A French, a Chinese language and a joint US-Hong Kong programme have held on to the three high spots within the FT’s 2021 Executive MBA Ranking, in a 12 months marked by continued pandemic disruption to work and research.
HEC’s Paris Worldwide EMBA regained high place, forward of — in joint second place — the Kellogg/HKUST EMBA in Hong Kong, which led the 2020 rating, and the China Europe Worldwide Enterprise College (Ceibs) World EMBA in Shanghai.
EMBA alumni general continued to command excessive pay at a time of enterprise uncertainty, with adjusted common salaries amongst those that graduated from colleges ranked by the FT in each 2020 and 2021 up from $276,655 to $281,089.
The variety of college students at main enterprise colleges analysed by the FT fell barely, year-on-year. Among the many 88 colleges ranked in each 2020 and 2021, the determine went from 7,932 to 7,616, and among the many whole of 123 establishments assessed, it dropped from 10,729 to 10,180.
Whereas many elite enterprise colleges have continued to draw a powerful international combine of scholars to a number of campuses that they function alone or in partnership, some smaller and regional colleges have suffered in current months with falling intakes.
FT Govt MBA rating 2021: the highest 100
Discover out which colleges are in our ranking of EMBA degrees. Be taught how the table was compiled.
“We’ve bought some colleges which have shuttered their doorways and a few with programmes on maintain,” stated Michael Desiderio, government director of Embac, a commerce physique representing a bigger group of almost 300 EMBA suppliers, together with many within the US. “My intestine [says], globally, class dimension is flat or down, however I don’t see demand falling off a cliff.”
The EMBA sometimes gives coaching for managers and executives who’ve important prior skilled expertise and proceed to work whereas learning part-time. The rankings are primarily based on measures similar to alumni salaries and the way far programs helped them obtain their goals three years after completion, in addition to the variety of pupil and instructing our bodies and the standard of educational analysis.
The FT’s high three ranked programmes — and plenty of others among the many 100 — are supplied at a number of campuses world wide, which has allowed the faculties to supply a broad vary of experiences and larger flexibility throughout restrictions on motion.
Each HEC Paris and Ceibs function from their very own websites — in France and Qatar, and in China, Ghana and Switzerland, respectively. Kellogg/HKUST’s EMBA relies in Hong Kong however gives college students the prospect to review a part of the course at different campuses worldwide.
Yuan Ding, dean of Ceibs, stated pandemic-related journey restrictions and political shifts in China’s relationship with the west had led to “an enormous localisation”. He has seen a fall in attendance by international college students and expatriates, offset by rising demand from nationals for programs taught in Chinese language. “We don’t contemplate globalisation as a fait accompli. You need to provide content material with regionally related matters,” he stated.
Kathy Harvey, affiliate dean for MBA and government levels at Oxford’s Saïd Business School, ranked twelfth for its EMBA, stated class sizes have been just a little smaller in 2020 and 2021 than earlier than the pandemic, however that utility volumes and high quality remained sturdy. She added that employers’ willingness to accommodate distant working had allowed contributors to journey to the UK to attend in-person programs after working remotely from a lodge room first if topic to quarantine.
“We discovered as a single-school programme with numerous international content material, we weren’t as affected as we thought,” she stated, including that Saïd launched “owl and lark” periods in order that contributors may be a part of or watch recorded discussions at totally different occasions.
The rise in on-line studying has elevated the scope for college students and visitor audio system to take part in EMBAs. Amongst FT-ranked colleges, the proportion of feminine college students elevated in 2021 to a 3rd of the overall, persevering with a rise from 1 / 4 a decade in the past. There was the same rise within the proportion of feminine college.
Eight of the dozen highest-ranked programmes are run in a number of international locations, together with the EMBA Global Asia partnership between Columbia, London Enterprise College and the College of Hong Kong, and the Trium World MBA, a joint diploma supplied collectively by HEC Paris, the London College of Economics and New York College’s Stern faculty.
Alongside North America and Europe, China stays one of the crucial widespread places for EMBAs, though ranked programs are additionally supplied in places similar to Singapore, South Korea, Russia, Turkey, the Gulf, north Africa and Iran.
“The phrases for the previous 12 months have been resilience and agility,” stated Elizabeth O’Neill, government director of Trium. “We required it of our academics, college students and employees. We have been main and offering a programme for international leaders who understood as a result of they have been in organisations going via extremely fast change.”
Faculties and alumni reported sturdy curiosity from candidates in studying about digital expertise and applied sciences, and desirous to be taught partly on-line to supply them with larger flexibility to stability research, work and journey.
“The primary development has been a requirement for every little thing digital,” stated Andrew Crisp from CarringtonCrisp, an schooling consultancy. “College students need content material on digital transformation, management and every little thing else. In addition they need some digital supply — significantly . . . to organize earlier than they get to the classroom, [to] scale back the variety of days away from work.”
Programs ranked by the FT should train not less than 30 college students and be hosted by a college accredited by the US-based Affiliation to Advance Collegiate Faculties of Enterprise or the European-based Equis system.
