Hi everyone,

First of all, thanks to the forum and participants for the insights and comments on different topics and schools, it has been really helpful to enhance my assessment of my choices.

I come from Spain and have been working in finance related functions in the energy sector for the past 12 years. I currently have the role of a director in an IPP backed by a private equity group. I have a senior position, but I feel I have not reached my full potential.
I am considering taking an Executive MBA since I already studied an Executive Master in Finance (IE @Madrid Campus) and numerous executive courses and function-related courses (financial modelling, python, project finance, M&A), and even if I think that I should have taken the EMBA before in my career, job and personal reasons made it impossible.

I have been accepted into the ESPC Executive MBA for the september intake. I have +15 years experience in finance and energy. My decission to apply for this school was based on:

- Ranking: it surprised me to find ESCP as a top-3 school at the FT Ranking in Executive MBAs since I always related the quality of the Executive MBA with the quality of the MBA, and ESCP has been a top-25 school at best in MBA rankings.

- International campus: I started my career working abroad (US, France, Germany), but later concentrated on Spain and I think this is my last chance to have options to work outside Spain (I have been offered jobs in the middle east, but this is not what i desire). I think the different campus and weeks of study in the 6 different cities of the program could be helpful in position myself for jobs in Western Europe countries.

- Availability of courses online and a campus in Madrid: I live in Spain and I have a large family (3 little kids), so having the opportunity to take some courses online whenever family duties make impossible to travel and also having one of the 6 seminars in Madrid is really helpful to my particular situation

- Price: €84,000 (€73,000 in the early bid option) is cheaper than other top business schools

- Electives: I checked the course list and I felt that it could provide what I fell I lack the most. (I am not looking into finance-related courses which many non-finance professionals find ideal in an MBA), but I don't have the knowledge to assess the faculty members.

So, my doubts and questions (i really appreciate the exchange of opinions) are:
- Do rankings really correlate with actual value of the programme (to me, the prestige among potential employers and increasing job opportunities)?
I took the IE Madrid Executive Masters in Finance 10 years ago and I felt that the quality of courses and teachers was below what I expected for ranking and cost.

- ESCP really boasts about the benefits of the international seminars. Being true (not only for an EMBA, but for any course), I think there is small differences between learning in-person and learning through live online courses.

- With regards to price, I think most of the value of the master is revealed in the tuition costs. I see that other EMBAs like IMD or Oxford Said are significantly more expensive than ESCP, do this fact reveal lower quality of the ESCP program or is it just a marketing strategy of the school? Am I short-minded with this view?

I appreciate any comments and replies.
Regards,
J

Rankings and fees will both be enerally aligned with value to you: almost any desirable criterion will be positively associated with most applicants' goals.

It's not *very* clear what your career goal is or what you are looking for from an MBA. It sounds like to want to find a similar role abroad. ESCP is a deeply French school, and so it makes sense if that country is your focus. The brand equity of a school is strong where its alumni are in your target industry.

Assuming IPP means Independent Power Producer (likely, since you reference energy). ESCP isn't quite as strong in France as, say, HEC or the Ecole Polytechnique but it's a strong option.

PS A high-level language French language qualification like the DELF B2 or DALF C1 might be more valuable in France than an additional postgraduate qualification.

[Edited by Duncan on May 06, 2024]

Hi Duncan,

First of all, thank you very much for your contribution on this post and others. Really helpful.

My first goal is to complete my education in management skills (I already speak French since I studied there during a year). I have always had analysis/valuation roles (with increased degree of seniority) and an MBA kind of fits my needs in terms of learning People/Strategy/Marketing/Leadership.

Second goal is to enhance my possibilities of working in other sectors and outside Spain (not France alone, maybe other countries in Europe). I understand that the different schools have most of their brand equity inside their own country. I have followed the efforts of ESCP to expand its activities and campuses accross Europe, so i was wondering if this expansion has had any effect on its prestige on countries outside France.
It has not been as easy as expected to find EMBA from ESCP on linkedin.

Third goal is the job opportunities of the ESCP Executive MBA itself. With my not-so-positive experience with IE Business School in the past, I have some reluctance to accept the equation ranking=value, and just wanted to know the opinions on the school and EMBA itself.

Again, thank you very much.
Regards,
J

IE is a unique school: all the other major business schools are non-profits, and most are educational charities. IE is a business, and that has a lot of impact on the way it runs and the experience that employers and students work with it. I don't think you will get anything close to that experience in a major school. The closest thing will be in schools where the executive education is run by a separate company that sort of franchises the university brand (Aalto, Hult, Mannheim, SSE, TIAS and a few other schools have business schools that are legally separate from their parent).

I'm not quite sure what sort of role you are looking for: other sectors, other countries.... these are not very specific. You are likely to be more successful if you develop a hypothesis about where you can add the most value, and then you go into the labour market to test it.

The rankings show you the data in the rankings. The ESCP EMBA gives you a broadly comparable EMBA experience to far more costly schools. However, it's not very attractive to French students. The EMBA is more of an export-oriented offer. Students are happy with the programme and register good outcomes. It's a well-designed course. The flexibility is a plus and a minus: most people would prefer the cohort experience of a lock-step EMBA. Looking at the full-time MBA, ESCP has clearly progressed fast with its offer. It's a serious player. However, it's only ranked 50th for the power of its alumni network, 57th for career services (almost as bad as IE, which is 63rd and lacks ESCP institutional legitimacy in France).

That said, ESCP is only an optimal brand in France: most alumni are there. The campuses it inherited from EAP have been designed to serve mostly French and primarily pre-experience students abroad. They don't have career support optimised for the EMBA cohort, like most schools. You can use LinkedIn to see the outcomes for alumni. It will not be a bridge into other countries, not in the way a top school is in a target country. The ranking is global, but the labour market is profoundly national. ESCP's network might be slightly useful for you in the UK or Germany, but if you look you will see that its alumni there are generally from the MiM.

According to the FT full-time ranking, European schools with far better career services are Manchester, IESE, Bocconi, LBS, and WHU: these are the only European schools with career services ranked in the top 40 globally for career services. EDHEC, Insead, Warwick, Esade, IMD, and ESCP are next, ranked 49th to 57th.

I don't think the ESCP EMBA is the right choice for someone who is unsure of what role or country they want. I recommend you work with a career coach to identify where you can add the most value with your current skills. I don't see the advantage of the ESCP EMBA over an online MBA from a school with deeper roots in your target country (e.g. Warwick, WHU, Polimi) or an alumni-status non-degree programme focussed on the soft skills you want to develop (ESMT, IMD, Insead, LBS, Oxbridge etc).

Appreciate it Duncan, thank you very much again for the comments. It really helps to enhance my view.
Regards,
J

Some good considerations you're making here. I've taken a few notes about questions you raise to incorporate in a free presentation I'll do later this month on Leland about MBA options for experienced students. I ran the mid-career program at Stanford (Stanford MSx), which was full-time, but I got to know most of the leading EMBA programs as a result. Join the event if you are interested.
https://www.joinleland.com/event/strategizing-mba-options-for-experienced-students-6-yrs-work-exp-2024-07-30