-SVC@SARDVERB.com

For BlueCat:
Pierre Hamilton
Senior Manager, Corporate Communications
pr@bluecatnetworks.com

For Madison Dearborn Partners:
Jake Yanulis / Rohan Yaradi
Abernathy MacGregor
AbmacMDCP@abmac.com