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50 Years after the first two-year MBA in Europe, Harvard-IESE Committee meets: MBA News

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By Louise O'Conor Updated Jun 15, 2014
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50 Years after the first two-year MBA in Europe, Harvard-IESE Committee meets: MBA News main image

The Harvard-IESE Committee, which was first set up in order to implement what became the first two-year MBA in Europe at IESE Business School, has met on its 50th year.

The committee, which includes representatives from both IESE Business School in Spain and Harvard Business School in the US, has been meeting annually since it was first set up in 1963 to help guide the establishment of the full-time IESE MBA program. Having also played a key role in the development of joint international executive education programs, the 50th meeting discussed the future of business management and the role of education, as well as joint research and teaching projects.

Setting Up the First Two-Year MBA in Europe

Recalling the committee's first meeting, Professor Carlos Cavallé, one of IESE's founders and a former dean of the school explains that the group "didn’t know we were establishing the first full-time MBA in Europe" at that time. But after the committee's first meeting "it was as if the skies had opened. It was a very special feeling, like falling in love."

Since that meeting, arranged at the request of IESE which at the time offered other masters qualifications, the two business schools have enjoyed close collaboration through the committee.

"What the two schools have in common in terms of values is that it’s not just education for competence, it’s education for leadership and personal and professional development," explains Carl Kester, a committee member and professor of business administration at Harvard Business School.

"Online learning is here to stay but leadership is an intensely social activity and you can’t learn it until you are participating with other people as you do in class - learning how to listen and to persuade. It takes time to be steeped in that environment, to learn and to develop values."

Image: Yaniv Yaakubovich