Ranking: Financial Times' World Best Executive MBA Programs Of 2023
The Lee Shau Kee Business Building, at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s campus, which overlooks Clear Water Bay in the New Territories. The building is home to the Kellogg-HKUST EMBA, ranked No. 1 by the Financial Times two years in a row. Courtesy photo
Europe and China dominated the top of the Financial Times’ latest ranking of the world’s Executive MBA programs, snagging the top 10 spots. You have to go all the way to No. 10 to find a stand-alone U.S. based program: Yale School of Management’s EMBA program tied with Iese Business School to crack the top tier of the ranking.
Kellogg-HKUST’s pioneering EMBA topped the ranking for the second straight year. In fact, the program – a partnership between Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) Business School – has topped the ranking 11 times. It celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.
China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)’ EMBA based in China, Switzerland, and Ghana also matched last year’s result, finishing both years at No. 2.
ESCP Business School rose two spots to No. 3. The school – with campuses in Berlin, London, Madrid, Paris, Turin and Warsaw – is the top ranked European school and holds the highest position in every country where its campuses are located. It scored the highest in international course experience and fourth for career progression, a metric measuring alumni change level of seniority and organization size after completing the program. It also ranked second for Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and net Zero teaching.
“Many of our alumni have transitioned into pivotal sustainability roles or embarked on startups dedicated to sustainability-related ventures after completing our EMBA. This transformation and the results of this ranking underscore the profound influence our programme has on shaping leaders who create value for companies and society, taking into account issues of sustainability, and with a strong commitment to having a positive impact on the world,” says Francesco Venuti, Dean of the EMBA at ESCP.
Trium Global EMBA – a partnership between three elite business schools, HEC Paris, LSE, and NYU Stern – rose two spots to No. 4.
And, University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School rose a whopping 10 points to break into the top five. It is the program’s highest rank in FT since it launched 19 years ago.
“We put a great deal of hard work into delivering a truly global, world-class programme, with a sharp focus on delivering value for our students. It is fantastic to see that recognised in these rankings,” Saïd dean Soumitra Dutta says in a school press release. “We are also fortunate to attract an impressive, global community of students, who enrich our School and bring such a unique, worldwide perspective to the course.’
TOP RANKED U.S. PROGRAMS
If you strip out the many partnership and foreign-based Executive MBA programs from the 2023 ranking, these are the top standalone programs in the U.S., Yale School of Management has the highest ranked EMBA in the land. It rose 2 spots in the U.S. list from last year, overtaking MIT Sloan which falls to No. 2.
This summer, Yale SOM announced significant changes to its EMBA, adding a fourth focus area in general management and allowing more flexibility in choosing electives and other enrichments.
The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania had the third highest standalone U.S. program (it ranked 18th in the world) followed by UCLA Anderson School of Management at No. 4 in the U.S. and No. 22 in the world. Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management rounds out the top five in the U.S. while finishing No. 27 in the world.
Standalone EMBAs based in the United States dominated the overall list with 26 programs. That includes six schools not ranked last year who did participate this year. Columbia Business School, for example, was ranked No. 33 in the world and the seventh best EMBA in the U.S. after not submitting data to the FT last year. See table below.
Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business ranked 21st for U.S. standalone programs and 81st in the world. But, it ranked third highest in the U.S. and seventh highest globally in overall satisfaction by alumni. The Georgia State EMBA scored 9.62 out of 10 on the metric, bested in the U.S. only by MIT Sloan School of Management (9.80) and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (9.71).
“We are gratified that our alumni remain so highly satisfied with Georgia State’s Executive MBA years after their graduation,” says Chris Hilario, EMBA program director, in a release. “We believe this metric speaks to the growth they experience during the program and their subsequent career progress, the deep level of individual engagement between students and faculty, and opportunities for continued involvement after graduation – all hallmarks of the program since its establishment in 1982.”
NEXT PAGE:World’s biggest winners and losers in the FT EMBA ranking
Ranking: Financial Times' World Best Executive MBA Programs Of 2023
IMD, in Lausanne, Switzerland, soared 13 spots up to crack the top 25 in the Financial Times’ 2023 ranking of the world’s best EMBA programs. IMD photo
BIGGEST WINNERS AND LOSERS
There are several programs with roller-coaster swings, both good and no so good, on the FT list, as is often the case in business school rankings. Seven programs in the top 25 experienced double-digit increases or decreases.
Kedge Business School’s SJTU Global MBA based in France and China rose 24 spots to No. 18, a tie with University of Pennsylvania’s The Wharton School. Two more schools soared 13 spots up to crack the top 25: IMD (International Institute for Management Development) rose to No. 14 while SDA Bocconi School of Management rose to 21.
Meanwhile, the Kellogg-WHU Beisheim EMBA in Germany dropped 12 spots and out of the top tier to No. 28. Overall, the program with the biggest improvement is Neoma Business School’s EMBA based in France, China, and Iran. It rose 32 spots, climbing from No. 78 in 2022 to No. 46 this year. It is followed by Mannheim Business School in Germany which rose 27 spots to No. 47.
UCT Graduate School of Business in South Africa fell more than any other school, dropping 22 spots to No. 96. It is followed by Singapore Management University: Lee Kong China fell 20 spots to No. 53. See table below.
National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School rose eight spots to No. 16 and is the highest ranked program from universities based in Singapore. Alumni secured a nearly 60% increase in their salaries three years after graduation, reaching an average of $376,706.
“I am especially proud to witness our EMBA alumni achieving remarkable success in their careers. It is proof of our programme’s transformative impact on their professional journeys and ability to navigate the ever-changing global business landscape,” Andrew Rose, dean of NUS says in a release.
HOW THE FINANCIAL TIMES RANKS EXECUTIVE MBA PROGRAMS
The Financial Times’ methodology to rank EMBA programs is based on data provided by business schools and by their alumni three years after graduation. For the 2023 ranking, 3,814 alumni completed the survey for a response rate of about 40%.
The ranking takes into account factors including salaries, assessments of career services, aims achieved and the quality of academic research, as well as the gender balance and international diversity of students and faculty. But salary – adjusted for purchasing power parity – accounts for 33% of the overall ranking’s weight. The adjustment to the pay numbers inflates compensation in countries with larger degrees of poverty or below-western-market rates of pay.
Two schools at the top of this ranking also happen to report the highest adjusted alumni salaries: Kellogg-HKUST at $652,326 and CEIBS in Shanghai at $529,822.
While all 100 of the programs ranked can be considered high-quality, FT divides schools into four tiers with schools in Tiers l and ll scoring above the average while Tiers lll and lV are below it. Tier l includes the top seven schools. Tier ll includes schools from Fudan University School of Management (No. 8) to University of Texas at Austin McCombs (No. 42). Tier lll includes Emory University Goizueta (No. 43) to Tias Business School at Tilburg University (No. 78). Tier lV includes University of Utah David Eccles (No. 79) to Iscte Business School at 100.
See the full FT ranking and how schools scored in the different categories here.
NEXT PAGES:How FT ranked all 100 schools in the 2023 EMBA Ranking
Ranking: Financial Times' World Best Executive MBA Programs Of 2023
