European operations were shut and thousands of staff faced the axe. The May shake-up followed news that first-quarter profits at the fixed-income division were down 41%.
Risk weighted assets – how much of the balance sheet will be pooled into different activities – at the investment bank were slashed by £100 billion.
Meanwhile, the chief executive of two years was taking a hammering for bankers’ pay cheques. Bonuses went up as profits tumbled. Barclays has sought and received approval to pay bonuses of twice annual salary, the maximum allowed under new European controls.
It was probably not what Jenkins would have envisaged when he started out. He began his career at Barclays before seeking greener pastures in the United States. After a lengthy spell at Citigroup – in both London and New York – he came back to Barclays as chief exec of Barclaycard.
Jenkins’ background will matter to MBAs. He is one of the most high-profile business school alumni. He is also one of the most successful. He was fast-tracked into the top job at Barclays in August 2012, after heading the bank’s retail and business banking division.
The banking supremo has made the most out of his MBA. Jenkins has climbed the corporate ladder in quick fashion. After graduating from Cranfield University School of Management, he has risen to the very top of his peer group.
All of whom, however, are waking up to the news that an MBA degree is not required to reach the higher echelons of business management. A week after Jenkins headlined the Institute of International Finance meeting in London, a report revealed that MBAs may not find such fortune on the other side of the world.
Qlik, the software firm, said 80% of Asia’s top CEOs do not hold an MBA degree. Instead, said Qlik, CEOs were banking on degrees from local tertiary institutions (post-high school, but not postgraduate). This is despite Western business schools’ revered status among Asian managers.
Terry Smagh, vice president of Qlik Asia, said: “A good 80% of them didn’t actually have MBAs, so it defies the whole perspective of whether they went overseas to get a degree, and if not whether they added an MBA to that.”
The survey has called into question the necessity of an MBA degree in climbing to the top of the greasy pole.
Qlik assessed 250 of Asia-Pacific's top corporations, listed in Forbes Global 2000 ranking. Only Hong Kong and Singapore showed a preference for MBAs, where over 70% of CEOs there hold degrees from Western universities.
Many think that moving into leadership and management positions are students’ main reasons for pursuing MBA degrees. A wide-ranging survey by QS revealed that 56% of applicants aspired to lead a company after graduation.
Many also believe that corporate careers have risen in popularity. Entrepreneurship, while exciting, has failed to materialize.
Business school graduates are not wooed by start-ups in great numbers. Only 4% of MBA students polled this month by GMAC, providers of the GMAT exam, wanted to pursue entrepreneurship. But 62% were actively seeking MBA jobs in established companies.
Talha Khan, a student at China Europe International Business School, had an Asian ambition when he enrolled on the school’s MBA. He had been working at Aircom International, the telecoms giant, but aspired to move further up the careers ladder.
“It was a huge jump in my career,” he said. But he wanted more. “I had two choices: to switch to another company in another position or role, or to do something else. I went for the Master’s degree,” he added.
Other MBA graduates are dead-set on becoming CEOs.
Arak Bhokanandh, an MBA graduate of Bath University School of Management, said: “Ultimately, my ambition is to move into industry and run a company one day. My target now is to climb the corporate ladder.”
But the chief concern is that companies won’t recognize the benefits of MBA providers. A report released today by the Association of Business Schools said that only 17% of employers recruit directly from schools when recruiting first-time managers.
The organization, which surveyed 38 business schools and 500 delegates – including employers and managers across the UK – highlighted the gap between corporations seeking managers and schools. And for CEO positions, the preferred finders are head-hunters.
Petra Wilson, director of strategy and external affairs at the Chartered Management Institute, said: “It is attitudes that they haven’t done it before and don’t know the art of the possible. They’re used to using recruitment agencies. They’re not even aware of the opportunities that business schools offer.”
Yet in the United States, business school is often a route to the boardroom. Many US-based firms believe an MBA to be the best management qualification. Some 46% of them in the FT500 index have chief executives with MBA degrees – more than in Europe.
More than 70% of MBA graduates who are FT500 chief executives came from US-based schools.
Harvard Business School is at the forefront of this CEO surge. The school has the majority of top chief execs among its alumni – 24%. Of the 50 largest companies in the US, four are led by Harvard graduates, including Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric.
The States have also dropped strong hints that the best MBA ranking schools produce the most CEOs. Nine of these top-ranking schools produced 68 FT500 chief executives, including HEC Paris, Cass Business School, EMLYON Business School and the Fuqua School of Business.
Of all the world's leading companies featured in the FT500 index, 29% are headed by an MBA graduate.
Chief among those CEOs is Tim Cook, boss of Apple, a company whose shares recently surged above $600 for the first time in a year. He graduated from Fuqua's MBA program in 1988.
Muhtar Kent used his MBA from Cass to climb to the top of Coca-Cola in 2008. The firm's CEO, who graduated in 1977, steered the company to a valuation of nearly $80 billion in September last year.
AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot may have hit the headlines for his defence of a takeover approach by Pfizer, but his lesser-known achievements include completing HEC Paris’ MBA program in 1986.
Alan Lafley left Harvard's MBA in 1977 and became chief exec of Procter & Gamble last year. His first stint as CEO – between 2000 and 2009 – saw the firm acquire Gillette for $57 billion.
Meanwhile, business schools have been trying to ramp-up their campus CEO visits.
At IESE Business School in Barcelona Luis Egido, the CEO of logistics firm Logista, spoke to MBAs in March about managing the company during the financial crisis. Pascal Schneidinger shocked CEIBS’ MBAs when he showed up on campus to speak about Swiss lifestyle brand Servimex, of which he is CEO.
It has been a while since Barclays boss Jenkins was last on campus. But few will argue that an MBA hasn’t helped him climb from business school to the boardroom.
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