Peter Lorange, president of top school IMD up until April 2008, is buying the controversial GSBA in Zurich and wants to turn it into a renowned business school.

Why is it controversial? I'm under the impression that it's just a not very good school.

I agree, there is nothing particularly controversial about the school except that it was up for sale in the first place.

From what I hear, it is pretty poor quality, unaccredited, with little reputation among employers. So if he throws some money at the problem, Mr Lorange should find it quite easy to make some basic improvements.

As for turning it in to a leading business school, if he has a 20 year plan, who knows? At the moment there are only two internationally known MBAs in Switzerland, IMD and St.Gallen, so there must be room for 1 more.

GSBA was ranked in the FT in 2002 (even better than IMD), but under rather dubious circumstances. There are several articles discussing the validity of the MBA degrees awarded by GSBA in other countries like Germany. As GSBA does not have full university status in Switzerland, they need a partner university to award internationally accepted MBA degrees (Their Dual Degree Executive MBA-Program is currently offered in co-operation with Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland). They also list University of Wales as one of their partners. Mmmh.

http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/jobundberuf/0,1518,322987,00.html
http://www.faz.net/s/RubB698ECF096E04ED68C1EF3A8D2553D73/Doc~ED39B9B42FA2F4DA4A296959037A57832~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html
(both articles in German and possibly outdated)

12 years down the road we see CEIBS global EMBA ranked 5th by FT.
I'm planning on studying an EMBA. As a Spanish Finance professional working in Switzerland. How would you rank these options in order to improve in my career. My goal is to continue growing in Finance with an eye on becoming an entrepreneur in a few years.
HEC Paris
Ceibs
IMD
ST Gallen
ESCP
IE
IESE
Insead

Thank you for your ideas.

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