10 Business Schools To Watch In 2025

Those are the questions that keep business school administrators up at night. Some solutions they’ve devised are bound to spur their peers to action. At IMD Business School, the program has overhauled its curriculum to teach the skills that AI can never replace. Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School is expected to sock $700 million into a Florida campus to educate the most underserved graduate business education market in the United States. Indiana University’s Kelley School is giving full-time MBA students the option to take their second year online, enabling them to get back to their careers sooner. By the same token, ESSEC Business is re-imagining business school education entirely through its Rise and Transcend strategies.

Such developments make these business schools ones “to watch” in the coming year. How are they deviating from the norm? Why does it matter? What are the early returns? Since 2016, Poets&Quants has examined the business programs that are taking risks and pursuing opportunities to enhance the value of the MBA experience. From revamping programming to doubling down on strengths, here is what the most innovative business schools are doing now so students can re-shape how business will be done tomorrow.

Kellogg Global Hub

Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management

Twenty years is a long time. Over that period, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School has rifled through five deans and built a 415,000-square-foot Global Hub along the banks of Lake Michigan. Back in 2004, Philip Kotler ranked alongside Peter Drucker as the most influential thinker in business. The Cubs hadn’t yet broken the Curse of the Billy Goat. And Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, and Remote Work were futurist concepts.

At the same time, Bloomberg Businessweek was the most influential business school ranking – and Kellogg reigned as the top MBA program in the world. And they led the pack from the Jacobs Center, a past-its-prime homage to the 1970s high school aesthetic. Since 2004, Kellogg had become another M7 school – unable to reclaim its #1 perch in any major full-time MBA ranking.

That is, until now.

Out of nowhere, Kellogg leaped 11 spots to rank 1st in Poets&Quants’ 2024-2025 MBA ranking – a weighted combination of The Financial Times, U.S News, Bloomberg Businessweek, LinkedIn, and Princeton Review rankings. Kellogg’s achievement also broke the stranglehold that Stanford GSB and the Wharton School held on the P&Q ranking. Since 2017, one or the other school has held the top spot. Now, Kellogg is in the driver’s seat, despite its highest ranking – 2nd – coming from The Princeton Review, which only carries a 10% weight in P&Q’s methodology.

Strangely enough, Kellogg didn’t exactly make major strides in any particular ranking besides The Princeton Review (where it was unranked the previous year). It climbed from 9th to 6th in The Financial Times ranking, buoyed by improvements in areas like Alumni Networking and Weighted Salary. With U.S. News, Kellogg actually lost a spot to 3rd. However, the school made up for it by vaulting from 7th to 3rd in Bloomberg Businessweek. Notably, Kellogg raised their score in four of the five categories, including ranking 4th in Networking, 5th in Compensation, and 10th in Learning. Together, these three rankings account for an 80% weight with P&Q.

LinkedIn garnered another 10% weight – and Kellogg moved from 6th to 5th here. However, Kellogg solidified the top spot based on its performance in The Princeton Review ranking, which is based on 18 distinct dimensions. Here, Kellogg ranked in the Top 10 across 12 dimensions – more than any other school. Notably, the school posted top 10 averages in five quality of life categories, which were based on survey responses from current students. They included Family Friendliness (2nd), Classroom Experience (3rd), Administration (7th), Best Professors (8th), and Campus Environment (8th). When The Princeton Review surveyed students about their school curriculum, Kellogg achieved the highest average score for its Management programming, along with ranking 4th for Consulting, 4th for Non-Profits, and 6th for Marketing.

That was enough to knock down Stanford GSB, which dropped from 3rd to 15th in The Financial Times ranking and barely made an appearance in The Princeton Review.

Kellogg MBA students in class

Can Kellogg make the #1 ranking stick? Well, it’s awfully early, but the early inputs are promising. In the Class of 2026, the school achieved gender parity, after flirting with the milestone in the 48%-49% range during the three years previous. Average GMAT rose two points to 733 too. In terms of outputs, Kellogg lost ground in pay and placement – but so did just about every peer program except Columbia Business School. Call it a draw.

That means Kellogg’s prospects might reside in student sentiment. You could say Kellogg – similar to MBA programs like Tuck and Haas – is a school students choose based on values and culture. That starts with the concept of team. According to school lore, Kellogg students will be involved in over 200 meetings over two years. That’s by design. The school views the future of work as a collaborative enterprise – one that requires flexibility, communication, cultural understanding, and relationship-building skills to orchestrate far-flung groups with very different backgrounds, capabilities, and workstyles. Such experiences give Kellogg MBAs a leg up when they enter the workforce says Greg Hanifee, associate dean for degree programs and operations at Kellogg, in a 2024 interview with P&Q.

“Group work is still the predominant feature of being at Kellogg…Every course is structured around a team…We create pods of six to seven students and it is a chance for students to get to know each other at an intimate level. There is camaraderie and competition but everyone understands that the team matters more than the individual. I have been at Kellogg for 11 years and students really come to Kellogg for that group experience in the classroom, experiential learning, global travel and this idea that the community is paramount. Students learn that they can do great things if they rely on each other.”

One example of this community spirit happens even before students step onto campus. Known as KWEST – Kellogg’s Worldwide Exploration Student Trip – the event takes place in summer when 20-25-member student groups meet at the airport without knowing where they are headed. Even more, students can’t share information about themselves like their education and previous jobs during the first few days until the ‘Big Reveal.’ In doing so, KWEST sheers away all the ornamentation, helping students learn “who” their Kellogg classmates are and not “what” they are in the words of 2024 grad Elizabeth Willis.

After spending a week together in places like Thailand or Malta, MBAs continued to build off these relationships when they streamed into the Global Hub says second-year Brandon Fazal. “Kellogg students are among the most high-energy, open-minded, and friendly people I’ve ever met. The first few weeks on campus have been very exciting–everyone on campus is open to chatting and making plans, such as small group dinners or weekend trips to Chicago.”

Jess Lanzillo, head creative of Dungeons & Dragons, spoke about building creative worlds at Kellogg’s first By Design Conference: Unlocking the Creative Advantage. Courtesy photo

The innovative programming is another advantage that enables Kellogg to distance itself from rivals. There is the MMM program, a dual MBA and M.S. Design Innovation in partnership with the Segal Design Institute at the McCormick School of Engineering. Emphasizing design thinking, the program takes a deep dive into areas like artificial intelligence and human-centered design. In a separate collaboration with the McCormick School, Kellogg also developed MBAi, a joint MBA and MS in Design Innovation that runs five semesters. Emily Haydon, assistant dean for admissions and financial aid, describes the program as an “AI-focused MBA” that connects machine learning with data science and business fundamentals. In the process, graduates are better equipped to bring together the technical and business sides of their enterprises.

“My MBAi equipped me with the foundational tools to execute on the job through forming more of a basis in strategy and analytics,” explains Alfredo Sone Scassi-Buff, who earned his MBAi in 2023. “More importantly, it empowered me with actionable frameworks that I’ve implemented to assist clients. On the AI side, the program’s emphasis on both the technical intricacies of AI and overarching business strategies has been important not only in understanding how we can build AI products but also in how we can use AI to build products themselves.”

Even more, the degree enabled him to develop a network – even at the Boston Consulting Group where he works. “I frequently collaborate with fellow Kellogg alumni at BCG, some of whom have become mentors who help me navigate and move forward in my career. Through engaging with diverse teams, delving into intricate data sets, or crafting visionary strategies for clients, the synergy between MBAi’s academic rigor and BCG’s practical expertise shines brightly.”

Beyond cultural buy-in, deep resources, and creative programming, Kellogg’s staying power is rooted in its unique location. Fact is, Kellogg is an urban school, just a half hour north of Chicago. The Windy City, home to 15 Fortune companies and a robust startup ecosystem, is packed with every amenity: electrifying concerts and festivals, sprawling beaches and parks, unforgettable theaters and galleries, elite dining and shopping – and even occasionally relevant sports teams. Back at Northwestern, there is college town Evanston – slow, spacious, and peaceful. This creates a ‘best of both worlds’ dynamic where students can jump into the mix…or simply get away from it all.

“Evanston’s tight-knit feel means that Kellogg students can really get to know each other both inside the classroom and out in the community,” explains Catherine Malloy, who’ll be graduating this spring. “I love knowing that I’m equally likely to see familiar Kellogg faces at a Cubs game and an Evanston coffee shop, and the camaraderie that comes with living within walking distance of my 600+ classmates is something that I haven’t taken for granted.”

EDHEC’s latest Global MBA cohort is 94% international and 57% female.

EDHEC Business School

If you think EDHEC Business School came out of nowhere, you haven’t been paying attention.

Last year, the French school dropped 10 spots to 57th in The Financial Times MBA Ranking. In the Bloomberg Businessweek ranking, it didn’t even crack the Top 10. Behind the scenes, the school has been investing heavily in areas like ESG and Entrepreneurship. That funding yielded big returns in November when Poets&Quants ranked EDHEC as the top MBA program in Entrepreneurship.

How did EDHEC pull off this feat? For starters, the school had the highest percentage of Entrepreneurship electives: 55% of its catalog is devoted to the field. It also boasted the highest ratio of entrepreneurs-in-residence. In fact, the school reported that it had 347 entrepreneurs-in-residence available during the 2023-2024 school year. Entrepreneurship is considered so valuable that 100% of EDHEC MBAs are involved in a startup in one form or another – and over 60% take an entrepreneurship-focused elective.

EDHEC also ranked among the best for startup money available to students, incubator space, mentorship hours, and the percentage of faculty who teach courses in entrepreneurship and innovation. The school’s Entrepreneurship track ranks as the school’s most popular, attracting 27% of the most recent graduating class. By the same token, 13% of the class had launched their own venture by graduation, with another 10% joining a startup.

You won’t just find entrepreneurship centered in EDHEC’s Nice flagship campus. That said, the school’s TechForward incubator is based in Nice, where students specializing in Entrepreneurship pitch business angels to conclude the program. However, EDHEC also maintains an incubator in the historic Jean Arnault campus in Lille. Even more, the school rents 110 workstations in Paris’ Station F, the world’s largest startup campus – home to over 1,000 startups and 150 funds. According to EDHEC Dean Emmanuel Métais, in a 2024 interview, EDHEC incubates roughly 100 startups per year. Per student, the school also offers three hours of one-on-one entrepreneurship career coaching with Edgardo da Fonseca, a serial entrepreneur and angel investor.

EDHEC doesn’t just teach and support entrepreneurship, they live it.  In 2012, the school spun off a company from its EDHEC-Risk Institute, Scientific Beta, which provided faculty intellectual property to investors. Eight years later, the school sold it for €200 million. Like any nonprofit, EDHEC channeled the proceeds back to the school. This included opening the EDHEC-Risk Climate Impact Institute to focus on climate finance. The school further started a Venture Fund, GENERATIONS Powered by EDHEC, using another €40 million from the sale. This fund, in partnership with RING Capital, supports ventures that are “Responsible by Design” – or RED.

EDHEC’s campus in Nice, France. Courtesy photo

“[These are] startups that, from their inception, will not only try to create a market and to earn money and to grow, but also to tackle a societal issue. This is the kind of startup we really want to see and to incubate,” explains Dean Métais in a 2023 interview with P&Q.

However, EDHEC’s ambitions extend far beyond entrepreneurship, which is just one part of the larger Generations 2050 strategic plan. Already backed by €270 million of pledged commitments, the plan has earmarked €112 million for campus renovations and €40 million for green finance initiatives. That doesn’t count another €41 million split almost evenly between expanding sustainable entrepreneurship and creating EDHEC AI. Along the way, the plan is looking to boost faculty and research staff from 170 to 270 positions.

Lasting through 2028, Generations 2050 is predicated on three broad goals. First, the school wants to develop models that are net positive, not just net zero. This means nursing early-stage startups that align with its RED methodology, along with opening a Centre for Net Positive Business to combat food insecurity and carbonization in the construction industry. Second, EDHEC is looking to advance climate science, opening a Climate Finance School while continuing to build its EDHEC-Risk Climate Impact Institute. Finally, EDHEC is starting its Transformative Journey, a learning pathway designed to guide students on managing organizational transformation using tools from economics and the social and environmental sectors. As part of this transformation, the school will be funding EDHEC AI, a program to boost artificial intelligence coursework and capabilities in the classroom.

According to Dean Métais, Generations 2050 is an outgrowth of the school’s roots. “From its inception, EDHEC has been very focused on the humanities – the human side of business. We were created in the north of France by Catholic industrialists in 1906, and from the very beginning, we placed a huge emphasis on the human side of business. What this says about EDHEC is that we believe business can solve problems, and that business must have a positive impact on the world. We want, through our research and the education we provide to our students – who will soon become decision-makers themselves – to have a positive impact on both business and society.”

Even more, the strategy amplifies EDHEC’s marquee attraction to students, adds Métais. “One of the reasons students choose EDHEC is what we call our “Empower to Transform.” It’s one of the main priorities in our plan. We aim to educate our students to “walk the talk.” We want them to have a real impact, and through the education we provide, we teach them how to change businesses and organizations from the inside.”

EDHEC MBA Students

EDHEC is home to 9,500 undergraduate, graduate, and executive students, operating campuses out of Nice, Paris, Lonon and Singapore. The full-time MBA program lasts 10 months and houses roughly 80 students from 30 nationalities each year. The school also maintains a 16-month EMBA program along with several Master’s programs. These include a Master in Management and Executive Education programs that are ranked 4th- and 5th-best in the world by The Financial Times respectively.

The school has also stayed busy rolling out new programs over the past year. This past fall, EDHEC launched a Global Economic Transformation & Technology (GETT) Europe Master’s Degree. Through this program, students will earn a MiM from EDHEC, an MSC in Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Management from Imperial College Business and a certificate involving data and technology from ESMT Berlin. The program is a variation of the school’s popular GETT program in Asia, which also includes Sungkyunkwan University’s Graduate School of Business and the University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School.

“This partnership exemplifies our commitment to excellence and innovation and offers an immersion into three of Europe’s leading cities as well as expanding the frontiers of technology, entrepreneurship, and management,” says Leila Guerra, vice dean for education at Imperial College Business School, in a statement. “Whilst at Imperial, students will be empowered to become the next generation of venture founders, venture builders, innovators, and investors to create and grow new business opportunities while considering the implications of social and environmental factors.”

Last spring, EDHEC announced that it would add an online MBA program to its portfolio, which launched in the fall with a similar-sized cohort starting this spring. Lasting 24 months and priced at €39,000, the online MBA is the school’s latest foray into the space after offering an online master’s degree in analytics, corporate finance, and international business. True to the school’s Generations 2050 aspirations the program will integrate green finance, black market threats like cybercrime and money laundering, and AI models and applications. To bring the full-time program’s on-site company visits into the online space, EDHEC has developed what it calls “digital learning expeditions” – virtual tours and narratives around top companies in various industries.

Alas, EDHEC is following its ‘walk the talk’ expectation for students – investing heavily to provide a truly relevant education that meets students where they are…and where they want to be. Increasingly, this is why students are choosing EDHEC as the place to pursue their graduate business education.

“I think that especially for the MBA, I hope our positive impact philosophy is something that will mean something to them and educate them to cope with these social challenges that we face,” adds Dean Métais. “I think that the value proposition also is the return on investment. It seems to me that we offer an outstanding experience for a reasonable cost. France is a country in which education is free, so it’s impossible for us to charge the same tuition fees as our U.S. competitors. We want to be in the global competition, so we have to deliver an outstanding experience, but we have to keep our prices reasonable. And, I mean, our MBA is located on the French Riviera, and lifestyle is part of that as well.”

Vanderbilt Owen MBA students in front of Nashville skyline

Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management

Nearly 40 million people live in California. Here, you’ll find five business schools among U.S. News’ Top 50 full-time MBA programs. Texas is home to over 30 million people – and six Top 50 programs. Florida? Think 22 million people – and one program (which enrolls maybe 120 full-time MBA students).

Yes, Florida lags behind its peers in the MBA space. Just look at next door Georgia – with half the population – boasting three programs in the Top 30 alone. In business, that gap translates to opportunity – a blue ocean with lots of pent-up demand. All you need is one established brand to colonize it.

Last year, the Owen Graduate School of Management stepped up to do just that.

In April, Owen made a game-changing announcement. The school would be expanding its footprint into Florida. It wouldn’t be just some satellite renting the floor in some corporate park. This would be an actual campus in downtown West Palm Beach with over 1,000 master’s and doctoral candidates taking classes. It would be a long-term investment in the full-time market with deep roots in the community.

How big? In an August interview with P&Q, Owen Dean Thomas Steenburgh projected the price tag to be up to $700 million dollars, with staffing running 80-90 faculty members. Along with a business school, the operation is expected to include a college of computer science and artificial intelligence, with the campus to be built on seven acres of government-owned land.

The Florida expansion is part of a “growth mindset” that Dean Steenburgh has brought to Owen after taking the reins in 2023. After all, the business school houses roughly 600 graduate business students (along with a cohort of undergraduate business minors). However, Steenburgh sees a huge upside in serving the South Florida market.

“There has been a huge flight of capital south over the past 20 years,” he tells P&Q in a 2024 interview. “A campus in Florida would give our school growth consistent with our brand. We are in a city that is on fire economically. This would be a similar situation with huge economic growth. There are consistencies around that growth like real estate. We should have a program in real estate to take advantage of two markets where capital is flowing in recent years.”

Owen MBA students

At the same time, Owen would be catering to a different market, with the Kellogg School running an Executive MBA program in Coral Gables and Warrington College being a dominant player in the online space. That doesn’t count the synergies that the business program could create with the in-house computer science department in data science, Steenburgh adds. Even more, the area is home to 1,100 Vanderbilt alumni, creating a well-spring of access and goodwill. Best of all, the school already has financial support, with Stephen Ross ponying up $100 million provided Vanderbilt can purchase the land. The latter is one reason why Steenburgh has tempered his enthusiasm with a clear-eyed realism.

“There is a lot that has to happen before this goes forward. We would have to raise a lot of money and there’s reason to believe that can happen down there. Most fundraising campaigns have a quiet period and this is not that. Within 18 months to a year, we will know exactly where we will be. While there is no public number, hundreds of millions of dollars need to be raised. We don’t want to do anything second-rate. Business schools are expensive.”

The Palm Beach facility may be years into the future, but it also represents a deviation from the norm. In a world that increasingly pivoting away from the on-campus, two-year experience, Owen is doubling down on it, expanding its brand into an underserved market along way. In Steenburgh’s words, Owen is “going to take some big swings at things” in the future.”

Why not? The momentum is on the school’s side.

Look no further than the rankings, where Owen climbed from 27th to 20th (U.S. News), 25th to 20th (Bloomberg Businessweek) and 21st to 19th (LinkedIn). In a survey of current students conducted by The Princeton Review last spring, Owen posted the 3rd-highest score for its Faculty and Family Friendliness and the 4th-best score for its Campus Environment. Regarding faculty, Owen boasts an All-Star lineup of distinguished researchers and talented teachers: Tim Vogus, Kelly Goldsmith, and Robert Whaley. Even Richard Florida, a mainstay on the Thinkers50 list, is a visiting professor at Owen this year. Of course, there is always Brian McCann, an Owen alum and expert in strategic management who has been a favorite of many graduates, including ’23 alum Alyssa Patel.

“Each class has been planned with extreme precision,” she tells P&Q. “From simulations to classroom discussions, he has various active learning tools designed to help his students think through strategy frameworks and their applications. Furthermore, his feedback on assignments is incredibly thorough and timely, highlighting his commitment to each student. His expertise, coupled with his sense of humor and dry wit, creates a classroom experience where you are constantly kept on your toes.”

In the same Princeton Review survey, current students also ranked Owen’s Human Resources and Operations programming as the 3rd- and 4th-best in the world (with Management and Consulting finishing 7th and 9th). Along with the high satisfaction rates in these areas, Owen excels in another area: Healthcare – a highly lucrative, recession-proof specialization. That’s hardly surprising considering the Nashville area is home to over 900 healthcare firms, including giants like HCA Healthcare (a $65 billion dollar company)y. According to the Nashville Chamber, healthcare employs 330,000 people ad produces $68 billion dollars for Middle Tennessee, with one-of-every-two private hospital beds managed out of the region.

Vanderbilt University Owen Graduate School of Management

To capitalize on this advantage, Owen has developed a robust Healthcare concentration, with industry courses covering areas ranging from analytics and finance to marketing and economics. At the same time, Owen MBAs benefit from the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, one of the world’s top teaching hospitals, being less than a half mile down the road. That makes for opportunities for MBAs pursuing healthcare concentrations to find experience and mentors.

“I chose to come study healthcare at Owen because Nashville is the mecca of healthcare,” writes Avani Gangavelli, a 2024 grad. “The education and networking I am involved in at Owen has proven that this was the right place for me to get my MBA. I’m learning about current problems in healthcare in real time, due to our incredible professors, and brainstorming what we can do as future leaders to improve the patient experience.”

Healthcare isn’t the only increasingly critical area where the Owen MBA excels. Owen also differentiates itself through its two-year Leadership Development Program (LDP), which it operates in partnership with Korn-Ferry and Hogan Associates. LDP is grounded in leadership research and delivered through personalized executive coaching, hands-on group activities, and individual reading and reflection. As a whole, it iis designed to help students gain self-awareness, sharpen their communication skills, and match an executive presence with a team-oriented mindset. Even more, the LDP program is considered so valuable that 90% of Owen graduates complete it.

“Through the Leadership Development Program, students have access to executive-level quality resources, with individual tailoring and a flexible design,” explains Bailey McChesney, Owen’s director of MBA admissions, in a 2024 interview with P&Q. “Our program incorporates resources like the Hogan Assessment, a top leadership development organization used by Fortune 500 companies, into an individualized design that meets students where they are. We are also intentional about providing students with the tools and skills they need to leverage the leadership skills they develop within the program for career-long application, making them more competitive in the marketplace.”

Structurally, the MBA program also applies a wide breadth approach using Mods. Basically, students complete courses in quarters instead of semesters so they can touch more topics over their two years at Owen. That penchant for breadth is carried over to Owen’s new signature event: Convoy Conference. Billed as “SXSW meets Davos but with a healthy dose of Anchor Down,” the three-day event will bring over 100 alumni speakers to campus, along with industry leaders, to address entrepreneurship, venture capital and private equity. It would be hard to top this ambitious effort in terms of expertise and networking.

“The conference offers two tracks with a dedicated track just to healthcare startups because of Nashville and Vanderbilt’s prominence in the field,” explains Bailey in a 2025 interview with P&Q. “Main session tracks blend keynotes (Mark Cuban, Jeff Rothschild) with main stage panels (The Unicorn Lessons, Accelerating Growth, Developing Talent, and Legends & Parables) with industry (AI, Deeptech, Crypto, Fintech, RealTech, Cybersecurity, CleanTech, Food/AgTech, Consumer Tech, Supply Chain Tech, Creative Economy, Aerospace) and topic breakouts. The event is groundbreaking in its multi-day format, breadth of topics covered, opportunities to advance the university startup ecosystem, awards ceremony and concert, and alumni engagement.”

Now, Owen is fresh off the $55 million renovation of its Management, which expanded its space by 50%. Sure enough, the program is turning to bigger plans like its West Palm Beach campus. With an institution like Vanderbilt University – nicknamed the “Harvard of the South” – behind it, Owen is poised to make a big move. To do that, Owen knows it must never take its eye off the fundamentals that brought them to this point: a mix of individual attention and rigorous demands that fuel transformative growth.

“Having every resource for success is crucial – world-class faculty and dynamic classrooms, life-changing career opportunities, immersive experiences and surroundings, and faculty, staff and peers that care about your success,” adds Bailey in a 2024 interview with P&Q.  “The Vanderbilt MBA program has all of those things, but what differentiates us is that our small size, extremely close-knit community and incredible setting in Nashville, Tennessee mean that all of those resources are readily accessible and the people behind them all know your name. Within a one-minute walk in our building, a student can see their Leadership Coach, Career Coach, Academic Advisor and professors, and will walk by dozens of their classmates gathering together. Our community cares deeply about not only the outcomes students achieve, but their experience and growth in the program, and success well beyond business school.”

IESE North Campus Exterior

IESE Business School

Get bigger. Get better. Get bolder.

That’s the mantra for every ambitious organization. Be the leader. The innovator. The standard.  For business schools – be the destination. Know who you are, what you do, and why you’re here – and make sure everyone else does too.

The word is getting out on IESE Business School, the Iberian Ivy defined by case method excellence, deep global capabilities, and a humanistic approach to education. Affiliated with Opus Dei, a Catholic institution devoted to service, the school boasts locations in Barcelona, New York City, Munich, Madrid, and São Paulo. Even more, IESE is associated with an entrepreneurial mindset and excellence in ESG education.

Such advantages make the program attractive to students worldwide. To meet increased demand, IESE announced in May that it would boost the size of its fall intake by 20%. In real numbers, that meant increasing class size from 350 to 420 students – the first time in eight years that the school has added a section.

According to Professor Mireia Las Heras, IESE’s MBA academic director, the larger class offers a range of benefits to students. “Larger MBA programs are highly attractive to recruiters because they prefer to engage with a substantial pool of talented individuals in one place,” Las Heras tells P&Q in a 2025 interview. “This growth also allows us to develop a broader and more connected alumni network, which is invaluable for career support, mentorship, and lifelong connections. Additionally, it enables us to strengthen and expand the electives we offer, our career resources and enhance our other extra-curricular services and activities.”

Turns out, the results were better than IESE’s leadership team anticipated. The school ended up enrolling 445 students in the fall class – 25 more than projected (and nearly 100 more than the previous class). Not only did applications increase by 16% during the 2023-2024 cycle, but the school boosted its percentage of women to 40% — an all-time high. That wasn’t the only high mark achieved by the Class of 2026, adds Las Heras.

“We´ve also grown in terms of the internationality and diversity of the IESE MBA. Our class composition stands out as one of the most diverse globally, with 88% international students. Furthermore, no single nationality represents more than 14% of the class, ensuring a truly multicultural learning environment where no single perspective dominates. In our small working groups, which consist of 9 members, nearly every group is comprised of individuals from different nationalities, with no more than two students sharing the same country of origin…This rich mix of backgrounds fosters a global mindset and prepares students for leadership in an interconnected world.”

IESE MBA Students relaxing on campus

This shift, while not tectonic, aligns with IESE’s approach, which leans heavily on case studies from across the world. This increasingly diverse class composition also plays into IESE’s structural strengths: highly-experienced faculty and students with wide-ranging backgrounds.

“What truly sets IESE apart is our ability to integrate multiple innovative elements into a cohesive, transformative experience—particularly around international business,” Las Heras observes. “For example, our faculty is extremely international, with professors who can share insights from living, working, and doing business in regions around the world, and from varied research expertise and perspectives. This is mirrored by our highly international student body, comprising individuals who come from a wide range of geographies, as well as industries and backgrounds – everything from logistics, healthcare, operations, arts, and entrepreneurship. This ensures a mix of international perspectives and experiences in class discussions, and also enhances global networking opportunities within the cohort.”

Another differentiator is IESE’s stability. Over the past four years, IESE has ranked between 10th (2022) and 3rd (2023) globally with The Financial Times, including 5th in 2024 – a clear indicator that the program can compete against the very best. This year alone, IESE finished higher than Northwestern University’s Kellogg School, MIT’s Sloan School, University of Chicago’s Booth School, and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. IESE even placed above Harvard Business School, whose faculty helped launch the program in the early 1960’s.

True to this consistency, IESE continued to excel where it has long held an advantage. In a survey of current students and recent alumni conducted by The Financial Times, the school ranked 5th for its Alumni Network and 8th for its Career Services. When it comes to the FT’s Satisfaction survey, IESE posted a 9.603 average on a 10-point scale – one of the highest in the world. Like The Financial Times ranking, IESE finished as the 2nd-best program in Europe according to Bloomberg Businessweek too.

Being a Harvard protégé, the centerpiece of the IESE classroom experience remains the case method. Picture 600 cases and 4,000 pages of reading during their two years at IESE – requiring up to three hours of prep for each. Pretty daunting, indeed. However, the cases have a point that’s central to becoming a successful manager. They act as muscle memory. During each case, students identify the important themes and data points, take inventory of the knowns and uncertainties, and weigh alternatives and tradeoffs. During team meetings and classroom discussions, students must present their ideas and grapple with tough questions from peers. In the process, they experienced issues from a wide range of industries, geographies, and functions. And they do this every single class day until it becomes second nature to take into the workforce.

Not only do students develop a thicker skin and think more holistically through the case method, but learn to bring their A-game to every single class. More than that, the case method is a daily reminder to stay open and humble.

“While we discussed hundreds of cases during our time together, there was always somebody who had been in the situation of the case or knew the industry from inside and could share his invaluable experiences,.” explains ’24 alum Markus Kaschnigg.

The view of Barcelona from the IESE campus

Not only does the case method remind IESE students of their blind spots, but also hammers home that there isn’t always a right or wrong answer, just better or worse – short-term or long-term. “Each time, I realize that the “obvious” features I identified alone only covered 10-30% of the entire problem and solution set, adds Ross Gething, a classmate of Kaschnigg. “This occurs three times a day, 5 days a week.”

That’s one of the differences at IESE. The students embrace being in a throwback environment that embraces a hefty workload. There is a joke at IESE about the ‘Impossible Trinity’ at IESE: Academics, Social Activities, and Sleeping – and students can only choose two! For students like Christa Zacharia, now a second-year, they wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I think this intensity is the best training for life after the MBA, where we will likely be in roles where we need to prioritize and decide where to use our limited time effectively.”

Along with the ‘Impossible Trinity’, IESE is also known for the Big E’s: ESG and Entrepreneurship. In 2024, the school ranked as the #2 MBA program for ESG according to The Financial Times. In recent years, the school has doubled down on this strength by launching an Institute for Sustainability Leadership and a concentration in Sustainability & Responsible Business. IESE also maintains a concentration in Entrepreneurship. In fact, 30% of IESE MBAs start a business within five years of graduation, says Marc Badia, the school’s deputy dean, in a 2024 interview with P&Q. At the same time, IESE students can draw from plenty of expertise from IESE founders, adds Badia. He points out they have produced 72,000 jobs across five continents and attracted $11.8 billion dollars in investment.

IESE student founders can also tap into Barcelona, which is just down the hill from the school. In 2024, StartupBlink ranked the city as the 5th-best startup ecosystem in Europe. Data showed that Barcelona was the top city in the video games and pharmaceutical industries, with the startup sector being responsible for over 20,000 jobs and benefiting from the support of a business-friendly Catalan government. Still, Barcelona life is a bigger selling point than Barcelona business to prospective MBAs. After all, it is the one place where you can swim in the Mediterranean Ocean, hike the hills, and ski down the mountains – all in one day. Every week, there is live music and festivals – not to mention world-class delicacies like tapas and croquetas. And the mix of Gothic and Modernist architecture never stops kindling the creative spirit.

In other words, IESE isn’t just a place to learn. It is a place to live. And that’s why it will continue to attract top talent from across the globe.

‘Barcelona is such a beautiful and lively city and I really enjoy that there always seems to be something happening somewhere,” adds Emeline Beltjens, a 2024 grad “In summer it’s the local festival of each Barrio; in winter it’s the Christmas markets and processions for the different celebrations. It is not too small and not too big, so it’s possible to walk or cycle to different places and the infrastructure for that is really good. It also helps that it’s terrace-weather all year long!”

Tuck Campus

Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College

A balance sheet reflects the health of an organization. In education, health isn’t necessarily measured in their EBITDA. For some, success correlates to an endowment size or alumni contributions. For others, it comes down to student satisfaction. In business schools, there are always the year-to-year inputs and outputs.

Whatever model is used, Dartmouth College’s Tuck School enjoyed a banner year in 2024 – particularly against the headwinds that repelled its counterparts.

You could start with admissions for the Class of 2026. Tuck reported a 36% increase in applications over the previous year. That shouldn’t surprise anyone – it was a rising tide that lifted many top schools. At Columbia Business School, for example, applications jumped from 5,895 to 7,487 during the 2023-2024 cycle. There was an 11.5% application increase at MIT’s Sloan School during the same period. Still, Tuck’s 2,734 applications represent an all-time time. Even more, Tuck didn’t comprise: it remained a highly selective Ivy, accepting just 31.2% of applicants – a 9% decrease from the previous year. What’s more, the Class of 2026 averaged a higher GMAT score and undergraduate GPA that in years past.

While applications skyrocketed across the board, graduate placement and starting pay lagged behind previous years in most business schools. Tuck wasn’t immune from the trend in 2024. Three-month offers slipped from 96% to 91% for the Class of 2024.  However, the school was spared from declines endured by peer schools. At New York University’s Stern School, for example, offers plummeted from 94.3% to 86.1%. By the same token, Duke University’s Fuqua School reported 90-day offers dropping from 93% to 85% as well.

Still, Tuck set the bar in a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year. While base pay and bonus held steady at $175,000 and $30,000 for a third consecutive year, average pay actually increased by $300 to $200,200. That may sound pollyannish, but compare those numbers to peer schools. At UC-Berkeley’s Haas School, base pay dipped by nearly $3,500 – numbers that coincide with Northwestern University’s Kellogg School (-$5,000), the University of Chicago’s Booth School (-$5,000), and the University of Michigan’s Ross School (-$5,000).

Think rankings reflect a school’s viability? Despite ceding a little ground, Tuck remained a Top 10 program in all of the major rankings: The Financial Times, U.S. News & World Report, Bloomberg Businessweek, and LinkedIn. More than that, they are winning over their most important constituency: their customers. In a 2024 Financial Times satisfaction survey targeting alumni and students, Tuck averaged 9.724 on a 10-point scale. To put that into context, it was second only to Stanford GSB among The FT’s Top 20 programs. More than that, it represents momentum, as the school scored a 9.55 just two years ago.

Discussion at Tuck orientation

It’s a virtuous cycle: happy students evolved into engaged alumni who don’t need much hand-holding to open doors for students and contribute mightily to their success. And you could say alumni financial support is another component of the Tuck balance sheet. In 2023, Tuck concluded its Tuck Difference campaign. It yielded an 81% participation rate – more than double the usual rate at most business schools. More than that, it netted $416 million from alumni and friends – way higher than the school’s $250 million goal. In addition, Tuck attracted a $52.1 million anonymous gift in 2022 to fund an annual global summit. Last year, the school snagged a $37.5 million dollar gift from Glenn Britt, a ’72 Tuck grad ad former CEO of Time Warner Cable, which will go entirely to student scholarships. As Tuck celebrates its 125th anniversary this year, the school intends to lean on its Team of 100, says Joe Hall, senior associate dean for teaching and learning, in a 2024 interview with P&Q.

“The Team of 100 campaign started as an idea to bring together 100 alumni donors to support endowed scholarship funding and raise $125 million to commemorate 125 years of the Tuck School. To date, the Team of 100 has raised $112 million toward its ultimate goal. The strides in scholarship support will help Tuck attract and enroll exceptionally talented and well-matched students, including those who will take on higher financial burdens.”

Tuck alumni don’t just dig deep into their wallets to support students who follow in their footsteps.  Each year, the school estimates, 550 alumni trek back to Hanover to speak to classes or help with interviews – despite the school being two hours from the nearest metro (Boston). Hall would argue that the Tuck Network may be the school’s biggest asset – one whose true impact is hard to quantify in a black-or-red world.

“Tuck is notorious for having the most loyal and responsive alumni network in the world,” Hall continues. “We hear it from students every year—if they reach out to Tuck alumni, the response they receive is open, warm, and inviting. Alumni are eager to share their expertise and advice, to ensure that the next generation of Tuck students has just as transformative an experience as they did. The power of the Tuck alumni network has proven especially crucial in times of economic volatility. At every turn, Tuck alumni step up and offer whatever support they can, and that support can directly help students secure internships and full-time positions.”

What’s behind this enthusiasm? For one, it is an outgrowth of Tuck’s ‘Pay-It-Forward’ mission. According to ’23 alum Sam Haws, second-year students go out of their way to help first-years because “they want them to experience the same success they were able to find.” That carries over into their alumni years. Even more, Tuck is an ‘all-in” culture that attracts a certain student. They are high potentials who value community, love the outdoors, and relish being in a small community. And they aren’t afraid of a little cold, knowing it is bookended by gorgeous falls and springs. At the same time, Tuckies – as they’re called – are expected to be involved. Whether it is in extracurriculars, coursework, or even small dinners or ski runs, every class member plays a part – if not taking ownership on occasion.

“The number of jobs to be done lines up pretty well with the number of students, and it creates a motivating sense of shared communal purpose,” adds ’23 grad Andrew Key. “Moreover, I think it means that there are enough leadership and other developmental opportunities to go around.”

Dartmouth Tuck School of Business >>> File photo

Such demands are one reason why Tuck is sometimes referred to as a ‘24×7 MBA.’ “Tuck students and alumni are exceptionally bought into the school’s culture,” adds first-year James Lewis. “I think it’s a product of Tuck’s location. Everyone that comes here made the decision to leave the city they had established themselves in and dive into a small school with a tight-knit culture. We’re all starting from scratch, and people go out of their way to make the most of it…Whether it’s organizing parties, hiking trips, or apple picking, students are constantly creating opportunities to connect and explore the Upper Valley.”

True to any financial statement, long-term investments have yielded impressive returns. Two years ago, the school rolled out its Tuck Sprints, short courses on timely topics, that have proven popular with faculty and students alike. At the same time, the school is finishing the second year of its Tuck Compass program. Tuck Compass provides students with a “Personal Board of Advisors” – which includes a leadership coach, alumni, and a career services adviser. Using the insights from their one-on-one sessions with board members, students develop a plan that holds them accountable for pursuing opportunities and meeting benchmarks.

“Students meet with their board regularly throughout the academic year to receive advice, expertise, and assistance in support of their individual goals and to help bring clarity to their decision-making,” explains Joe Hall. “In many ways, the PBA is a perfect encapsulation of the personal, connected, and transformative experience that is unique to Tuck. We’re really excited to see the PBA program, and all of Tuck Compass, grow after a successful first year with the classes of 2024 and 2025.”

The Class of 2026 has found Tuck Compass equally valuable. “These engagements are not simply a check-in,” adds first-year Jason Gaines. “It’s a series of meetings with structured goals and the space to challenge the student beyond their comfort zone. The entire purpose is to grow beyond one’s limits by leveraging their PBA’s experience and wisdom. To date, I have nearly a fully constructed board who has begun to help me think differently about experiences to obtain for future biopharmaceutical executive leadership.”

Happy students. Invested alumni. Growing popularity. Healthy revenue stream. That’s not an easy trick to pull for a program like Tuck, which caters exclusively to full-time MBAs. Unlike a balance sheet, an MBA is more about ineffable experiences and relationships. As the Class of 2026 is learning, their Tuck years will inevitably be the most memorable years of their lives.

“During our summer term, we spent most days swimming, kayaking, canoeing, and standup paddling on the Connecticut River,” reminisces first-year Ignacia Ulloa Peters. “As soon as the leaves started turning, I bought a used gravel bike and have been using it to explore the fall foliage across the Upper Valley and joined some Tuck Community Rides—an opportunity to spend time with classmates, professors, and Tuck staff outside of daily academics. With winter around the corner, I plan to spend as much time as possible skiing. Having such amazing access to the outdoors was a fundamental part of my decision in picking Tuck.”

IMD Mountain Discovery Trip

IMD Business School

Picture this: You are a top one-year business school. Bloomberg Businessweek has ranked you as the #1 European MBA program in four of the past five years. And the market views you as elite in the executive education and executive MBA space too. Your brand is associated with excellence in leadership training and sustainability programming. Let’s face it: who wouldn’t love being part of a premier small school experience…next to Lake Geneva, no less.

That’s the positioning of IMD Business School: an academic powerhouse revered by alumni and employers alike. So why did they start over with a “blank sheet” when their formula was already so successful? As teachers of business, they understood what happened to carriage manufacturers when Fords started rolling off the assembly line or how video chains quickly folded after consumers got a whiff of streaming. With the advent of artificial intelligence, IMD recognized that the roles they were preparing students for were being wiped out by the ultimate disruptor. In response, the school decided to act before it was too late, focusing on making its students proficient in the areas that machine intelligence could never replace.

“We reorganized everything,” says Omar Toulan, MBA dean at IMD, in a 2024 interview with P&Q. “We needed to take this up to another level. We are focusing on elemental human traits. I have yet to see an AI system that can be an effective leader. You still need someone in the room to use judgment in making the final decision and motivate people to implement it, someone with the intelligence and the courage to make difficult decisions. I would put my bet on leadership.”

Starting in January, IMD is taking one of the biggest calculated gambles among business schools recently. While the school will maintain many of its signature experiences such as the Leadership Streams, it will approach business education as if AI will completely alter how organizations operate and interact. After surveying the market and crunching the numbers, IMD couldn’t dance around the results: there are certain functions, currently performed by managers, that can now be handled by AI technologies. Hence, the school is pivoting towards teaching and evaluating the mastery of a new set of skills.

“We all need to reconsider what we teach, how we teach, and how we evaluate people,” says Toulan. “Graduates may not have to do certain analyses themselves anymore, but they will have to ask the right questions from AI. AI can be extremely time-saving, allowing you to focus on more critical issues. The goal is not to take a defensive posture against AI. When you are talking about projects and papers, you need to be conscious of the kinds of questions you are asking and you need to use AI as a partner. It’s not something to defend against. We introduced an AI policy in 2023. It is not a policy that simply says you can’t do A, B, and C. It details what you should do to use AI effectively and properly.”

Notably, IMD has codified 10 ‘transversal’ skills. Taught during the first two weeks of the week, these are the skills MBA students must master to maximize the value of AI tools and remain viable in an increasingly tech-driven world.

On the surface, this may seem like heresy in a program regaled for its deeply personalized approach. After all, the program is known for its one-on-one coaching, even offering up to 20 hours of psychoanalysis to help students understand how their experiences and underlying values shape their decision-making and leadership style. These elements won’t change, however. What may surprise students is who – or what – is now involved in evaluations.

According to Toulan, AI tools will be deployed to help with the assessments of video and PowerPoint presentations. However, IMD’s grading system will be a reflection of its larger approach to machine learning. Toulan points to faculty using assessment tools like Microsoft copilot in their grading He adds that professors will also hold quarterly meetings with students to walk them through their progress in the 10 skills. On top of that, the school will roll out a dual grading system, with students assessed separately on what they know and what they demonstrate.

“People wanted a greater emphasis on skill-based learning and not just course-based learning,” says Toulan. “We worked down to a list of critical skills we want to track across the entire program. These are skills that an MBA needs to dominate before they go to the job market. By working with every professor in the program, we can identify how a person is doing on certain skills.”

At the same time, the school will be setting up dashboards so students can assess their own development. Still, like any launch, IMD anticipates a few bugs here and there starting out. That’s one reason why the school has been running past assignments through both faculty members and AI tools to train both on the new rubrics using the same sources. While IMD continues to heavily promote team-based learning, the school has also bumped up the number of individual assignments to better measure where students stand and where they need coaching.

“What I want to do is develop a sustainable system that provides feedback constantly for the students and that is why we need to make sure we educate AI properly,” Toulan adds. “We will always review the feedback before we send it out. On the video assessments for storytelling and presentation, I will still do a human evaluation with the AI evaluation. Those two skills are so fundamental that I want to make sure they are really effective.”

MBA 2024 shoot. Recipients of the Jebsen, Hilti and BackPack Scholarship.
Photo: ©Mark Henley/IMD

IMD MBAs won’t just be learning about AI through classroom exercises, either. The school has also squeezed a new immersion into the program: Future Lab. A month in Singapore, this June immersion will set aside two days per week for site visits and executive speakers to expose students to the latest applications and impacts of AI technology and digital transformation.

“The goal is to focus on not only big tech but how government leverages technology to the betterment of society,” Toulan explains. “Singapore has recently been selected as the most competitive economy in the world by the World Competitiveness Center at IMD and as such is a perfect setting to learn about these trends. It is a great test site for this. And we will do it with a mix of in-classroom and out-of-classroom activities.”

MBA students won’t be alone in deriving benefits from IMD’s curriculum shift. The school has also developed a GenAI platform where students and alumni alike can access everything from faculty research to recorded lectures – in the user’s native language, no less.

“All of our graduates will have access to their entire MBA, both while they are in the MBA program and eventually as alumni,” says Toulan.

General view of the Bignami building on IMD Campus Lausanne; on 8 July 2024.
(Photo: Dorian Tosca/IMD)

Along with that, Toulan adds, students can use the recently-released IMD A+, which enables them to access information 24×7, according to Toulan. “All class recordings and material are inputted into our closed access AI+ (PPI scratched), which also has access to the broader web, and as such students can ask questions such as, ‘What were the key elements of the framework Professor Toulan discussed on Tuesday and can you give me an example from the pharma industry?’”

Last March, IMD also announced that it would devote July to a summer break and August to for-credit internships – a rarity in a 12-month program. For students who opt out of the internship, they can complete electives in their place.

“From the participant’s point of view, it’s an opportunity to get a head start in the job market since many companies that offer summer internships use it as a feeder to the permanent roles,” Toulan explained last spring. “For recruiters, on the other hand, it’s a relatively low-risk opportunity to have first access to a highly skilled talent pool which has already gone through a rigorous selection process.”

In the long term, Toulan hopes to turn IMD Business School into the “most innovative program in the market.” He credits the school’s progress thus far to being a small and “relatively niche MBA program.” More than that, he praises his professors as open-minded and “one of the most collaborative faculty in the world,”. Such a commitment, from top-to-bottom, will be critical for IMD to continue its momentum – and for rival schools pursuing similar innovations.

“This isn’t the MBA of 30 years ago,” adds Toulan. “There are many changes and differences, while at the same time preserving the leadership and experiential focus on the program. Any time you make such a fundamental change, though, there are always stakeholders that must be engaged. We tried to align all interests to come up with a solution that is appealing to candidates and future students while preserving the connection to alumni so they can see their IMD in the new program.”

The Indiana University campus, where the Kelley School is located, has been called one of the nation’s most beautiful campuses.

Indiana University, Kelley School of Business

Two years can be a long time to be out of the workforce.

That means lost income, stalled momentum, and daunting debt. Of course, a one-year MBA means a breakneck pace where students can miss out on valuable elective courses, networking opportunities, and unforgettable times. What if MBAs could return to work during the second year without missing those deep dives into a specific industry, geography, or issue? What if students could still stay connected as a second-year while enjoying the flexibility to take courses when it is best for them?

The Kelley School may have found that sweet spot – a middle, win-win way where full-time MBAs can finish their second year without being tethered to campus. In October, the Kelley School announced the launch of the Kelley Full-Time +Flex MBA program. Basically, students complete their first year in Bloomington before receiving the option to complete their second year online.

“The single biggest binding constraint is the opportunity cost of leaving a job for two years,” explains Patrick E. Hopkins, vice dean at Kelley. “We know we have potential students who span the horizon of needs. We are saying no two students are alike. Some will benefit from a fully immersive two-year experience on campus, but on the other end, we have students who want to lean in on the flexibility of the online program. There is a middle there.”

Hopkins frames the Kelley School as the “first movers” in this space, a bold position that allows students to gain several advantages. Land a job after an internship? Well, a student could start work and complete the online program during evenings and weekends. With Kelley grads earning roughly $145,000 to start, that places them on the fast track to re-coup their opportunity costs faster. Even more, it would theoretically wipe away the second-year opportunity cost, which could run upwards of $77,000.

While second-years would still pay the costs of food and rent no different than residential students, Kelley MBAs would get a head start on paying down debt – which at $47,699 on average ranks among the lowest for top tier programs. Even more, it doubles down on a Kelley MBA strength, with the school ranking 2nd for fastest return on Investment (ROI) according to one source.

That said, second-years would still pay the same full-time residential tuition, regardless of whether they choose the online route. However, the Kelley Direct program is exactly why the Kelley School can offer this option. It consistently ranks among the top online MBA programs, whether it is measured by Poets&Quants (2nd), U.S. News & World Report (1st), or Fortune Education (1st).

“I think we are one of the very few schools that have this large selection of online electives all taught by full-time faculty,” adds outgoing Kelley Dean Ash Soni. “No adjuncts. We only have one MBA at Kelley. My MBA is from the full-time program, but someone getting the MBA from the Kelley Direct program gets the same MBA as me.”

Kelley School Exterior

That begs the big question: How many full-time MBAs will opt for the online program as second-years? By the math, the first-year class features 103 students, with a total of 1,400 students studying online. On the surface, this change opens the possibility of the online option cannibalizing its residential sibling. However, John D. Hill, faculty chair of the Full Time +Flex MBA, believes it will be a boon for the residential program.

“Most of our current full-time students are here for a two-year, fully immersive experience. We believe this will open up another market to us that other schools can’t compete with. We do expect to grow the numbers in our residential program.”

Why not? The current students love the program! In a 2024 survey conducted by The Financial Times, the Kelley MBA posted the 4th-highest score from alumni and students for the effectiveness of its career services center. When The Princeton Review surveyed current students last spring, the school ranked among the Top for its Faculty, Administration, Family-Friendliness, and Classroom Experience. In terms of curriculum, Kelley students gave the program the second-highest score for Marketing (and 10th for Consulting). When it comes to cutting edge ideas, Kelley finished in the Top 10 in both The Financial Times and UT-Dallas business school research rankings for the scope and quality of its research. One reason: Kelley employs over 325 faculty members and caters to over 14,000 undergraduate and graduate business students – a scale that is nearly unmatched in business education.

Translation: If a student wants to learn more about something, there is a good chance that there is a faculty member who can help.

While the Kelley MBA benefits from its academic prowess and high satisfaction rates, it also offers something truly unique: a distinctive identity and mission. The Kelley School is a place where career changers head to switch industries, functions, or geographies. That’s one reason why the program incorporates an integrated core to teach business during the first semester-and-a-half. Rather than breaking apart subjects and teaching them individually, they are taught together. As a result, first-years can see how areas like finance, strategy, marketing, operations, and general management intersect and impact each other at every level of an organization.

Before Kelley first-years learn about business, however, they spend time working on themselves to prepare them for their transition. To kick off the program, MBAs complete Me, Inc., a three-week mix of reflections, group exercises, and intensive coaching. In the process, first-years experience how others see them, confront their underlying drivers and skill gaps, plot out their personal journey, and develop a plan for taking them from where they are to where they want to go. In the process, they gain the self-awareness needed to develop a pitch and a brand that will entice employers.

“[Me, Inc.] is an amazing opportunity to increase one’s self-knowledge even before classes begin,” explains Lívia Bragança Claudio, who’ll be graduating this spring. “I had already gone through a career coaching experience before and realized how important it is to clearly identify one’s strengths and values so we can move towards and achieve our major life goals. I feel like this chance to deep dive into my personal story right at the beginning of the MBA program is a Kelley differential.”

Kelley’s Me, Inc., develops an in-depth understanding of first-year MBA students’ personal stories and how it connects to the next steps in their careers. The “Life Story” exercise took place on August 7, 2017.

These efforts don’t end when the Integrated Core starts. Each full-time student is assigned an executive coach – someone who has undergone hundreds of hours of coaching training before receiving certification from a professional coaching association. That way, students are held accountable for continuing to answer the big questions, work on their weaknesses, and execute their plans.

“Students continue to meet with their coach throughout their time at Kelley, although it isn’t required as much as they move through the program,” according to Rebecca Cook, executive director of Kelley Career Services, in a 2024 interview with P&Q. “We pride ourselves as having good relationships with all of our students, and knowing what they are looking for and where they are at in their job search.  The more we know, the better we can help them.”

The same goes for helping Kelley first-years gain vital experience in their industry of choice. Before their summer internship, MBAs must complete an Academy. Think of it as an immersion in their field.  It includes industry-specific coursework, networking events, and coaching – along with a consulting project to provide real-world experience. On Academy Fridays, MBAs make site visits and attend industry speakers to get an insider’s view of their industry. Bottom line: the academies position students for a fast start and greater impact during their internships, enabling them to make a strong impression on their prospective employers.

Currently, students can choose between seven academies: Business Marketing, Capital Markets, Consulting, Consumer Marketing, Strategic Finance, Supply Chain and Digital Enterprise, and PLUS Life Sciences. First-years also enjoy the flexibility to design a custom academy in an area like Healthcare. As second-years, they can complete academies related to Entrepreneurship or Leadership. According to Ben Krebs, a ’23 alum and EY-Parthenon consultant, it is hard to argue with the success of the Academies.

“I have been exceptionally impressed with the placement of my classmates for both internships and full-time jobs. Our Consulting Academy is placing students in the MBBs as well as other top boutique firms. Our Business Marketing Academy is sending people to Microsoft, Dow Chemical, and Chevron. You might think that a school in southern Indiana would have difficulty placing MBA candidates in investment banking since we’re so far away from New York and other traditional financial hubs. On the contrary, our Capital Markets Academy members have almost a 100 percent success rate in placement for Investment Banking…During my time at Kelley, the only inhibitor of success was my own self-doubt. I had every resource available to me to improve and feel supported through the process.”

Beyond Kelley’s attention to each student’s growth, there is Kelley’s hidden advantage: Bloomington. Within a 4-5-hour drive, you’ll find Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Columbus, Louisville, and Nashville. Indianapolis is just an hour north. In other words, MBAs have quick access to leading companies like Eli Lilly, Procter & Gamble, Humana, and Nationwide. At the same time, MBAs can spend two years in a safe, affordable, slow-paced, family-friendly Midwest college town where they can enjoy the best of four different seasons. Whether they choose to spend two years in Bloomington – or opt for the Kelley Full-Time +Flex option – you can bet MBAs won’t regret investing their time at Kelley.

“Coming from Los Angeles, which is spread out, it could take an hour to drive 10 miles sometimes,” explains “23 grad Brittany Bolden.” “But here, people live either within walking distance or a 10-minute car ride from each other. It makes getting together or social activities or doing homework so easy, and you get to build a deeper connection with your classmates.”

Tepper student

Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business

The best business schools balance a certain yin-and-yang. There is the cool and dark yin – the quant management science mentality that uses data to reveal patterns and project trends. And then there is the light and warm yang – the small gestures and daily habits that make people feel heard and connected. And you’ll find both in equal measure at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School.

Tepper has long been associated with the yin. This school describes itself as the birthplace of management science – or evidence-based decision-making. Sure enough, data analysis has been the cornerstone of a Tepper MBA. With Carnegie Mellon University being a driving force behind Artificial Intelligence innovations, the Tepper School has naturally embraced AI as well.

In 2021, Tepper unfurled its new tagline: The Intelligent Future. More than a marketing prop, The Intelligent Future was a school-wide commitment to experiment and innovate – to think big, take risks, and apply a variety of disciplines – staying ahead of the pack using cutting-edge technology and imaginative models to define the world on their terms. That future correlates to the implementation of AI In practical and ethical ways.

“I think we’re a natural in the space, and that’s a huge advantage because what’s most difficult in any university is to change the culture,” explains Isabelle Bajeux-Besnainou in a 2024 interview with P&Q.  “Two things are embedded in our DNA: the fact that we are leveraging technology and AI data; and the second thing is our interdisciplinary approach to problem-solving. These are things that are really difficult to build when you don’t have that already embedded in the culture of the place.”

Willem-Jan van Hoeve, the senior associate dean of education at Tepper, echoes his boss’s sentiments on AI in a separate 2024 interview with P&Q. He points to the school’s access to other schools across Carnegie Mellon, such as Computer Science and Engineering, that are revolutionizing the field. Such synergies have long been filtering into Tepper programming, van Hoeve adds.

“So many of these things like machine learning models or neural networks have been in our courses already for years. So this is not new for us. We are doing this by default almost. So it’s very natural for us to embrace these technologies.”

Tepper School exterior

And van Hoeve is happy to reel off examples of some of the unique AI applications that Tepper MBAs are using in their classrooms.

“Concretely, we are using AI in say a marketing analytics course, in addition to having traditional models such as predictive analytics, or using standard statistical models. We would also use machine learning-based models for similar tasks in marketing, for example. We’ve been doing this for years. What is now new, of course, are large language models, which is a whole other level of interaction with AI systems. We can now simulate almost a human in a text-based environment. You can have a ChatGPT-like simulation where you can create anything you want. I’m going to do marketing research, not with humans, but with LLM-based (large language model) agents. So I can create a market segment using an LLM1, then another market segment, using LLM2. And I would be able to see how the decisions I make as a manager would influence these different market segments.”

One of Tepper’s advantages in the Carnegie Mellon ecosystem is its location. The Tepper Quad is literally in the center of the university. Five stories high covering 315,000 square feet, the Quad is the largest building on campus. Along with classrooms, it also houses robotics labs and even an ice cream shop. More than that, it includes 23,000 square feet devoted to the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship. Here, you’ll find hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students from across campus working together. From researchers and technical experts to aspiring founders and supportive faculty, the Swartz Center brings Carnegie Mellon University together in one place to pursue one purpose: turning the theoretical into the commercial.

In many cases, Swartz students are also partnering with national and local firms to scale their ventures or enhance their capabilities. According to Jim Jen, the director of Tepper’s Corporate Startup Lab (CSL), these client firms are looking to Tepper for help in AI.

“AI is shaking things up, and companies are all rethinking their strategies, looking at what are new opportunities and what are threats,” Jen tells P&Q in a 2024 interview. “That’s top of mind for our corporate partners right now… At the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, students work with corporate partners to create solutions for real life problems they are facing. “Students get a firsthand experience working on innovation with corporate partners, and they really have to think outside of the box.”

And look outside the doors of the Tepper Quad too, adds C. Tad Brinkerhoff, senior executive director of graduate programs at Tepper. “In a short walk, students can encounter cutting edge brain science, innovative start-ups, driverless cars, big data, Nobel and Turing prizes, robots and the list goes on,” Brinkerhoff told P&Q in a 2023 interview. “For example, in the past 10 years, more than 400 startups linked to CMU have raised more than $7 billion in follow-on funding. Tepper students are encouraged to take classes outside of the business school as they learn how to succeed in The Intelligent Future that is being created at Carnegie Mellon University. Coming to Tepper means meeting at the intersection of business and technology.”

Of course, the Tepper language can be intimidating at first. Here, students will encounter terms like evidence-based, scientific approach, applied math, economics, and STEM. However, Tepper is also a haven for career changers, mirroring Carnegie Mellon’s welcoming attitude towards poets (It boasts one of the top theater departments in the world, with alumni ranging from Cheers’ Ted Danson to Star Trek’s Zachary Quinto). Even more, the Tepper program isn’t just associated with cutting-edge research, but also teaching excellence. By excellence, alumni mean that professors can boil the most complex concepts down to their basic form.

Chino Agulanna, a ’24 grad, was struck by how accessible the faculty is through office hours. Shravya Amarnath, a 2022 MBA grad, notes that the program teaches quant concepts “from the ground up.” Amarnath’s classmate, Hensley Sejour, also appreciated the support – along with the flexibility to take courses outside Tepper for credit.

“The professors start from a basic level, so everyone moves along at a common pace. If you do struggle there are plenty of opportunities with tutors, study groups, and office hours to help you along the way. Our class is full of non-engineers who performed extremely well in the program. That being said, I did lean into the strong design and computer science reputation of Carnegie Mellon as a whole. I took advantage of classes in CMU’s School of Design and Human & Computer Interaction department to prepare myself for my role in the technology industry.”

MBA students meeting in the Tepper Quad. Photo Credit: http://michaelwillphotography.com

That support also includes intensive coaching, with the school estimating that students complete over 2,000 one-on-one professional coaching sessions annually. The Tepper School Masters Career Center (MCC) traditionally ranks among the world’s ten best according to Financial Times surveys of students and alumni. Like the best centers, the MCC takes a personal approach to each student’s interests and goals, says Rukayat Muse-Ariyoh, a ’23 alum and McKinsey hire. Her classmate, Eric Tinnell, also credits the MCC for helping him land an investment banking associate position at Morgan Stanley.

“The finance MCC advisors were instrumental in getting me prepared for investment banking interviews,” Tinnell tells P&Q in a 2024 interview. “Every interaction I had with them was value-adding, from the initial resume overhaul to mock interviews to practical insight about a career on Wall Street. Without their assistance, my path to an investment banking internship and full-time offer would have been exponentially more difficult.”

Still, Tepper can deliver on the yang – soft skills – that makes graduates so formidable in the marketplace. C. Tad Brinkerhoff describes Tepper as a place where students “learn about themselves, learn about others, and learn how to communicate and relate to others to build productive and positive environments and relationships.” Alongside the MCC, many of these skills are instilled through Tepper’s Accelerate Leadership Center (ALC).

“We help our students to learn about themselves, learn about others, and learn how to communicate and relate to others to build productive and positive environments and relationships,” Brinkerhoff adds. “We use self-assessments to provide insights to our students about their baseline leadership abilities. We conduct experiential workshops and programs to expand knowledge and we offer 1-on-1 coaching to dig deeper into strengths and remove obstacles. To build an inclusive leadership mindset, we focus, specifically, on building emotional intelligence, cultural humility, and constructive dialogue knowledge and skills. The powerful combination of these learnable capabilities will help our students be the most inspirational and impactful leaders of the next generation.”

This yin-and-yang one-two punch is catching on. Last year, Tepper cracked the Top Ten in the Bloomberg Businessweek MBA ranking, thanks to posting the 3rd-best index score for Entrepreneurship and the 5th-best scores in the Learning and Networking categories. With its identity clear and fundamentals in place, Tepper is increasingly a program that peer schools look to for what to do – and how to do it.

“In a world centered around data and AI, Tepper was one of the only programs that was moving hand-in-hand with the times, observes first-year Divyesha Malhotra, “seamlessly integrating the technical analytical skills into their entire curriculum, while also heavily focusing on the soft leadership, presentation and communication skills that any business leader today should come equipped with.”

Wharton School with downtown Philadelphia in the background

The Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania

They are the pioneers, trendsetters, and innovators. They were the first business school to develop healthcare, entrepreneurship, and international management programs. They were among the first to integrate analytics, fintech, and cryptocurrency into their core (let alone design electives around them). They were drivers behind the MOOC revolution that brought Ivy-quality business education to the masses.

The first research center? Wharton. The first business radio station? Wharton again – XM Channel 132.  A nonpartisan public policy center reviewed at the highest levels of government and business? That’s the Penn Wharton Business Model – or PWBM for short. First custom executive education program? Another Wharton groundbreaker! And can you believe it has been a quarter century since Wharton established a campus in San Francisco?

Yes, the Wharton School embodies the first-mover mentality. Not only do they get in first, but they make whatever it is the best. You could call Wharton the AI School – All In! That’s been the mentality they’ve had since they were founded in 1881 and started MBA classes 40 years later. Now, Wharton is looking to become a different AI School – Artificial Intelligence.

Where Wharton goes and what Wharton does will inevitably be the template for other schools to follow.

In June, the Wharton School announced its bold new investments in the Artificial Intelligence space. “Business schools have a crucial role to play in understanding and advancing an AI-enabled world,” Dean Erika James explained in a statement. “No school is better positioned to examine the multifaceted dimensions of this evolving phenomenon than Wharton. That’s why we are investing heavily in areas that allow our faculty to navigate the avalanche of interrelated issues AI has broached.”

In a 2024 Q&A with P&Q, Blair Mannix, the executive director of graduate admissions at the Wharton School, claims the AI & Analytics Initiative will have a “huge impact” on both the curriculum and the culture. Mannix notes that all full-time and executive MBA students will receive ChatGPT Enterprise licenses to allow them to explore generative AI. In addition, Wharton will be starting two funds in AI research and education.

“The Wharton AI Research Fund gives our faculty resources to dive into projects that connect AI developments with real-world business models, industries, and economies” Mannix continues. “The Education Innovation Fund supports faculty in updating and reshaping their courses to integrate AI tools and concepts. These initiatives are laying the groundwork for Wharton to stay at the forefront of AI education.”

Wharton Dean Erika James welcomed an MBA class to campus that for the first time in four years was not predominantly women. Wharton photo

In fact, being an AI and data science leader is an overriding purpose for Wharton, with Dean James predicting that these areas will “fundamentally transform every sector of business and society.” For Nancy Rothbard, the school’s deputy dean, this means that AI expertise and experience is a fundamental that an MBA must possess before leaving Huntsman Hall.

“Developing a fluency in AI and its impact on business decision-making is no longer an option, it’s a requirement to be competitive in any organization. We are once again answering society’s call to address the needs of tomorrow and we’re excited to provide our students and the business world with the tools and applicable knowledge they need to excel as we collectively confront the most transformative technology of our time.”

One reason why this commitment is so important is the sheer size of Wharton’s footprint. Picture over 100,000 alumni across 153 countries. The school also operates 30 research centers and initiatives – ranging from retail to ESG to behavioral science – that could potentially collaborate with these new AI efforts. What’s more, Wharton ranks as the top business school for the quantity and impact of its research according to annual studies from both The Financial Times and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Wharton faculty roster, which includes over 240 members, reads like a thought leader all-star lineup: Adam Grant, Gad Allon, Peter Fader, Katherine Milkman, and Mori Taheripour.

Even more, the school is known for across-the-board excellence that multiplies Wharton’s influence. In a 2024 U.S. News survey of business school deans and MBA directors, Wharton ranked as the top MBA program for Real Estate and Finance, while finishing 2nd for Marketing and Accounting and 3rd for International Business and Business Analytics. It even cracked the Top 10 in three more disciplines: Management (5th), Production (6th), and Entrepreneurship (8th). In terms of 2024 school rankings, Wharton sat atop their peers in both the U.S. News & World Report and The Financial Times lists. 2024 represented the 12th time that Wharton placed 1st with The Financial Times – more than Harvard Business School and Stanford GSB combined.

And Wharton doesn’t just dominate the full-time MBA space. It continues to reign as the top business in both P&Q’s Undergraduate and Executive MBA rankings. If any school possesses the resources and intellectual horsepower to channel AI, it would be Wharton.

Alongside scale and renown, flexibility is a Wharton hallmark. Claire North, a first-year MBA, notes that she can start taking electives after first semester, provided she completes the core before graduation. This mix of flexibility and scale made Wharton the perfect fit for her.

“Students can take electives across any of Wharton’s schools. I sought a program that, in addition to teaching analytical and leadership skills, enabled me to delve into specialized subjects such as startup entrepreneurship, healthcare economics, and decentralized technologies. At Wharton, I can gain a world-class business education while exploring these interests through electives like Managing the Emerging Enterprise, Health Care Services Delivery, and Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies, Digital Assets: Business, Legal, and Regulatory Issues.”

Christian Terwiesch, the Andrew M. Heller professor of operations at The Wharton School, teaching MBA students. He will encourage students to use ChatGPT to prepare for class and facilitate brainstorming and idea creation. Courtesy photo

Blair Mannix dives into this advantage further in a 2023 interview with P&Q. “The curriculum offers both a business foundation and a ton of freedom to explore new topics. We offer 21 majors and over 200 electives, a variety of course styles like case studies, lectures, and simulations, and students can learn across two campuses in Philadelphia and San Francisco. The Wharton experience is fundamentally about choice, and we love that our students can tailor their experience to meet their unique personal and professional goals.”

Mannix also points to the school’s personalized service as another Wharton fixture. She lists the MBA Career Management Office as an example. Here, staff advise students across two dozen industry pathways, working in tandem with students to develop custom action plans and recruiting strategies. At the same time, career advisors work closely with club leaders to supply career education and networking to deepen the value of their extracurriculars.

“One of the standout tools we offer is MAP (My Action Plan), an online platform developed by our Career Management team,” Mannix adds. “MAP is a personalized support tool that adapts as students progress, offering tailored advice to achieve specific career outcomes. MAP is even incorporating advanced analytics, so it can deliver curated content based on each student’s profile, assessments, and search stage. These kinds of resources—along with our active alumni network—really give our graduates an edge in the job market and help them feel confident and prepared at every step.”

Maybe so prepared that they can follow in the footsteps of Wharton alumni like Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, adds first-year Mansi Jain. “Some of the world’s greatest changemakers have studied in the same classrooms as I do today, and now I have the privilege of joining such a strong community of leaders. Walking into Huntsman Hall and seeing the Dhirubhai Ambani auditorium fills my heart with pride and hope that one day I, too, might create a legacy and have my name inscribed on one of these halls.”

The Global MBA cohort at ESSEC is nearly 98% international. This year’s class comes from 20 countries across six continents. Courtesy photo

ESSEC Business School

First you rise and then you transcend.

That’s the philosophy behind a major strategy shift at France’s ESSEC Business School. Home to 7,500 graduate and undergraduate students – along with 71,000 alumni members – ESSEC has developed a two-pronged strategic plan – RISE and Transcend – that pairs the school’s humanistic roots with its futurist ambitions. In the process, ESSEC is preparing a new generation of business leaders to act on the biggest issues.

When Vincenzo Vinzi took the reins as ESSEC’s dean in 2017, the school wasn’t ranked by The Financial Times. Today, the full-time MBA program sits at 54th, up 16 spots from 2023. At the same time, ESSEC boasts the Top 10 Masters in Management, Masters in Finance, and Executive Education programs according to The FT. Outside of its Cergy flagship, the school maintains campuses in Singapore, Morocco, and the La Défense corridor of Paris (along with an augmented digital campus). Couple all that with 30 dual degree programs and you could say ESSEC’s ascent and scale was a winning formula worthy of a business case. However, Vinzi also saw how business demands were shifting – and why ESSEC needed to adapt to prepare students for changing demands.

“Historically, during times of crisis or transitions, higher education often became a kind of refuge – a place where people believed knowledge would remain valuable forever,” Vinzi tells P&Q in a 2024 interview. “But that’s no longer the case. Today, we face the obsolescence of knowledge, skills, and competencies at an accelerated pace. This affects all sectors. The impact of digital transformation and technological advancements is driving this change. Students are arriving with new aspirations and expectations, and as a result, higher education itself is in a state of transition.”

Even more surreal, Vinzi adds, is that business schools aren’t just competing with each other for students. Now, there is the allure of players like EdTech companies and internal company training – not to mention the security of maintaining a job or the thrill of starting a venture.  Such realities spurred ESSEC to implement its RISE Strategy from 2020-2024. The heart of the strategy was broken into three objectives. First, the school focused on integrating programming to address societal challenges beyond simply business. Second, ESSEC invested heavily on bolstering its capabilities in artificial intelligence, technology, and data. Finally, the school set priorities around entrepreneurship and innovation.

ESSEC Business School’s Paris-La Défense campus. ESSEC is launching a new strategic plan that includes creation of new degree programs, international hubs, and centers of research.

To be successful, learning and reflection must be accompanied by action in the ESSEC model. Here, ESSEC lived up to its RISE ideals. The school established a Metalab for Data, Technology & Society, a multidisciplinary research center. It connects academics and leaders in economics, analytics, artificial intelligence, and humanities to create groundbreaking coursework and research to advance larger global solutions. The school also opened its ESSEC Momentum Studio, an incubator whose mission is “DeepTech for Good.” The studio supports startups in areas like ClimateTEech and eHealth that address larger social issues.  Another outgrowth of RISE is new degree programs, such as a Master of Science in Data Science and Business Analytics and a Bachelor of Science in Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics, and Management Science.

“On environmental and social transition issues, we’ve been ranked No. 1 in France for two consecutive years by Les Échos START, a journal that ranks business and engineering schools based on their engagement with those topics,” Venzi adds. “This recognition shows that we are “walking the talk” – following through on the ambitions outlined in our strategy.”

To build on the RISE strategy, ESSEC has also begun to roll out its Transcend strategy, which runs from 2024-2028. The centerpiece is the school’s Four Ambitions, a set of expectations meant to reflect the school’s progress towards preparing students for a future where they make an impact.

Going hand-in-hand with ESSEC’s Four Ambitions is a reimagination of the Global MBA curriculum, which is being shepherded by David Sluss, the academic director for the program. Arriving at ESSEC in 2021, Sluss believed the program was in strong shape. Like Vinzi, Sluss soon began asking the bigger questions. Namely, he worried the program was missing a narrative that pulled everything together.

“One key finding was that applicants increasingly value MBAs that focus on sustainability, digital transformation, innovation, and entrepreneurship,” Sluss tells P&Q in a 2024 interview. “These areas align with our strategic pillars. We already had courses covering these topics, but the program needed to be reimagined from the participant’s perspective. Previously, students chose from separate tracks, like luxury or digital leadership. Now, we have reorganized the program into three concentrations – sustainability, digital, and innovation/entrepreneurship – within a single, integrated MBA.”

Another innovation that Sluss has introduced is the Career Learning Labs. According to Sluss, the labs are led by industry professionals and cover four areas: luxury, finance, consulting, and product management.

“These labs feature dedicated workshops, learning expeditions, networking, and mentorship, and hands-on learning experiences… Each lab is led by an experienced professional or former executive,” he explains. “For example, one leader is a former CEO in the spirits industry. Another is a PhD product manager who has worked for Google and Spotify. Another is a rising star in sustainable finance and venture capital. These leaders curate immersive experiences with alumni-led workshops. Students gain practical knowledge, but these aren’t traditional, graded courses. Instead, the labs are hands-on experiences designed to prepare students for real-world executive roles.”

Sluss also credits the Career Learning Labs with helping to draw students, with applications to the last intake increasing by 54%. While the current Global MBA class has swelled to 49 students, he believes the sweet spot would be 55-60 students. Even more, he views the Career Learning Labs are a means for students to fulfill one of the main goals of the program.

ESSEC's main campus in Cergy-Pontoise, France. The 115-year-old school has a new dean, Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi

“For us at ESSEC, employability is the capacity for the MBA participant to develop themselves to the point where they are ‘world-class’ for roles or jobs that align with their long-term career goals.”

The Career Learning Labs aren’t the only innovations that have come out of the Transcend strategy. Dean Vinzi points to its new Center for Geopolitics & Business, a research and learning hub where students can better understand how economic changes and political jolts reverberate in organizational decision-making. ESSEC has also partnered with the UCLA School of Law for a dual degree in management law while adding a five-year International Program in Business Administration (IPBA) on its Morocco campus. In June, the school will also start an 18-month Hybrid Executive MBA program, which takes place 70% online and includes a social class project and the international residency in Cape Town. In September, ESSEC announced that it would be opening hubs in both New York City and London.

“We already have a large community of alumni in North America, especially in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles,” adds Dean Vinzi on the school’s expanded footprint. “Many of our alumni are in fields like hospitality management, which is one of ESSEC’s long-standing areas of expertise. We also have a strong presence in finance and the luxury sector across Europe and North America. Our hubs will nurture relationships with these alumni and industry sectors.”

Transformation, innovation, global leadership, multidisciplinary collaboration: Out of the gate, ESSEC Business School is hitting every base on its Transcend strategy. In the end, execution always trumps strategy. As the tools are put into place, it will be up to the students to buy into the philosophy and deliver on its promise.

“They are the solution, so it’s important that these students, either MBA or other programs, once they get trained, hopefully they also get transformed within a school,” adds Dean Vinzi. “They need to represent the solution. They need to really be engaged in making the needed transformation. So, in other words, I feel like our mission at ESSEC — but I think all business schools should go in these directions — is not simply to transfer knowledge but also while they’re at school, get them more and more engaged so they say, ‘Okay, we are the actors of change.’ They need to undertake the responsibility of making it happen.”