The MBA in Shipping Program is designed to meet the needs of shipping practitioners. It enables companies to sponsor their talented and ambitious employees without interrupting their jobs. Participants will normally take 24 months to complete the Program. All classes are held twice a week and during evenings in order to accommodate already employed students.

The Program starts in November every year with the preparatory courses. In the first fourteen months of their studies, participants are required to complete the core courses (January of the first year - February of the second year). In the following four months the participants can tailor the Program according to their professional needs by taking elective courses (March - October of the second year). In the last four months of the Program, the students participate in the Corporate Venturing course, which gives them the opportunity to deal with real-world shipping problems and issues (September - December of the second year).

Preparatory Courses (November - December) (2 months) → Develop Fundamental Knowledge and Techniques.

The success of the Program depends in part on students having a solid foundation in quantitative methods, economics, and finance. Therefore, preparatory courses have been established. The Program offers these courses to students that do not have the appropriate undergraduate experience and also to students that wish to refresh and revise their undergraduate knowledge relevant to the Program.

Core Courses (January of the First Year - February of the Second Year, and September - December second year) (14 months) → Develop Fundamental Knowledge in the Key Business Disciplines.

The core courses are required for all students and emphasize in the business management of shipping companies and shipping operations. These courses are devoted to develop a comprehensive understanding of the shipping field and to strengthen the analytical skills required for a successful career in shipping.

Elective Courses (March - October of the Second Year) (6 months) → Customize the Program to Specific Needs and Requirements.

The Program recognizes the unique issues and multidisciplinary characteristics that are involved in the overall management of shipping operations and the different career paths which students on the Program may pursue. Accordantly, the Program is flexible in allowing students to customize the Program to their needs by introducing elective courses. Electives provide the needed depth of understanding in shipping fields of paramount importance. Students are expected to develop competence in a particular aspect of shipping operations through additional course work, workshop, and seminars.

Corporate Venturing (September - December of the Second Year) (4 months) → Apply the Acquired Knowledge into Business Practice.

The Corporate Venturing course will take students through the process of business planning for a new venture, either to grow an existing business, or to create a start-up. The course begins by developing participants' creative skills, and ideas generation competencies. It enhances their ability to recognize dynamic and promising opportunities. Special attention is paid to innovation, by product, process, or service. Next, student teams work to screen corporate venture ideas, checking for feasibility from market, operational, competitive and financial perspectives. Viability venture opportunities are then further fleshed out, and specific business models developed to extract maximum value from them. Building on the strategic thrust of the business model, teams finally complete the project by developing holistic business plans. These include operational plans, organizational structure, marketing strategy, and investment appraisal.

The Corporate Venturing course combines teaching in the areas described above with intensive student project work: from market research to financial analysis, from designing service processes to checking out the legal implications of exporting, the business plan process fully engages student teams. Bringing together all the functional areas taught on the ALBA MBAs, and using real, student generated ideas, the Corporate Venturing course truly prepares tomorrow's Leaders of Change for a cutting-edge role in entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship.

Workshops (Throughout the Program) → Increase Awareness in Shipping Issues by Distinguished Invited Professionals in Shipping.

There is a number of specialist industry speakers invited throughout the Program in conjunction with professional bodies/institutions. They bring state-of-the-art professional experience in the Program, linking academic knowledge with the modern shipping world. Participants are required to complete five workshops.

Program delivery
The ALBA MBA in Shipping gives students the opportunity to customize the Program to their professional needs. The wide range of elective courses offers a unique competitive advantage to the Program. The MBA in Shipping consists of 3 preparatory courses, 13 core courses, 5 elective courses (selected out of a list of 18 courses), 5 workshops and the Corporate Venturing capstone course. The core courses provide a thorough understanding of the theory and practice of modern shipping and management, while the elective courses prepare students to become specialists in the field of shipping decision-making, by focusing on specific issues and needs of the shipping industry. In order to link even further the academic knowledge with the modern shipping practice, the students receive a number of practical workshops throughout their studies. The Program culminates with the Corporate Venturing, which gives students the opportunity to study in depth real world shipping and transportation issues on a shipping company and develop the necessary skills required for a successful career in the shipping industry. Concerning the company, selected for the project, the aim is to have a strategic issue completely analyzed, with proposed decisions and contingency plans.