Thought Leadership.

Next Start 6 Oct 2025
Duration 3 Years
Language English
Format Modular
(Residential and Virtual Modules)
Avg. working
experience
25 years
Where Milano

The DBA is a 3-year part-time program aimed at business professionals who want to be Thought Leaders in their organizations by applying academic research to concrete managerial problems. 

 

 


 

DBA Perspectives

Thought Leadership

 

 


Highlights

3
Years

Duration 

EN

Language

4 + 4

Residential Modules + Virtual Modules
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EDAMBA

DBA is member of the European Doctoral Programmes Association in Management & Business Administration (EDAMBA)
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Scholarships and Tuition Waivers

DBA Class 2024-2027 (8th Edition)

30
Participants

40% Women

22
Countries Represented

Int'l Students: 86,6% 

25
Years

Average Professional Experience

What about taking the time to sit back and reflect on what your experience has taught you so far? And what about leveraging this opportunity to develop new knowledge that is both relevant to managerial practice and rigorous according to academic standards? Our DBA at SDA Bocconi is a program perfectly tailored to these needs, thanks to its vision, its structure, and its collaboration with our internationally renowned faculty.

 

Go to CV

Giada Di Stefano
Director

What They Say About Us

What impressed me most is the academic rigour of the professors, their passion for the area of expertise as well as their availability and willingness to support. And, thanks to DBA, I have made friends for life: the colleagues on the program!

Franco Valletta - Maltese
DBA 2017-2020
Group Chief Officer - Organisation Development & HR, Corinthia Hotels

Why did you choose to undertake the SDA Bocconi DBA?

have chosen the SDA Bocconi DBA program for two major reasons, the excellence the school and the format of the program.

Firstly, after my Master of Science degree in Civil Engineering at MIT in 1995, I have pursued my MBA degree at SDA Bocconi in 2000, when I was totally satisfied with the quality of the program and the faculty. Since then, I could follow in the news that the school preserved its quality of education and even increased its position in various rankings among the best business schools in Europe and the world.

Secondly, as I am traveling for my work with an average number of trips around 30 and total days of around 120 per year, respectively, it would be very difficult for me to pursue a full-time DBA or PhD program, especially to physically attend the courses in an uninterrupted way in the first two years. The part-time format of the SDA Bocconi DBA program would allow me to smoothly continue my business activities as well as to pursue my academic studies in parallel. It will be much easier for me to arrange my time schedule for four residential modules of each one week to be present in Milan combined with three virtual modules for the first two years of the DBA program, than to be present at another school to physically attend courses on designated days on every week for two years, even in my hometown Istanbul.

 

How is this choice satisfying your needs?

The program satisfies both of my needs very well, i.e. (i) the quality of professors and teaching methods as well as the match of my thesis topic with the research area of my advisor are excellent, (ii) the blended format of the program is designed to be flexible enough to be synchronized with my work schedule.

 

Would you recommend this program? if yes why?

I would certainly recommend the program especially to people who would like to, after completing the program, continue to work and also teach simultaneously on a part-time basis. In this way, they would be able not only to continue to advance their managerial capabilities through rigorous thinking and research, but also give a deeper input to the academic world.

 

Your program in 3 words:

Superior, diversified, flexible

Emrah Ergelen - Canadian
DBA 2018-2021
Founder / Managing Director, Frux Consulting
Upcoming face-to-face meetings
6
May 2025 18:30 - 20:00 | LOCAL TIME
An evening with SDA Bocconi in Amsterdam
Language ENGLISH
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11
May 2025 17:00 - 20:00 | LOCAL TIME
Orientation Meetings - San Francisco
Language ENGLISH
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Next Steps

30 Jan 2025
Application Review Start

Admissions

29 May 2025
Final Tuition Waiver & Application Deadline
6 Oct 2025
Program Start
Dec 2028
Program End

News & Social

11 October 2024
Doctorate in Business Administration: Posters that tell the story of a research project
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22 January 2024
New direction for DBA pursues sense of continuity
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More about DBA

Program

Structure, Content, learning Model
Deadlines

Last Tuition Waiver & Application Deadline:
29 May 2025

Admissions