Mini MBA in Innovation Management

During the 10 weeks of the Mini MBA programme, participants will have the opportunity to learn from local and international instructors about essential topics such as:

• Trends in the development of modern technologies
• Innovation and strategy
• Fundamentals of design thinking
• Product strategy
• Innovations in products and business models
• Process innovations
• Innovation management within companies
• Problem-solving skills
• Negotiation management
• Innovation and leadership, building high-performance teams
• Financial issues related to innovation development

The programme will also feature an "innovation laboratory" and provide a mentor to support the creation and market introduction of new products and services.

Week 1

• Mini MBA opening event 
  December 3, 2024 (14:00-17:00 | SSE Riga)
• Design Thinking by Līga Brasliņa
  December 4, 2024 (09:00-17:00 | SSE Riga)
• Organizations & Innovations + High-Performance Team Building by Inga Gleizdāne
  December 5, 2024 (09:00-17:00 | SSE Riga)

Week 2

• Financial Management in Innovation Development by Ágnes Lublóy
  December 11, 2024 (09:00-17:00 | SSE Riga)
• Innovation Lab by Līga Brasliņa
  December 13, 2024 (09:00-17:00 | SSE Riga)

Week 3

• Company Strategies in a Rapidly Changing Environment: Innovations as a Strategic Tool by Yuri Romanenkov
  December 17, 2024 (09:00-17:00 | SSE Riga)
• LIAA Mini MBA: The Impact of Digital Transformation on Company Strategy, Business Models and Innovations by Yuri Romanenkov
  December 18, 2024 (09:00-17:00 | SSE Riga)

Week 4

• Innovation Lab by Līga Brasliņa
  January 6, 2025 (09:00-17:00 | SSE Riga)
• Keep People Imagining: Creative Thinking + Innovation by Yoad Mick
  January 8, 2025 (09:00-17:00 | SSE Riga)
• The Role of Modern Technology in Innovations by Edvins Elferts
  January 11, 2025 (09:00-17:00 | SSE Riga)

Week 5

• The Cultural Aspect of Global Markets by Kata Fredheim
  January 13, 2025 (09:00-17:00 | SSE Riga)
• Innovation Lab by Līga Brasliņa
  January 15, 2025 (11:00-19:00 | SSE Riga)

Week 6

• Competing in International Markets by Dominik Gerber
  January 21, 2025 (09:00-17:00 | SSE Riga)
• Leadership in Change and Uncertainity by Peter Zashev
  January 23, 2025 (09:00-17:00 | SSE Riga)

Week 7

• Innovation Lab by Līga Brasliņa
  January 27, 2025 (09:00-17:00 | SSE Riga)
• Business Process Development by Andrejs Strods
  February 1, 2025 (09:00-17:00 | SSE Riga)

Week 8

• Negotiations Management and Pitching by Guntars Logins
  February 4, 2025 (09:00-17:00 | SSE Riga)
• AI and Innovations + Creative AI Strategies for Innovations by Rihards Garančs and Igor Rodin
  February 8, 2025 (09:00-17:00 | SSE Riga)

Week 9

• Innovation Lab by Līga Brasliņa
  February 10, 2025 (14:00-18:00 | SSE Riga)
• Marketing Strategies & Marketing Channels by Guntars Logins
  February 11, 2025 (14:00-17:45 | SSE Riga)
• Optional Mentoring by Līga Brasliņa
  February 13-14, 2025 (9:00-17:00 | SSE Riga)
• Decision Making Under Uncertainty- Scenario Thinking by Rihards Garančs
  February 14, 2025 (9:00-17:00 | SSE Riga)

Week 10

• LIAA Mini MBA: Final presentations
  February 17, 2025 (9:00-17:00 | SSE Riga)
• Graduation + Diplomas Ceremony
  February 18, 2025 (17:00-19:00 | SSE Riga)

100% attendance is required.

Please note: applications for Mini MBA Group 2 open on November 4th. Check dates and details here.

Līga Brasliņa

Līga Brasliņa, MSc. oec., PhD. oec. cand., is a distinguished innovation management and commercialization specialist with over 20 years of experience spanning from academia to close collaboration with entrepreneurs across various sectors. Her expertise lies in developing and bringing new, commercially successful innovations to the market. Under her leadership, over 150 new products and brands have been created, including internationally recognized brands and innovative solutions in the food, beverage, and technology sectors.

Līga has successfully led innovation labs, guiding companies in developing and executing new business ideas, thereby enhancing their competitiveness in both local and global markets. Her extensive experience in market research and econometric analysis enables businesses to identify new market opportunities and craft effective commercialization strategies. With her support, many entrepreneurs have not only developed innovative products but have also successfully launched them, strengthening their position in the global market.

Līga Brasliņa’s contributions to innovation management and commercialization make her a valuable asset in the Mini MBA Innovation Management program, where she will help participants develop the skills needed to create and implement successful innovations.

Peter Zashev

Peter Zashev is an academic, business trainer and high-energy speaker on leadership, change and strategy. Peter has 18 years of executive education experience working with the management of big companies across Europe and mainly in the Nordic countries, the Baltic States and Russia. His combination of skills and experience features:

Academia - holding a MSc degree from the St Petersburg State University in Russia and a PhD from Hanken School of Economics in Finland, currently Peter is a Professor (adjunct) at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga and a Program Director at Hanken&SSE Executive Education in Finland.

Business - Peter is a board member and investor. His consulting experience features many projects in leadership development and international business strategy for both private and public sectors.

Multi-cultural - Peter is Bulgarian by origin, Finnish by nationality, Estonian by residence, half Swedish by workplace and with an extensive Russian experience. He speaks English, Russian, Bulgarian and Finnish.

Kata Fredheim

Dr Kata Fredheim is currently serving as the Executive Vice President of Partnerships and Strategy and an Associate Professor in Economics and Business at SSE Riga. She brings over fifteen years of experience in higher education partnership and strategy development, having previously headed the University of Cambridge's International Strategy Office.

At SSE Riga, Kata is responsible for strategy and partnerships, including research development, international strategy, entrepreneurship, and funders.

As a social anthropologist, Kata's research focuses on migration, internationalization, and higher education. Her most recent work is on Ukraine. She directs courses in Economic Anthropology, Market Research, and Global Challenges, and serving as the director of the Women in Leadership executive course.

Kata holds degrees from Utrecht (NL), Bristol (UK), and Canterbury (NZ).

Andrejs Strods

Andrejs Strods is a visionary entrepreneur and industry expert with a proven track record in transforming industries through technology. As the founder and CEO of a thriving Health IT and Insuretech company, he has fostered development and implementation of innovative business models that drive efficiency in healthcare.

With a passion for sharing his expertise, Andrejs is also an accomplished educator. He has authored and is leading an innovative entrepreneurship course at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga. Andrejs has delivered keynotes and workshops on entrepreneurship and innovation across three continents, offering valuable insights to executives worldwide.

Inga Gleizdāne

Inga Gleizdāne has a variety of roles in which she helps organizations and individuals reach their goals in an enjoyable way. Inga works to develop great ideas and has consulted with management teams of over 100 companies from a variety of countries, cultures, sizes, structures and strategies. Her expertise lies in compensation system, reward management, performance management, function and organization structure analysis and development.

Yoad Mick

Yoad Mick is the CEO of IMAgym and an imagination coach. Having reimagined himself throughout his career, Yoad’s journey has taken him from advertising, working on global brands at renowned agencies like Saatchi & Saatchi, BBDO, and Ogilvy, to becoming a creative director and then a marketing executive in the iGaming industry.

In every step, Yoad’s number one KPI to successfully achieving all other KPIs was always: Keep People Imagining, in a fun and safe atmosphere. Yoad’s journey has also taken him from Israel to Finland, to realize his passion for imagination, and to combine all his experience to develop this unique IMAGYM training methodology.

Today, Yoad trains individuals, managers, organizations, and academia to hack into their imagination and use it as a powerful tool for creating meaningful change, development, and empowerment. In addition, Yoad is a self-taught “Imagination Alchemy” artist, aspiring musician, and actor. He holds a major in psychology, is a reserve duty officer, and draws most of his imaginative inspiration from his three super girls.

Edvins Elferts

Edvins is a technical team lead working across the digital landscape. He is focusing on consulting and development of BI, Low Code, intelligent automation and AI solutions for clients in the Nordics. Edvins has 10 years of international experience in project management and digitalization, and with a deep understanding of operational excellence and change management in sectors such as healthcare, supply chain, FMCG, and education. Before recently returning to Latvia, he spent 7 years working in Australia & New Zealand with Siemens Healthineers being responsible for deployment of digital health platform, delivering digitalization and supply chain projects.

Edvins holds a BSc in Economics & Business from SSE Riga as well as numerious technical certifications related to data, analytics and AI domains.

Guntars Logins

With over 12 years of experience in sales and sales leadership across the USA, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, and the Baltics, Guntars Logins is professional consultant in the field with expertise in B2B and B2C sales.  Guntars is helping companies design strategic sales plans and improve their overall sales process. He specializes in breaking down complex sales processes into manageable and achievable steps. In addition to his consulting work, Guntars currently teaches a Sales course at the SSE Riga Bachelor's Program and works with many leading organizations across a variety of industries.

Ágnes Lublóy

Ágnes Lublóy is a Professor with the Department of Accounting and Finance at Stockholm School of Economics in Riga. Previously she was affiliated with the Department of Finance at Corvinus University of Budapest. Ágnes has been teaching management accounting, financial economics, and risk management at graduate, undergraduate and corporate levels (Corvinus University of Budapest, Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, International Training Centre for Bankers in Budapest, European Federation for Financial Analysts Societies). Previously, Ágnes was a Junior Fellow and later a Research Fellow with the Institute for Advanced Study at Collegium Budapest. Ágnes also worked on various research projects related to financial networks at the central bank of Hungary. Moreover, she also acted as a consultant for the Information Technology Venture Capital Fund Management Co. Ltd, and screened business plans and evaluated several project companies.

Igor Rodin

Igor is partner in Deloitte AI and Data practice and lecturer in MBA and Executive MBA programs in Riga Business School and lecturer in Bachelor program in Riga Transport and Communications Institute; he teaches several courses, including AI and Strategy and Economics of AI, focusing at cross-section of AI technology and business transformation. He draws on his personal experience of large-scale deployments of AI with leading companies. His current projects in Deloitte include modernizing data infrastructure, building analytical and data platforms for large enterprises, industrializing artificial intelligence and analytics, developing and deploying AI strategies.

Yuri Romanenkov

Yuri Romanenkov is an Executive MBA Programme Academic Advisor and a Lecturer in Business Administration.

In addition to his teaching work, Yuri also advises corporate executives and private equity investors around Europe on strategy, M&A, and business transformation, building on over 15 years of experience as a management consultant, incl. with Boston Consulting Group in the firm’s London, New York, and Paris offices. His prior teaching engagements include teaching undergraduate micro- and macro-economics at Harvard University. His research is in platform theory, business ecosystems, and complementarity-based levers of competition.

Yuri holds a Doctorate in Business Administration with Excellence from SDA Bocconi, an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School, and a BSc in Economics & Business from SSE Riga.

Dominik Gerber

Dominik Gerber joined the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga in 2019, after completing a PhD in political science and a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Geneva. He has made study and research visits to the University of Rochester (as a Swiss National Science Foundation “Young Scholars” Fellow) and to the University of Helsinki (Erasmus). In his doctoral and postdoctoral positions Dominik has taken on graduate- and undergraduate-level teaching responsibilities at Geneva and at SSE Riga.

Dominik has a research and teaching record in political theory, international relations, and political economy. His main research interests include welfare economics, the role of truth and knowledge in politics, democratic theory, and the founding of the American Republic.

Rihards Garančs

Rihards Garančs has a double degree MBA from HEC Paris & National University of Singapore and is the Director of Executive Education at SSE Riga. He is also the Director of the Artificial Intelligence and Data Analysis course at SSE Riga. Furthermore, he runs a consulting company developing Business Intelligence solutions, helping companies advance in business analytics and enabling effective Digital Transformation.

Applications are open to: mid- and senior-level managers, heads of structural units, as well as managers overseeing innovation and development processes, all from small and medium-sized enterprises only (SMEs defined according to the European Commission regulation No.651/2014, Appendix 1). Eligible candidates should be working in one of the five areas defined by the Smart Specialization Strategy (RIS3) and either planning to implement or already implementing innovations within their companies.

Please note that only one representative from each company is allowed to apply for this training cycle (2024-2025). 

The training will be conducted in English, with a maximum of 20 participants per group. Applications will be accepted starting from October 28 at 9:00 on the business.gov.lv platform. Since the number of places is limited, preference will be given to the first companies whose applications meet the selection criteria. More information about the course start and duration is also available at https://business.gov.lv/atbalsta-programmas/apmacibu-kurss-mini-mba-inovaciju-vadiba.

Interested in our programme? Secure your spot by joining the waiting list! Fill out this form, and we’ll notify you when applications open on October 28.