Accelerate Your Career With an NYU Executive Education

The Executive MS in Marketing and Strategic Communications program is designed to prepare experienced marketing, product management, sales, management, and PR professionals to assume leadership positions such as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) or Chief Communications Officer (CCO).

Through a deeper managerial understanding of the critical hard skills for marketing and communications, such as data science, along with the soft-skills, such as negotiation and growth-orientation, our program helps students become more effective communication leaders in their organizations—leveraging and elevating the value of strategic marketing and communications to the enterprise.

This program was designed by experienced practitioners in marketing and public relations, with insights from chief marketing and communications officers and the professionals who support them. The program provides a Master's Degree from a globally recognized university and supports students through three critical personal and professional pivots or transformations:

• Leverage your unique marketing and communications skill-set to drive growth. The worlds of public relations and marketing are highly interrelated and need a level of coordination, mutual insight, and understanding to deliver the maximum value to the brand, company, or organization they serve.

• Expand and upskill your professional portfolio of capabilities. A set of new fundamentals have emerged in the disciplines of marketing and communications that are both human-centered and data-driven. Leadership requires an understanding of the poetry and plumbing, the combination of creativity, insight, strategy, data, and technology.

• Expand your industry scope. Many professional marketers and communicators are seeking opportunities to take their talents and experience into new industries, or switch from agency to brand, or from commerce and persuasion to advocacy and social purpose.

NYU’s Executive Masters program is designed for product management, sales and management, marketing and public relations executives on the rise who wish to advance or pivot in their careers. With an average of 8+ years of work experience and responsibilities at the Director or VP level and above, successful applicants are looking for a deeper, more up-to-date set of skills, and the leadership practice to advance to C-Suite leadership roles or transition to larger brands and agencies. For many of our applicants, this degree can also provide a platform for practitioners established in one industry who want to switch direction by working in another industry, such as by moving from financial services marketing to beauty and luxury marketing, or moving from an agency to the client side.

Given the transformation of marketing and communications, this program is designed to ensure that graduates are also trained to enter and thrive in new emerging roles like CGO and CXO. Students are prepared to approach the challenges of driving business growth and integrating several related functions with critical thinking and strategy.

The Executive MS offers insights and experiences in a more concentrated cohort and accelerated experience, surpassing the fundamentals of business that an MBA would cover or the early-stage knowledge and capabilities of many marketing, public relations, or strategic communication graduate degrees. This unique degree program is designed for marketing and public relations executives who are looking to advance in their careers, emerge into executive marketing and strategic communications positions, and be trained to enter and thrive in new emerging roles like CGO and CXO. Students will be prepared to think expansively and critically about the challenges of driving business growth and integrating several related functions into a cohesive unit.

Upon completion of the program, students will be able to chart a course for strategic marketing, public relations, and corporate communications leadership. Graduates apply core methodologies and models of strategic marketing and communications to their professional experience to enhance their leadership and impact.

The Executive Master of Science provides mid-career professionals with four key skills to enable them to make the necessary transitions: 

• Demonstrate the value of human-centered and data-driven marketing insights as a core function driving growth, profitability, brand reputation, and communication strategy. 

• Acquire the ability to leverage data and technology to design, develop, and lead strategically robust and executable growth initiatives and integrated marketing campaigns that drive results and innovation.

• Broaden problem-solving and communication skills, supporting leadership through the complexity of a shifting communications and marketing landscape that's increasingly global in its influences, and constantly transformed by digital technology.

• Extend their knowledge and exposure to a new industry, in a way that they can integrate and apply their established marketing skills.

The in-person immersion week at the start of the program is from Tuesday through Saturday. The first date includes a welcome and company visit with a panel discussion with industry C-suite leaders. It’s part of the course Deciding on Where to Play and How to Win, which runs through Friday, led by Professor Bahriye Goren. These days are a combination of lectures, company visits, panel discussions, guest lectures, and class discussions.

Saturday is the kick-off of the course Harnessing Data Science to Solve Marketing and Communications Problems, led by Professor Adam Braff. It's a combination of lectures, hands-on exercises, and class discussions.

The last in-person part of the program is at the end of the fifth semester and will be three days in person. The on-site residency is an important part of the program for students to build connections with fellow cohort members, industry leaders, and faculty.

The program aims to graduate marketing and product management, sales, management, and PR professionals better equipped to lead and drive business growth and ready to assume more senior roles such as CGO, CXO, CMO, or CCO.

The Executive Master of Science in Marketing and Strategic Communications is designed to support mid-career marketers with 8+ years of experience who wish to advance in their careers or switch industries while maintaining a solid path toward a senior position in marketing and/or public relations.

You can find an estimation of tuition and fees for each semester on the NYU Graduate Studies Tuition page.