# Saïd Business School

Saïd Business School (Oxford Saïd or SBS) is the business school of the University of Oxford. The school is a provider of management education.
Business and management classes started at Oxford in 1965 when the Centre of Management Studies, later relaunched as Templeton College, Oxford, was founded. In 1988, a committee chaired by Claus Moser, Baron Moser recommended that the University create a new School of Management Studies. By 1990, Clark L. Brundin became founding director of Oxford's school of management studies. In 1996, the school re-branded as Saïd Business School after a donation of £28 million from Wafic Saïd. New premises were built on Park End Street and opened in 2001. The Thatcher Business Education Centre was opened on the same site in 2012 after a further donation from Saïd. The School has another centre at Egrove Park, on the former site of Templeton College, and in 2019 acquired an old power station in Osney to convert into a Global Leadership Centre.
Saïd Business School is the University of Oxford's department for graduate students in business, management and finance. Undergraduates are also taught as part of the Economics and Management course together with the Economics Department.
As of June 2022, the Dean of Said Business School is Professor Soumitra Dutta.

## History

Business education at the University of Oxford dates back to 1965, when the Oxford Centre for Management Studies was founded. The centre was renamed Templeton College in 1983 as a result of a donation from Sir John Templeton.
In 1988 a committee chaired by Sir Claus Moser (warden of Wadham College) recommended that the University set up a new School of Management Studies. The University agreed to establish a Business School in 1990 and the Oxford School of Management Studies was set up in premises at the Old Radcliffe Infirmary with its first intake of students arriving in 1993. The first director was Dr Clark Brundin, who had been the vice-chancellor of the University of Warwick since 1985. He was also appointed as president of Templeton College.
Saïd Business School was founded in 1996 when Syrian-born businessman Wafic Saïd offered the University a donation of £28 million. A site for the new premises was found on Park End Street opposite Oxford railway station on what was formerly the Oxford Rewley Road railway station. The building was designed by Edward Jones and Sir Jeremy Dixon. The opening on 5 November 2001 was accompanied by a demonstration by students concerned about the controversial nature of Wafic Saïd's donation. Saïd was linked with the UK's signing of the Al-Yamamah arms deal.
In 2007 Templeton College merged with Green College to form Green Templeton College, based on the existing Green College site. The former Templeton site at Egrove Park then became the Saïd Business School Executive Education Centre. In 2012 the Thatcher Business Education Centre, financed by a donation from Saïd, was opened on the Park End Street site. Saïd donated a further £15 million in 2019 to finance the conversion of the old Osney power station into a Global Leadership Centre.
In 2020 Saïd Business School lost an employment tribunal case brought by its former director of custom executive education. The tribunal found that the whistleblower had been unfairly dismissed and awarded her £1,499,606.62.

## Degree programmes

Saïd Business School's main degree programmes are its one-year full-time MBA programme, 21-month modular Executive MBA programme, the DPhil or PhD Programme in Management Studies, the MSc in Financial Economics in cooperation with the Economics Department, the two-year MSc in Major Programme Management and the one-year MSc in Law and Finance (MLF) in conjunction with the Oxford Law Faculty.

### Undergraduate programme

Saïd Business School offers one undergraduate programme: Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Management. This programme is taught jointly by the Department of Economics and the Business School.

### Graduate programmes
#### MBA

Saïd Business School offers a one-year full-time Master of Business Administration degree, which enrolls approximately 320 students per year. In the 2018–2019 class of 315 students, 61% were male and 39% were female with 62 nationalities represented and averaged 5 years of work experience. The MBA programme was updated for the 2014/15 academic year

#### EMBA

Saïd Business School also offers a 22 month or 24 month part-time 'Executive Master of Business Administration' degree designed for people with more than 5 years' management experience. The Oxford EMBA is studied through 16 week-long modules largely taught in Oxford, but with at least two conducted in key international markets. As of 2016, the programme ran two iterations per year, with new cohorts starting in both January and September. There were 61 students in September 2022 class, from 33 different nationalities and 41% of which are women. There are several scholarships for women available each year for outstanding candidates.

#### 1+1 MBA

Dean Peter Tufano started the Oxford 1+1 MBA programme which allows students to pair the one-year full-time MBA programme with one of a selection of one-year MSc programmes offered by other University of Oxford departments.

#### MSc in Major Programme Management (MMPM)

The School runs a part-time two-year MSc in Major Programme Management. It accepts approximately 50-60 students per cohort, running a programme that features 8 modules and a thesis. Module topics (in 2022) are:
* Designing and managing successful programmes
* Major programme risk
* Systems thinking
* Governance and stakeholder management
* Commercial leadership
* Research methods
* Managing performance
* Globalisation and major programmes

#### MSc in Global Healthcare Leadership

The School starts a part-time (hybrid) two-year MSc in Global Healthcare Leadership in September 2022/23 academic year. It was intended to start in the 2021/22 year but deferred due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This programme is being managed under both Said Business School and Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Services. It has 8 modules each proceeded by a week of teachings in Oxford.

## Academic performance

University of Oxford is 1st in the 2022 Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
2023 QS Global MBA Rankings by Career Specialization:
* Finance: 7th in world
* Entrepreneurship: 7th in world
* Information Management: 5th in world
* Technology: 3rd in world
* Consulting: 19th in world
2022 Financial Times Executive MBA: 15th in the world
2023 CEO World Magazine B-school rankings: 5th in the world.
In the inaugural LinkedIn MBA Ranking (2024), Saïd Business School ranked 15th in the world.

## Admissions

The 2022-23 cohort of students on the MBA course comprised 64 different nationalities, with 93% coming from outside the UK. Nearly half (48%) were women. The median GMAT score was 690 and median GRE composite score was 320 (Quant - 160; Verbal - 160). The cohort's average work experience was 5 years and average age was 29 years.

## Administration

For administrative purposes, Saïd Business School is part of the University of Oxford's Social Sciences Division. In June 2022 Professor Soumitra Dutta, former Professor of Management at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University in New York, took up the position of Dean, replacing interim Dean Sue Dopson, Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Fellow of Green Templeton College. Previous Deans were Professor Peter Tufano (2011–2021), Professor Colin Mayer (2006–2011), Professor Anthony Hopwood (1999–2006) and Professor Sir John Kay (1996–1998).

## Notable alumni

* Joshua Abreu (MBA) - President of Securities at Central Bank of Paraguay
* Axel Addy (EMBA) – Minister for Commerce & Industry of Liberia
* Javed Afridi (PhD) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Haier Pakistan
* Mohamed Amersi (EMBA) - British businessman and philanthropist
* Shawn Baldwin (MFS) - American investor
* Michael Bates, Baron Bates (EMBA) - Minister of State for International Development
* Terry Beech (MBA) - Member of Parliament, Canada
* Ananya Birla - Indian singer and entrepreneur
* George Bridgewater (MBA) – New Zealand Olympic rower
* Caryn Davies (MBA) – USA Olympic rower
* Ruthe Farmer (MBA) - American policymaker and activist
* Elizabeth Filippouli – Greek broadcaster, entrepreneur and global business strategist
* Tim Foster (EMBA) – British Olympic rower
* Þorsteinn B. Friðriksson (MBA) - Icelandic mobile app entrepreneur
* Toshiharu Furukawa (MBA) – Japanese politician, Professor at Keio University
* Patrick Grant (EMBA) – British fashion designer
* Ante Kušurin (MBA) – Croatian Olympic rower
* Dame Emily Lawson (MBA) - head of the NHS COVID-19 vaccine programme
* Nate Morris (MBA) - American entrepreneur
* Stephen Robert Morse (MBA) journalist and film director/producer
* Claire Diaz Ortiz (MBA) – American, Twitter, Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business
* Papa CJ (MBA) – Indian comedian
* Kenges Rakishev – Kazakhstan investor
* Jane Silber (MBA) - American businesswoman and computer scientist
* Colin Smith (MBA) – British Olympic rower
* Storm Uru (MBA) – New Zealand Olympic rower
* Cameron Winklevoss (MBA) – USA Olympic rower and Internet entrepreneur
* Tyler Winklevoss (MBA) – USA Olympic rower and Internet entrepreneur
* Andriy Zagorodnyuk – Ukrainian technology entrepreneur and former Minister of defence of Ukraine

## Faculty

* Kunal Basu
* Richard Cuthbertson
* Pamela Hartigan
* Nancy Hubbard
* Tim Jenkinson
* Sally Maitlis
* Colin Mayer
* Mari Sako
* Andrew T. Stephen
* Peter Tufano
* Richard Whittington
* Ludovic Phalippou