FT 2025 Executive Education Rankings highlights growth in the event of turbulence

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IMD, a Swiss-based management development research institute, is the top global business school offering custom executive education programs in the latest Financial Times rankings, and London Business School is ideal for open programs.

Heck in France, IEESE in Spain, and Fanda Barral in Brazil are all one of the other leading providers of open decoration programs, offering custom custom programs to executives of individual companies.

Anyone can apply for an open program. This should last at least 3 days for general administrative courses and 4 days for advanced programs, as ranked by FT. Custom Programs are custom-made courses for businesses, and require a minimum of 10 participants to be ranked.

This year, a total of 119 business schools participated in the FT Executive Education Ranking. This is based on data provided by the school and assessments by participants. To be included, the business school must agree to participate and be permitted by either the AACSB or EQUIS accreditation body and earn at least $1 million in program revenue in 2024.

The FT evaluation comes at the time of a new expansion of executive education, driven by economic growth and increased appetite to explore themes such as artificial intelligence, despite the new political tensions sparked by global trade instability and the policies of US President Donald Trump.

There has been significant growth in regions, including the Gulf countries, with many business schools responding to increased demand as they strengthen training for Saudi executives and opening offices in the country in several negotiations.

Sergei Guriev, dean of London Business School, said: He warns of the growing demand for flexibility, “the line between executive education and degree programs is becoming increasingly blurred.” Guriev adds:

“We are a company that has been working hard to get into,” said Melanie Weaver Barnett, executive director of Unicon, the association of executive education providers for business schools.

Last year, the latest survey of 123 members of Unicon from 33 countries reported revenues increased by 13% from the open program and nearly 15% from the custom program.

However, she said at Unicon’s latest conference in Cairo this month, some members reported that European companies didn’t want to sign contracts with American business schools. This comes after the Trump administration has imposed aggressive tariffs, expressed hostility towards Europe, pushing back immigration, environment, diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

She added that the demand for in-person training has resumed since the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown forced almost all learning to be carried out online.

For open programs, European schools dominated the given assessment of participants’ quality, but Fundação Dom Cabral ranked at the top of the goals achieved, faculty, teaching methods and teaching materials.

Spain’s IESE business schools came to the top for overall satisfaction, followed by Case Western Reserve University: Weatherhead of EDHEC Business Schools in the US and France.

For custom programs, the SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan has increased overall satisfaction, education, faculty, follow-up, value for money, and the likelihood that clients will return to future programs.

Among participating US business schools, University of Michigan: Ross appeared at the top of both custom and open programs. Rutgers Business School, Thunderbird School of Global Management at ASU, Miami Herbert Business School, and Georgetown University: McDonough are all participating in custom programs. Case Western Reserve University: Weatherhead and University of Utah: David Eccles ranked well in the open program.

Indications of expansion in emerging markets include overall increase in revenue reported from open programs, as well as the range of repeat businesses at IAE business schools in Argentina. It was followed by Calcutta, the Lagos Business School in Nigeria and the Institute of Management in India.

Bi Norway’s business schools earned the highest share of 64% female executive education participants, while the Indian Management Institute was the lowest at 22%. Overall, executive education is distorted towards male participants except in North America. There, 52% of attendees were women.

All ranked business schools, faculty were primarily male, with women accounting for just 26% of professors in the Asia-Pacific region’s Open Programme, and 36% of the UK’s 36%. Usually, attendees were aged in their early or mid-40s.

Leadership is the most commonly taught topic across open executive education programs, followed by strategy, innovation, sustainability, change management and decision-making.