Financial Times ranks IESE no.2 in the world

The FT Executive Education 2022 ranking, which follows IESE´s record run at no.1 since 2015, consolidates IESE´s position as one of the world´s top business schools.

Ranking highlights IESE´s outstanding participant satisfaction rating, the relevance and innovation of programs, its internationality, as well as the quality and diversity of faculty and participants.

The FT Executive Education Combined Ranking 2022, released today by the Financial Times, has ranked IESE Business School second in the world. The result, which comes off the back of the school placing no.1 for a record-setting six straight years (2015-2020), consolidates IESE´s position as one of the premier schools for executive training. In 2021 there was no FT Executive Education ranking due to the coronavirus crisis.

The ranking highlighted participants´ high levels of satisfaction with IESE´s programs, as well as the relevance of the skills they gained to the workplace and the extent to which IESE programs encouraged new ways of thinking. IESE´s internationality (both in course design, and faculty and participant mix) also drew praise, as did the quality and diversity of faculty and participants, among others.

The good result comes despite the Covid-19 crisis being particularly disruptive for the most international executive education programs, said Philip Moscoso, Associate Dean for Executive Education at IESE. According to him, “this result shows our ability to deliver an exceptional overall experience to the executives, entrepreneurs and corporate clients who placed their trust in us while the world was in flux. By providing innovative programs that stretch participants´ thinking and broaden horizons through interaction with diverse peers and faculty, we can also equip today´s leaders with the skills and capabilities needed to thrive in new contexts.”

The 2022 FT Executive Education ranking analyzes two types of programs for executives: open-enrollment programs (open to entrepreneurs and executives from any company) and custom programs (courses that are tailor-made for specific companies). The FT produces separate rankings for open and custom programs, and then produces an overall rating for all of executive education, based on the data collected for the two rankings. As well as coming second overall in the combined ranking, IESE was also ranked third in the world for open programs, and third for custom programs.

For open programs, participants gave IESE excellent marks for their overall satisfaction with the IESE experience, rating IESE 9.95 out of 10 on average – the highest rating given to any of the ranked schools. As well as scoring high marks across the board, participants also said that they particularly valued the follow-up provided by IESE once they were back in the workplace (ranking no.2 in the world on this measure), and the new skills and learning they gained on the program. The quality and diversity of the cohort also stood out, which enhances networking opportunities among classmates.

Regarding custom programs, IESE also scored high marks for the internationality of its clients and faculty, the likelihood of corporate clients to return to IESE for their training needs, and the schools strong alliances with partner schools such as Harvard and Wharton.

The Financial Times ranking is based on survey responses from custom program clients and open program participants, combined with data provided by the business schools themselves across a number of different criteria.

See the complete FT ranking here.