COURSE OVERVIEW
The creative alternative to an MBA.
The Creative Business MA is for future entrepreneurs and executives. You will meet dozens of major players from every entertainment sector to learn how they transformed their ideas into valuable intellectual property. You'll learn the key skills required to start and run a company – including creative leadership, media management and IP, PRINCE 2 project management training, raising investment and finance, media law, AI, innovation, technology and more.
Content Tabs
Against the backdrop of a rapidly evolving media landscape, this course provides the entrepreneurial skills to transform existing organisations and create new media businesses of the future.
The course is taught by experienced tutors and features guest speakers, including leading players from the creative, innovation, and technology industries. It comprises two days per week of tutor-led seminars in year one and one day per week in year 2. This structure is designed to allow you to work on industry projects and build new businesses alongside the course. We believe that doing is the best way of learning.
Our Creative Business MA makes the most of both the thriving NFTS campus in Beaconsfield and our office in the heart of London's Soho, right where many entertainment firms are located, so you will benefit from London’s ‘global hub’ and the school’s state-of-the-art facilities.
The golden thread throughout the course is problem-solving and storytelling. This makes the course suitable for anyone keen to launch businesses and projects where storytelling, IP innovation and technology are at their core. This can include the media industries, life sciences, software development, technology and public policy.
You’ll graduate with an MA from NFTS and be trained in PRINCE 2 and Agile project management, which will help you turn ideas into reality. The course culminates with creating your business plan ready for:
- immediate trading and investment
- submission to an incubator or accelerator
- presentation to your existing organisation to make an intrapreneurial transformation.
Throughout the course, you will hear from real-life experts across nine modules on the following key topics:
- Media management and intellectual property
- Creativity and lateral thinking
- AI, innovation and technology
- Business models and monetisation
- Business affairs, including finance, law, HR and marketing
- Project management and media consulting, with industry projects
- The business plan, investment and fundraising
- Communication, pitching and presentation skills
- Management, strategy and leadership in media
First, you’ll discover how every sector of the media industry transforms ideas into valuable intellectual property by producing your own treatments, investor packs and business plans. You will learn Creative & Corporate Director skills to develop strategies for successful franchises like Wallace and Gromit, who were conceived at the NFTS.
Successful businesses rely on continuous innovation, so you’ll learn from industry leaders at the forefront of cutting-edge technology, including integrating AI into workflow. Entrepreneurship also depends on solid management, project management, financing, strategy, and leadership, which will be covered by tutors and practitioners throughout the course.
The course concludes with the ‘Graduation Business Plan’, where you follow the NFTS Pre-incubator process to pitch a full proposal to transform an existing organisation or create a brand-new start-up ready for an incubator, accelerator or immediate investment.
Recent graduates have used the tools and learning from the course to investigate:
- How to run a dedicated AI-driven development unit for Hat Trick
- How to produce cross-media virtual productions with Unreal Engine
- How to create a new production company ready to be an emerging indie at Channel 4
- How to sell a Saudi film production to Netflix
- How to develop Webtoon apps for the global market
Teaching is combined with projects for the creative industry, reading, assignment work, and self-led and team-based research tasks. You will also receive regular 1:1s to support you in achieving your personal career goals.
Throughout the course, you’ll not only learn from the best visionaries, innovators, managers and entrepreneurs, but you’ll also have the chance to develop an expansive network of contacts invaluable for your career.
You should have a passion for entrepreneurship and/or an ambition to be a future executive of organisations where storytelling, IP, innovation and technology are their core. Your experience could be:
- Planning a new business or business venture
- Building a company
- Developing a not-for-profit organisation (creative or otherwise)
- Developing or implementing a new venture within a company
- Investing in entrepreneurial activity
- Working for a company that encourages creativity and entrepreneurship
- Working as a professional advisor (manager, lawyer, accountant, agent) who is passionate about the creative industries.
While many applicants will have a degree from a British or overseas university, we will consider applicants who do not have a degree if they have an impressive portfolio, a creative track record or an alternative qualification.
International students Visa and English language requirements
If you have any questions, please email info@nfts.co.uk.
The following item(s) should accompany your online application:
- Please submit one or more examples of material that demonstrates your entrepreneurial engagement. This could be: a commercial funding application, a business plan for a new project or business, a detailed description of a business challenge that you have taken on, or a full description of your role working with someone else setting up, financing or building a project or company.
- If your background has been as an investor or professional advisor, please submit an overview of your investment or advisory role, and at what level.
Funding Available
The NFTS awards more scholarships and bursaries to British students, relative to the size of our student body, than almost any other educational institution in the UK. If you’re successful at gaining a place on the course, you will be contacted by our funding team with details on how to apply for one of these scholarships.
Upcoming Events
Tutors
Showcase
Hear from digital entrepreneur (and previously Head of Creative Business) Dr Alex Connock about the Creative Business MA course.
Graduate Success
NFTS graduates are equipped to pursue careers across filmmaking, television production, advertising and more. Graduates have gone on to set up their own companies, produce award winning films and succeed across the creative business sector.
Recent credits and successes include...
Nick Horrowitz
Director, Photographer and Founder of independent creative studio and production house, The Clerkenwell Brothers.
Clients: Little Moons, Garnier, HOMETHINGS, Zapp
Graduate Success
NFTS graduates are equipped to pursue careers across filmmaking, television production, advertising and more. Graduates have gone on to set up their own companies, produce award winning films and succeed across the creative business sector.
Recent credits and successes include...
La Chimera
Cannes 2023 Official Selection
Producer Carlo Cresto-Dina
Graduate Success
NFTS graduates are equipped to pursue careers across filmmaking, television production, advertising and more. Graduates have gone on to set up their own companies, produce award winning films and succeed across the creative business sector.
Recent credits and successes include...
JoJo Rabbit
Producer Carthew Neal
Graduate Success
NFTS graduates are equipped to pursue careers across filmmaking, television production, advertising and more. Graduates have gone on to set up their own companies, produce award winning films and succeed across the creative business sector.
Recent credits and successes include...
Anna Bogutskaya
Freelance Writer, Host and Broadcaster, Co-Founder of horror film collective The Final Girls and Festival Director of Underwire Festival.
