Kellogg Retains Top Spot in 2010 FT Rankings

Kellogg / HKUST Business School’s EMBA program has retained top spot in the 2010 FT rankings of Executive MBAs. QS TopExecutive takes a look at this year’s results.

They are billing it as the year of ‘cooperation’. The top three EMBA programs in the 2010 Financial Times (FT) ranking are all delivered in partnership from the world’s top business schools and it is the Kellogg/HKUST Business School collaboration that is leading the way.

For the second year in a row, Kellogg School of Management at the Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois (USA) and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has been ranked as offering the number one Executive MBA program in the world, according to – among other things – graduate salary, salary growth and careers.

This program’s performance is followed closely by the collaboration between Columbia Business School in the US, and London Business School in the UK in second place. TRIUM, a collaboration of HEC Paris, London School of Economics (LSE) and New York University Stern, sits in third spot.

A look at the top ten EMBA programs by country shows a representation of Eastern and Western campuses. Five programs are offered in both the USA and UK, two each in France, China and Singapore, and one in both Spain and UAE.

Despite the dominance of Western oriented programs in this year’s rankings, the results also point to a trend occurring out East. QS TopExecutive Guide editor-in-chief, Hina Wadhwa-Gonfreville says the performance of collaborative Executive MBA programs in the 2010 FT rankings shows the growing demand of the part-time MBA degree for executives in the Asia region.

“Both Western Europe and North America have traditionally been home to the Executive MBA but that is not to say that demand doesn’t occur elsewhere around the world. With Asia leading economic recovery in the world, there is a need for qualifications that enable senior managers to not only establish themselves further with an Executive MBA, but to get a degree that allows them to study business in the field that is relevant to them, and that is what these collaborative programs offer. These global programs offer not only insight into best practices from all over the world, but also bring together participants from diverse locations and backgrounds, for a truly ‘worldly’ experience.”

These jointly-offered programs also indicate a growing commitment to the East from many Western business schools. INSEAD, which ranked fourth in the 2010 FT EMBA rankings, is this year celebrating its 10th anniversary of its campus in Singapore. “Top talent in Asia is no longer going elsewhere to seek an education,” Wadhwa-Gonfreville says. “All the action is taking place in Asia and Asian business schools are able to offer a world class education, many of them collaborating  with European or North American business schools.

“In the same way that many of the world’s top luxury brands are very successful in Asia, so are the prestigious business schools that choose to make a commitment to this region. Personal branding is important, especially as the economic landscape is changing and executives are more and more professionally and geographically mobile. People want the best and now have the economic resources to access the best.”

View the full rankings results of the world’s top 100 Executive MBA programs for 2010, as ranked by the Financial Times.