University of Southern California: Marshall

Founded as the College of Commerce and Business Administration in 1920 within the University of Southern California (USC), USC Marshall became the Graduate School of Business Administration in 1960. It developed the US’ first entrepreneurship programme in 1972 and its PRIME (Pacific Rim Education) programme in 1997, one of the first MBA programmes to require students to study abroad.

In 1999, state-of-the-art building, Popovich Hall, became the main graduate building for USC Marshall.

USC Marshall has 4,064 undergraduate students (44 per cent of which are women) and 444 full-time MBA students (32 per cent of which are women), with 441 part-time MBA students, 227 executive MBA students, 64 online MBA and 71 PhD students.

Courses run across seven departments: business communication; Leventhal School of Accounting; Lloyd Greif School for Entrepreneurial Studies; data sciences and operations, management and organisation; finance and business economics and marketing.

Among the undergraduate courses is the world bachelor in business (WBB) that unites the University of Southern California, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Bocconi University to allow students to live and study on three continents and earn degrees from three universities.

The school offers a diverse range of specialised master's programmes, including; business analytics; entrepreneurship and innovation; finance; marketing; social entrepreneurship; master of science in global supply chain management; master of management in library and information science; master of business for veterans; master of medical management; master of management studies; master of science in business administration and master of science in food industry leadership.

USC Marshall is the home to a number of cutting-edge centres of excellence: the Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab looks at how business principles can alleviate poverty; The Center for Effective Organizations pioneers research in the areas of organisational design and effectiveness; The Global Branding Center; the Center for Global Innovation helps firms commercialise radical innovations through direct consulting and student projects; the Center for Global Supply Chain Management; the Center for Investment Studies (CIS); the Institute for Communication Technology Management (CTM), which focuses on the communications, technology, business and entertainment sectors; the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, one of the top in entrepreneurship education and research institutions in the US; the Neely Center for Ethical Leadership and Decision Making that looks at ethical business leadership and The Sports Business Institute.

Notable alumni include: Dan Bane, chairman and CEO of Trader Joe's; John Campbell, United States congressman; Chris DeWolfe, co-founder and CEO of MySpace; Tom Hicks, businessman and owner of Liverpool FC.; Rob Kardashian TV reality star; Lenny Krayzelburg, Olympic gold medalist in swimming; former First Lady Pat Nixon and Kevin Tsujihara, CEO of Warner Bros.