However, as an Iranian living in Tehran, Ms Mohammadlous business school options were limited. So she signed up for a part-time executive MBA course run by Frances Neoma Business School. The course opened last year.
Now she flies to Paris every month to spend three days attending lectures on campus. Between French visits, she has teaching sessions in Tehran.
Neoma has 36 Iranian students on the programme, which is managed in Iran in partnership with Hamayesh Farazan, an education conference and exhibition organiser.
The Iran nuclear deal framework, which Tehran signed with world powers in 2015, encouraged western business schools to seek partnerships with local universities to teach commerce. The Iranian government supported the move, acknowledging the importance of management skills to economic growth. However, some fear progress has been undermined by recent US policy.
Ms Mohammadlou has taken classes in basic accountancy and spreadsheets as well as developing leadership and planning skills through modules on innovation and organisational behaviour. It has helped me greatly to understand different business cultures, she says. It helps me relate to our business partners in other countries.
Prospective students are in plentiful supply, according to Sepehr Tarverdian, Hamayesh Farazans chief executive.
It has been easy beyond our expectations, he says, adding that Neomas accreditation by two leading global bodies helped to persuade the Iranian government to approve the course.
Iran has long had good standards of higher education, but business masters degrees have been limited, according to Christophe Terrasse, director of international projects at accreditation body the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD).
Neither it nor its larger counterpart, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), has accredited an Iranian business school although the latter estimates 42 local institutions offer business degrees at the bachelor level or higher in Iran.
EFMD had hoped for an improvement in business education in Iran, after hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejads term ended in 2013 and sanctions by western nations were lifted. The assumption was that the Iranian state would be encouraged to invest in the economy, including training senior managers, Mr Terrasse says. That would have meant opportunities for western business schools to attract students and forge partnerships.
The actions of Donald Trump has undermined that, Mr Terrasse says.
The US presidents decision to pull his country out of the Iran nuclear deal in May and re-impose sanctions, as well as the proposed visa bans on certain Muslim-majority countries including Iran, has made Iranian students travelling to the US to study for an MBA a pretty hopeless prospect, Mr Terrasse says.
The situation is different for European schools. Jrme Couturier, associate dean of professional graduate programmes and executive education, says growing tensions between the US and Iran led his team to question whether their course may be put at risk. But the school has no significant partnerships with US institutions, so there is no reason not to continue. It is good for us to be doing something different and bold, he says.
President Trumps recent actions would be unlikely to affect the Neoma programme in the short term, Mr Tarverdian says. That is a relief to Hamed Kazemy, another of the Iranian cohort, who signed up with permission from his employer, Samsung. He is the South Korean companys sole employee in Iran. Like many other students, he has paid the 41,500 course fees himself.
His main goals are to improve his understanding of international business and the science of management, and he has shared what he has learnt with his network of 1,400 dealers in Iran.
He, too, is concerned that relations could sour at any moment, disrupting Iranian students education. Right now it is a very good opportunity, but I dont know whether this will still be available in future, Mr Kazemy says.
Ms Mohammadlou has found the Paris classes easy to attend because Neoma schedules them from Wednesday to Friday the Iranian weekend.
She believes she is part of a generation building a better economic future, and is determined to stay in Iran. But she enjoys the freedom to study abroad: People are able to express themselves more these days in Iran, but you are still limited in what you can say, she says. In Paris you are more free to speak.
# Tags
