Applications open today, 4 June, for the first online Executive Bachelor's Degree in Commercial and Retail Management ever launched in Portugal, a course developed jointly by the Jerónimo Martins Group and the Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
The degree has been prepared since 2021 by the Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics with contributions from Jerónimo Martins’ experts, and tested through the completion of two pilot courses with students from Jerónimo Martins Group´s companies, having received accreditation by A3ES at the end of 2022. The first edition of the degree opened in September 2023 with a class of 37 employees from Pingo Doce and Recheio, two Companies belonging to the Jerónimo Martins Group. From today, and until 17 June, applications for the 2024/2025 academic year will be open to the general public, targeting professionals with experience and completed high school education.
For Paulo Jesus, Learning & Innovation Global Director of the Group, "this is a strategic initiative for Jerónimo Martins, a business group mainly dedicated to food retail, which thus has, through a degree developed from scratch in partnership with the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, an important source of specialisation both for its current employees who want to develop - thus reinforcing the qualification of its intermediate leaderships - and for future professionals in the sector. I would also like to highlight the relevance of this being an online course in a mostly synchronous model, which makes it possible for anyone, from any region of the country, to follow the classes with their colleagues and take a degree from their home."
The Jerónimo Martins Group finances 80% of the annual tuition fees for its employees attending this degree, which has been accredited by the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Agency since 2022.
The investment in this degree reflects the Group's commitment to training, both for future professionals in the sector and for its employees, who thus have an important support to, in many cases, achieve their desire to attend a higher education course. Moreover, the Group’s investment in training is distributed at all levels of the organisation: in 2023 the Jerónimo Martins Group invested around 19 million euros in training, covering around 94% of its more than 130,000 employees.