As the most efficient preparation for business success, the CEOs and business leaders on the COMPAS business panel would advise a young person today to acquire:

• an engineering undergraduate degree in an expanding subfield from a top Canadian university;
• C.A. certification;
• early work experience in strong economies overseas;
• probably Chinese language skills or possibly Spanish; and
• above all, excellent oral and written skills in their working language, normally English.

An M.B.A. is desirable. It is more valuable than almost all other advanced or post-graduate degrees including a law degree. The one exception, say panelists, is a doctorate in engineering, which equals in value the M.B.A. and trumps other doctorates.

Acquiring Chinese language skills is more valuable than acquiring most Ph.D.’s and more valuable than Spanish, which in turn is more valuable than German or Japanese.

These are the key findings from this past week’s Internet survey of CEOs and business leaders on the COMPAS panel. The weekly business survey is undertaken for Canadian Business magazine under sponsorship of BDO Dunwoody LLP.

View / Download complete poll in PDF