Founded in Barcelona in 1958, the Escuela de Administration de Empresas expanded to Madrid in the following decade and maintains bases in Spain’s two largest cities as well as South American outposts in Lima and Bogota.
It has two sites in each of its main cities, as well as affiliations with the Universidad Politecnica de Catalunya in Barcelona and Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid. Owned since 2006 by Grupo Planeta, the largest publisher in the Spanish-speaking world, it offers students on its main Barcelona campus in the l’Eixample district "Challenging experience in a vibrating environment".
EAE runs 17 full-time and 12 part-time MBA programmes, most in Spanish but some in English. Specialised courses offered include supply-chain management, digital marketing, and sports management. The Madrid-New York-Shanghai Global Executive MBA, run in partnership with Kean and Shanghai universities, offers three-week intensive modules in each city.
EAE draws almost as many students from Latin America as from Europe and has developed a strong focus on gender issues. Its women initiative was launched in 2021. Just under half of the current student roll are women, as well as 29 per cent of staff. Gender equality is among the research groups which also include the circular economy and sustainability, and multidisciplinary tourism.
Recent graduates include Rebecca Busi, who in 2022 was the youngest driver at the famously extreme Dakar Rally (now held in Saudi Arabia) – she finished seventh, while studying for her MBA.
