Executive Education 2023: what’s in the report

Featured Sponsor

Store	Link	Sample Product
UK Artful Impressions	Premiere Etsy Store

Judging business schools according to any criteria and for any course is complex; doing so for the myriad of executive education programs offered around the world is perhaps the most difficult task of all.

The variety of content, clients and duration makes comparisons difficult. We do not claim to be exhaustive: participation in the Executive Education Ranking of 2023 It is voluntary and partial inclusion. Some schools opted out; others wanted to join but did not meet the criteria due to lack of accreditation, low income, or insufficient response rate to client or participant questionnaires.

Competition in the field is intense and while there is significant common ground between titles like MBA and Master of Managementthe format of executive education varies much more within and between schools.

As we described in This reportthe industry is still reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic, which has reduced employers’ willingness to invest in training, transformed delivery methods and changed demand for the type of courses sought, with a notable renewed focus on remote management . and hybrid workforces and addressing digital disruption.

Financial Times Executive Education Ranking 2023

Watch the twin top rankings of habit and Open registration executive education programs, in addition to the top 50 combo table.

Executive education also faces competition from a multiplicity of non-academic institutions that provide training — from consultancies to corporate universities. They argue that they offer greater flexibility and a focus on applied skills rather than theory and the more traditional provision of qualifications by universities.

The business schools reply that they continue to offer a differentiated offer, with a differential experience that reflects its academic depth, pedagogical richness, and an approach less colored by commercial objectives. As we examine, some are also developing consulting servicesso their teachers bridge the gap with the world of practice.

Students we interviewed they said they benefited from the insights from their courses, including honing soft skills like listening; develop leadership capacity; think strategically; effective brainstorming with colleagues; and keep up with digital trends.

Despite the challenges of ranking executive education programs offered by business schools, we continue to believe there is value in differentiating and showcasing some of the best available internationally. We classify both those that are open to all and custom courses specially developed for individual corporate clients.

An ongoing debate between schools and clients is how best to measure return on investment on course offerings; another is how to capture or compare a variety of different offers in a single metric or snapshot.

We report on an innovative program that seeks to address the underrepresentation of Israeli Arabs in business.

We give substantial weight to participants’ and corporate clients’ assessments of the readiness, knowledge, and application of the insights they gain from business school courses. We welcome readers’ ideas for future modifications to better select and evaluate the programs offered.

This month, we’re also launching our third annual survey of organizations’ learning managers, who we urge to submit their views on www.ft.com/closurvey for the beginning of June. This will provide deeper insight into the trends they’re seeing, the funding they have available, the topics their executives need, and their views on the best vendors and ways to measure value. The results will be published in the fall.

A common thread in this report is cultural diversity. That’s reflected in the background of Sharmla Chetty, executive director of Duke Corporate Education, which ranked first in customized programs. As she describes in an interviewshe was a “troublemaker” who grew up protesting apartheid in South Africa, an experience that shaped her own career.

We report on an innovative program that combines an MBA, leadership training, and a two-year executive education course that seeks to address the low representation of Israeli Arabs in business and especially in managerial positions within the country.

We explore a Buddhist perspective on mindfulness; and a Columbia professor turns to Eastern philosophy to identify successful leadership traits. We also describe the work of an Olympian judo athlete who applied his executive education studies to expand his sports foundation by working with children in the favelas of Brazil.

A second recurring theme for executive education and in this report is sustainability — a problem highlighted by recent extreme weather events, even as it is increasingly framed in partisan political terms.

We also explore topical dilemmas suitable for classroom discussions in our latest “instant case study”, which highlights the challenges around companies deciding whether and how to divest from Russia after the launch of its war against Ukraine last year.

A final and fundamental issue is technology, which is transforming both business and entrepreneurship education itself. We discuss the effects of ChatGPT and generative artificial intelligence. Like it or not, understanding and responding to it will be a growing need in the months and years ahead.

Andrew Jack is the FT’s global education editor