Washington University’s Olin Business School’s WashU-Fudan EMBA was named the top 2024 U.S. Executive MBA program by The Financial Times. The Olin School’s program placed third overall behind EMBAs at CEIBS and ESCP
Washington University’s 18-month Executive MBA program in Shanghai did not make The Financial Times‘s Global EMBA ranking last year.
What a difference a year makes.
This year the partnership between the Olin Business School in St. Louis, Missouri and Fudan University is the No. 1 program offered by a U.S. B-school, and third overall globally, according to the FT‘s 2024 ranking released today (October 13). The WashU-Fudan EMBA landed higher than EMBA programs at MIT Sloan School of Management (No. 6), Columbia University and Arizona State (tied for No. 7), and Yale and Wharton (tied for No. 14), among 31 total U.S. EMBAs out of 100 global programs.
FT named another Shanghai-based program, CEIBS’s Global EMBA, the top program this year. CEIBS had been No. 2 in 2021, 2022, and 2023. ESCP, which has campuses in France, Germany, the UK and other European countries, inched up to No. 2 from third last year and fifth in 2022.
THE FINANCIAL TIMES’S TOP 10 GLOBAL EMBAs IN 2024
| Rank in 2024 | School | Rank in 2023 | Rank in 2022 | 3-year average rank | Location | Program name |
| 1 | CEIBS | 2 | 2 | 2 | China/Switzerland/Ghana | Ceibs Global EMBA |
| 2 | ESCP Business School | 3 | 5 | 3 | France/Germany/UK/Italy/Spain/Poland | EMBA |
| 3 | Washington University: Olin | – | 9 | – | China/US | WashU-Fudan EMBA |
| 4 | Iese Business School | 10 | 10 | 8 | Spain/US/Germany | Global EMBA |
| 5 | Trium: HEC Paris/LSE/NYU: Stern | 4 | 6 | 5 | France/US/UK | Trium Global EMBA |
| 6 | MIT: Sloan | 13 | 7 | 9 | US | MIT EMBA |
| 7= | Arizona State University: Carey | 12 | 20 | 13 | China/US | WP Carey/SNAI EMBA |
| 7= | EMBA-Global: Columbia/LBS | – | – | – | US/UK | EMBA Global |
| 9 | Insead | – | 17 | – | France/UAE/Singapore | Global EMBA (GEMBA) |
| 10 | Fudan University School of Management | 8 | 12 | 10 | China | Fudan EMBA |
Source: Financial Times
‘INCREDIBLY EXCITED & PROUD OF THE RESULT’
All 100 ranked EMBAs are high-quality. As FT points out, just 195 points separate the top program from the school ranked 100 (the EMBA program at the University of Tennessee Haslam College of Business). The schools are divided into four tiers, with B-schools in tiers l and ll scoring above the average for the cohort, and tiers lll and lV scoring below it. The difference in scores between schools ranked consecutively is greater within tiers l and lV than in tiers ll and lll. Tier l includes nine schools from CEIBS to INSEAD, including WashU.
The WashU-Fudan EMBA ranked 9th in The Financial Times‘s list two years ago. It costs around $108K; alumni report an average salary of $627,737 — higher than any other ranked program. Notably, the program ranks 11th overall in FT‘s research rank and 96th in carbon footprint.
“The success of the WashU-Fudan EMBA program is a reflection of the commitment and passion of everyone involved — students, staff, and faculty — and it is a testament to the fact that maintaining a global perspective while honoring our local heritage is a winning combination for developing the next generation of leaders,” Markus Baer, WashU professor of organizational behavior and vice dean of executive education, tells Poets&Quants. “We are very pleased with the latest ranking and are excited about what we can accomplish in the years to come.”
Adds Paul Shao, managing director of the WashU-Fudan EMBA program: “We are all incredibly excited and proud of the result. It’s a great testament to the excellence of the program and the fruitful partnership between the two universities.”
FT DATA FOR THE TOP 10 2024 PROGRAMS
| School | Salary today (US$) | Salary increase (%) | Aims achieved (%) | Female students (%) | International students (%) | FT research rank | Environmental, social and governance (ESG) rank | Carbon footprint rank |
| CEIBS | 536,759 | 102 | 75 | 45 | 56 | 35 | 56 | 43 |
| ESCP Business School | 363,789 | 114 | 75 | 36 | 94 | 71 | 2 | 19 |
| Washington University: Olin | 627,737 | 100 | 69 | 62 | 5 | 11 | 69 | 94 |
| Iese Business School | 328,158 | 59 | 71 | 35 | 97 | 20 | 3 | 6 |
| Trium: HEC Paris/LSE/NYU: Stern | 421,699 | 53 | 74 | 29 | 94 | 42 | 25 | 41 |
| MIT: Sloan | 406,328 | 68 | 77 | 38 | 39 | 10 | 98 | 11 |
| Arizona State University: Carey | 477,750 | 97 | 72 | 39 | 0 | 24 | 7 | 6 |
| EMBA-Global: Columbia/LBS | 322,085 | 90 | 69 | 53 | 80 | 3 | 46 | 61 |
| INSEAD | 346,472 | 57 | 72 | 32 | 87 | 4 | 14 | 11 |
| Fudan University School of Management | 480,536 | 110 | 71 | 41 | 0 | 46 | 52 | 65 |
Source: Financial Times
FT’S METHODOLOGY: PRIME IMPORTANCE ON PAY
How FT weights its ranking criteria:
- Salary today in U.S. dollars (15%): Average alumnus salary three years after course completion.
- Salary increase (16%): average difference in alumni salaries between before the EMBA and now. Half of this figure is calculated according to the absolute salary increase, and half according to the percentage increase relative to the pre-EMBA salary — the figure published in the table.
- Career progress (6%): calculated according to changes in the level of seniority and the size of company or organization the alumni work in now, versus before their EMBA.
- Work experience (5%): a measure of the pre-EMBA experience of alumni according to the seniority of positions held, number of years in each position, organization size and overseas work experience.
- Aims achieved (6%): the extent to which alumni fulfilled their goals or reasons for doing an EMBA.
- Alumni network rank (4%): effectiveness of the alumni network for career opportunities, launching start-ups, recruiting staff and providing event information (such as career-related talks), as rated by alumni.
- Female faculty (5%): percentage of full-time female faculty. For this and the two gender-related criteria below, schools that have 50:50 (male:female) composition receive the highest possible score.
- Female students (5%): percentage of female students on the program.
- Women on board (1%): percentage of female members on the advisory board.
- International faculty (5%): calculated according to the diversity of faculty by citizenship and the percentage whose citizenship differs from their location of employment — the published figure.
- International students (5%): the percentage of current EMBA students whose citizenship differs from the location in which they study, or where the school’s main campus is, as well as their diversity by citizenship.
- International board (1%): percentage of the board whose citizenship differs from the location in which the business school is situated.
- International course experience rank (4%): based on the percentage of classroom teaching hours, for the recent completing class, that were required to be conducted outside the location in which the business school is situated. In-person, virtual and hybrid experiences are included.
- Faculty with doctorates (5%): percentage of full-time faculty with a doctoral degree.
- FT research rank (10%): calculated according to the number of articles published by a school’s current full-time faculty members in 50 academic and practitioner journals from January 2022 to about May 2024. The rank combines the absolute number of publications with the number weighted relative to the faculty’s size.
- ESG and net zero teaching rank (3%): proportion of teaching hours from core courses (not electives) dedicated to ethics, social, environmental issues and climate solutions for how organizations can reach net zero. Alumni evaluation of their school’s ESG teaching is also included.
- Carbon footprint rank (4%): calculated using the net zero target year for carbon emissions set by the university and/or school, and the existence of a publicly available carbon emissions audit report since 2019. Extra credit is given to schools with an audit report that includes Scope 3 emissions (those not controlled directly by the school but which occur externally in its value chain as a result of its activities).
Overall satisfaction is another ranking factor. FT uses the average evaluation by alumni of the course, scored out of 10. After alumni answered various questions about their EMBA experience, they were asked to rate their overall satisfaction, on a 10-point scale.
TOP 2024 EMBAs: U.S. SCHOOLS & PARTNERSHIPS
| Rank in 2024 | School name | Rank in 2023 | Rank in 2022 | 3-year average rank | Location | Program name | Salary today (US$) |
| 3 | Washington University: Olin | – | 9 | – | China/US | WashU-Fudan EMBA | 627,737 |
| 6 | MIT: Sloan | 13 | 7 | 9 | US | MIT EMBA | 406,328 |
| 7= | EMBA-Global: Columbia/LBS | – | – | – | US/UK | EMBA Global | 322,085 |
| 7= | Arizona State University: Carey | 12 | 20 | 13 | China/US | WP Carey/SNAI EMBA | 477,750 |
| 14= | Yale School of Management | 10 | 14 | 13 | US | Yale MBA for Executives | 309,636 |
| 14= | University of Pennsylvania: Wharton | 18 | 22 | 18 | US | Wharton MBA for Executives | 319,716 |
| 20 | Northwestern University: Kellogg | 27 | 23 | 23 | US | Kellogg EMBA | 314,920 |
| 27 | University of Chicago: Booth | 17 | 8 | 17 | US/UK/Hong Kong | EMBA | 318,881 |
| 32= | UCLA Anderson School of Management | 22 | 21 | 25 | US | EMBA | 273,132 |
| 38 | New York University: Stern | 34 | 40 | 37 | US | NYU Stern EMBA | 269,791 |
| 39 | University of Michigan: Ross | 32 | 51 | 41 | US | Michigan Ross EMBA | 345,712 |
| 42 | University of Texas at Austin: McCombs | 42 | 38 | 41 | US | Texas McCombs EMBA | 246,778 |
| 48 | Emory University: Goizueta | 43 | 36 | 42 | US | EMBA | 232,500 |
| 49= | Georgetown University: McDonough | 55 | 54 | 53 | US | Georgetown EMBA | 249,562 |
Source: Financial Times
U.S. PROGRAMS DOMINATE LIST
In all, 31 ranked EMBAs out of the total 100 have a U.S. school as one of the partners in operating the program, up from 30 in 2023. Among them: The MIT EMBA, a 20-month program that ranked sixth, up from 13th last year; the EMBA-Global program run jointly by Columbia Business School and London Business School, a 20-month program that tied for 7th after not having been ranked the previous two years; and Arizona State Carey School of Business’s EMBA operated in China with Shanghai National Accounting Institute, which tied for 7th after ranking 12th in 2023.
The Northwestern Kellogg-HKUST Executive MBA program, No. 1 the last two years, did not make the top 100 this year. However, three other Kellogg partnerships were ranked: the Guanghua-Kellogg EMBA (12th), the Kellogg-WHU Beisheim EMBA (29th), and the Kellogg-York Schulich EMBA (36th). Kellogg’s own EMBA ranked 20th, up from 27th last year.
Last year the top-ranked U.S. program was Yale School of Management’s EMBA, which tied for 10th. Yale fell to 14th this year.
See the next page for the complete 100-program Financial Times ranking of top global EMBAs.
