FT Executive Education Rankings 2023: Europe at the top

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European business schools dominate the top tiers of the FT’s 2023 top list open enrollment rankings and habit executive education programs, with a few notable exceptions.

Europe-based business schools offer 11 of the 12 top-ranked open programs, spearheaded by Iese Barcelona, ​​and nine of the top 12 custom courses, individually designed for client organizations. But US-based Duke Corporate Education bucks the trend emphatically, ranking first in the custom ranking.

Duke CE is followed in the custom table by France Instead, HEC Paris, Iese and ESMT in Germany. University of Michigan: Ross in the US ranks 6th and Dom Cabral Foundation from Brazil is in 11th place.

Among the top 12 schools in the open enrollment ranking, Dom Cabral Foundation is the only non-European provider, in joint seventh place, while other highly ranked institutions include Oxford: Saying, London Business School and IM D In Switzerland.

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.

European providers led by HEC Paris, Iese and Insead in France also lead the combined table, based on solid results in the main twin rankings for courses open to all and for personalized programs. Duke CE does not offer open enrollment courses, so it is not listed here.

Executive education comprises generally shorter, non-degree programs. The FT’s Open Enrollment and Tailor Made Course rankings are not exhaustive: each lists the top 75 of the total 105 schools that participated in the process. Some schools did not get enough feedback from participants and customers to be included, while others, including some in the US, declined to participate.

The data shows the continued variety and strength of business school executive education providers, despite pressure on training and development budgets from employers and competition from alternative providers, including educational technology companies, consultants and trainers.

“There is growing interest in executive education among schools that often have a strong regional connection to business,” says Andrew Crisp, co-founder of CarringtonCrisp, an education consultancy. “In the broader market, economic uncertainty is a factor, along with layoffs in the technology sector, and training is often one of the first casualties in corporate spending cuts.”

Courses are often held on multiple campuses to expose students to different cultures and reflect their geographic distribution. For example, Iese Spanish School’s programs are delivered in the US, Germany and Brazil, and HEC’s in Qatar and Insead’s in Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, along with its operations in France.

Geopolitical tensions around China and Russia have constrained some international programs. However, Xiang Bing, dean of the Beijing-based Institute Cheung Kong Graduate School of Businesssays domestic demand remains strong, and it is also rolling out “unicorn” business-focused courses in Singapore, South Korea, Dubai, Japan, Italy and the US. “The key factor is our globalization,” he says.

Many executive education courses were hit hard during the pandemic as employers focused on maintaining their businesses, but have partially recovered as companies offer training as a way to retain and motivate senior staff, explore new strategies , build teams and improve skills in areas such as digital transformation. Leadership, as well as topics like artificial intelligence, managing remote workers, sustainability, and diversity, are among the topics that executives frequently search for.

However, business schools are being disrupted both by the expansion of alternative forms of provision online following the Covid-19 pandemic and by the emergence of new technologies, including regenerative AI.

Josh Bersin, a corporate learning consultant, says that some executive business school programs that were perceived as offering “out-of-the-box” training were “losing their shine,” but corporate clients were “willing to spend considerable sums on programs specialized and personalized leadership skills.

While reducing the scope of face-to-face contact, online and hybrid courses have also lowered training costs and travel barriers for participants and speakers from around the world.

A variety of business schools, some of which did not participate in the FT rankings, continue to expand and adapt, including Chicago Booth, which is relocating its Asian mainstay back to Hong Kong after briefly moving to Singapore during the pandemic.

Corporate clients are “willing to spend considerable sums on specialized and customized leadership programs”

Ranked schools must be approved by the US-based accreditation agency AACSB, or EFMD, its European-based counterpart, and have reported income of at least $1 million from their ranks of customized executive education programs or open in 2022, according to the ranking. They are graded on a variety of criteria, including participant evaluations of a variety of factors, including course design, monitoring, and school survey data on faculty and student diversity.

Of the open courses, the best ranked Iese ranked first in overall satisfaction; HEC Paris, in second place, took first place for course design, teaching methods, teachers and follow-up. Five schools, including Iese, reported a 50:50 gender balance. Kozminsky University in Poland it had the highest proportion of female students, at 67 percent; he Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad had the lowest, at 20 percent.

Among custom courses, Duke CE was judged first by customers for program design and teaching methods and materials, and Michigan: Ross for the quality of its faculty. Insead led in new skills and learning and ESMT in Berlin scored best in goals achieved and value for money.

For open programs, schools present one or two general management courses of at least three days and one or two advanced management courses of at least five days. For customized courses, each school must have a minimum of 15 clients, of which at least five must complete assessments.