FT Executive MBA Ranking 2021: agility amid the pandemic

A French, a Chinese and a joint US-Hong Kong programme have held on to the a few top places in the FT’s 2021 Executive MBA Position, in a calendar year marked by ongoing pandemic disruption to function and research.

HEC’s Paris Worldwide EMBA regained top spot, forward of — in joint next posture — the Kellogg/HKUST EMBA in Hong Kong, which led the 2020 position, and the China Europe Worldwide Business College (Ceibs) World-wide EMBA in Shanghai.

EMBA alumni a few years following graduating ongoing to command high pay at a time of organization uncertainty, with altered common salaries sampled in each 2020 and 2021 up from $276,655 to $281,089.

The selection of pupils at top organization faculties analysed by the FT fell a little bit, calendar year-on-calendar year. Between the 88 faculties rated in each 2020 and 2021, the figure went from 7,932 to 7,616, and among the the whole of 123 establishments assessed, it dropped from ten,729 to ten,one hundred eighty.

Although quite a few elite organization faculties have ongoing to attract a sturdy worldwide mix of pupils to a number of campuses that they function alone or in partnership, some smaller and regional faculties have experienced in modern months with falling intakes.

FT Executive MBA position 2021: the top 100

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Find out which faculties are in our position of EMBA degrees. Master how the table was compiled.

“We’ve got some faculties that have shuttered their doorways and some with programmes on keep,” claimed Michael Desiderio, government director of Embac, a trade body representing a bigger team of virtually 300 EMBA providers, such as quite a few in the US. “My intestine [says], globally, class dimension is flat or down, but I really don’t see demand falling off a cliff.”

The EMBA usually delivers training for professionals and executives who have important prior specialist working experience and continue on to function when learning part-time. The rankings are based on steps this sort of as alumni salaries and how far programs aided them obtain their aims a few years following completion, as properly as the diversity of student and training bodies and the high quality of tutorial investigation.

The FT’s top a few rated programmes — and quite a few other individuals among the the 100 — are presented at a number of campuses about the entire world, which has authorized the faculties to provide a wide variety of experiences and bigger flexibility during limits on motion.

Equally HEC Paris and Ceibs function from their have websites — in France and Qatar, and in China, Ghana and Switzerland, respectively. Kellogg/HKUST’s EMBA is based in Hong Kong but features pupils the likelihood to research part of the training course at other campuses around the globe.

Yuan Ding, dean of Ceibs, claimed pandemic-associated travel limits and political shifts in China’s romantic relationship with the west experienced led to “a massive localisation”. He has witnessed a fall in attendance by overseas pupils and expatriates, offset by mounting demand from nationals for programs taught in Chinese. “We really don’t take into consideration globalisation as a fait accompli. You have to offer you material with domestically appropriate topics,” he claimed.

Kathy Harvey, associate dean for MBA and government degrees at Oxford’s Saïd Business College, rated 12th for its EMBA, claimed class dimensions had been a very little smaller in 2020 and 2021 than just before the pandemic, but that software volumes and high quality remained sturdy. She extra that employers’ willingness to accommodate remote functioning experienced authorized participants to travel to the Uk to attend in-man or woman programs following functioning remotely from a lodge space initially if topic to quarantine.

“We identified as a solitary-college programme with a whole lot of worldwide material, we had been not as affected as we assumed,” she claimed, including that Saïd launched “owl and lark” classes so that participants could be part of or view recorded conversations at various occasions.

The rise in on the internet finding out has enhanced the scope for pupils and guest speakers to take part in EMBAs. Between FT-rated faculties, the proportion of woman pupils enhanced in 2021 to a 3rd of the whole, continuing an enhance from a quarter a 10 years ago. There has been a related rise in the proportion of woman college.

Eight of the dozen best-rated programmes are run in a number of nations, such as the EMBA World-wide Asia partnership involving Columbia, London Business College and the University of Hong Kong, and the Trium World-wide MBA, a joint diploma presented jointly by HEC Paris, the London College of Economics and New York University’s Stern college.

Alongside North The united states and Europe, China continues to be a person of the most well-known spots for EMBAs, despite the fact that rated programs are also presented in spots this sort of as Singapore, South Korea, Russia, Turkey, the Gulf, north Africa and Iran.

“The terms for the previous calendar year had been resilience and agility,” claimed Elizabeth O’Neill, government director of Trium. “We needed it of our teachers, pupils and staff members. We had been top and supplying a programme for worldwide leaders who comprehended since they had been in organisations heading through very immediate improve.”

Schools and alumni documented sturdy desire from applicants in finding out about electronic expertise and systems, and wanting to be taught partly on the internet to provide them with bigger flexibility to balance research, function and travel.

“The main pattern has been a demand for all the things electronic,” claimed Andrew Crisp from CarringtonCrisp, an schooling consultancy. “Students want material on electronic transformation, leadership and all the things else. They also want some electronic shipping and delivery — particularly . . . to prepare just before they get to the classroom, [to] reduce the selection of days absent from function.”

Programs rated by the FT must instruct at the very least 30 pupils and be hosted by a college accredited by the US-based Affiliation to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business or the European-based Equis method.