IMD continues to be recognized as one of the best business schools in the world by the Financial Times in its 2018 Executive Education Rankings.
- Our combined ranking remains #2 world-wide, making it seven years in a row that we are ranked in the TOP 3 schools overall
- On the Custom Program side, we are ranked #3
- For a 7th year in a row, IMD is ranked FIRST in the world for Open Programs
“Seven consecutive years as #1 in Open Programs and in the Top 3 overall for Executive Education is a remarkable success that we can all be proud of. We are grateful for the outstanding feedback given by our executive education participants and corporate partners which contributed to our standing in the FT ranking. More than ever we continue to do our utmost to keep deserving executives’ and partner organizations’ confidence,” said IMD President Jean-François Manzoni.
Quoted in the Financial Times on the occasion of the rankings announcement. Dermott O’Gorman, CEO WWF Australia, said his education at IMD in the Program for Executive Development was: “fundamental in my understanding that we only get to protect the planet if we don’t see the environment as something to be exploited. The role of the private sector is becoming increasingly important in delivering on sustainable development,” he says.
“A chief financial officer doesn’t need access to the same data as an engineer, but our dashboard displayed the lot, slowing customers down,” says Kjeld Jespersen, Caterpillar’s Switzerland-based global product manager for digital services, in the Financial Times, Executive Education Rankings 2018 issue. So, the 49-year-old Dane introduced a user interface (UI) that lets people search for data most relevant to their role, which increased the number of subscriptions to Caterpillar’s remote monitoring service. The project is one example of digital transformation — using technology to transform a business. He began his UI project before enrolling in the Leading Digital Business Transformation course at Switzerland’s IMD, in 2016. He says the program gave him the idea of testing UI designs with customers.
On the day of the rankings announcement the Financial Times reported: At IMD, more than 10 per cent of MBA alumni return to the school to study on executive courses, especially on leadership and digitization. “People are saying: ‘I just don’t know enough. I don’t understand the terms. It’s coming at me too fast,’” says Seán Meehan, dean of the MBA program. “One thing you ignite on a good MBA program is the desire to learn. They have a real desire to continue to learn. They never feel the job is done.”
Liana Logiurato believes in executive education. Since graduating with an MBA from IMD in 1997, the mergers and acquisitions specialist has taken eight short courses, each of one to two weeks in length.
Yet Logiurato, until recently global head of M&A at chemicals group Syngenta International in Switzerland, bemoans the lack of programmes for senior executives. She had hoped to attend a programme that would expose her to US culture, after working for many years in Europe and Asia. “I called up people, I sent emails, I looked into the top schools — top, top-notch,” she says. “When it [came] to high-end breakthrough programmes, I couldn’t find anything new.”
Logiurato eventually decided to return to her alma mater on the IMD Breakthrough Programme for Senior Executives. She says she has no regrets: “You get out of there and you think you are walking in a different way, you are thinking in a different way. It is super-powerful.”
