# INCAE Business School

INCAE Business School (an acronym for Instituto Centroamericano de Administración de Empresas, English: Central American Institute of Business Administration") is an international business school located at the Walter Kissling Gam campus in Costa Rica. The school was founded with the assistance of professors from Harvard Business School in 1964. Although INCAE is independent, it adheres to the Harvard's case study method.
The case study method allows students to examine past and current business situations, which gives them two years' worth of indirect, real-world experience across industries and regions. The case study method offers students the opportunity to step into the shoes of managers, critique their decisions and provide alternative solutions. While the majority of cases are translations from Harvard Business School case studies, INCAE students are additionally provided with emerging market studies from Latin America.
INCAE offers a 2-year MBA in Costa Rica. Other programs include the Executive MBA and seminars.
The Financial Times has ranked INCAE as a top global MBA program and The Wall Street Journal has ranked INCAE Business School as one of the top 10 international business schools in the world.

## History

On March 23, 1963, President John F. Kennedy visited Costa Rica and met with the presidents of Costa Rica El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. In the meeting, the presidents requested Kennedy's assistance in establishing a business administration program that would produce future managers. On April 10, President Kennedy wrote to George P. Baker, Dean of the Harvard Business School, thanking the school for taking interest in the initiative. Dean Baker sent three professors, George Cabot Lodge, Henry Arthur and Thomas Raymond, to gauge the level of support from the business community and society at large in each of the Central American countries for the project.
Francisco de Sola, a Salvadoran business leader, took the leadership role in consolidating support for the project. On December 13, 1963, a provisional administrative committee was appointed to head the project that would be known as the INCAE Project. Francisco de Sola was named Chairman of the Administrative Committee, a position he would hold for the next twenty years. The founding Rector of the school was Ernesto Cruz.
INCAE's first academic program was the Advanced Management Program, PAG for its name in Spanish. Between the first of July and the seventh of August, 1964, 45 executives from countries in the region gathered in Antigua, Guatemala, for the program. The first PAG was taught by Harvard Business School professors. In subsequent years some PAG students attended Harvard University's International Teacher Program (ITP). Some of them later went on to complete doctoral programs at Harvard Business School and returned to become part of INCAE's faculty. In 1969, INCAE's first MBA was awarded.
Nicaragua was chosen as the permanent site for INCAE, and on June 20, 1969, INCAE's first campus was inaugurated in the Montefresco neighborhood of Managua. The 70-hectare (170-acre) site was purchased with funds raised through donations from the private sector and the governments of Central America, the result of a campaign headed by INCAE's National Committee in Nicaragua. Montefresco was chosen from the other options in Nicaragua because of its scenery and cool climate. It was also close to Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. The campus was built with a loan provided by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration with United States Agency for International Development funding. INCAE's first fifteen MBA classes graduated in Nicaragua.
In 1983, INCAE decided to move its MBA program. The second campus, called the Walter Kissling Gam campus, opened in Alajuela, Costa Rica in 1984. Costa Rica was chosen because of its stable government and existing infrastructure. In 1996, INCAE reopened the full-time MBA program in the Montefresco campus, and in 2000 the Montefresco campus also began to offer the executive MBA program.

## Faculty

INCAE has over 40 faculty members who teach in the MBA program and the executive education programs. Ninety-two percent of the faculty hold doctorate degrees. INCAE's student-to-faculty ratio is six to one. 2017
INCAE requires its professors to have contact with the business sector to ensure that the material they present in the classroom is up to date and relevant. This contact occurs through consulting work for firms. Professors are encouraged to conduct research and publish their findings in peer-reviewed journals.

## Accreditation

INCAE is accredited by Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), a university accreditation organization in the United States, to grant master's degrees. When it was accredited in 1994, it was the first business school outside North America to be accredited by SACS.
The school has also secured the "Triple Crown" accreditation for management education, being accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the EFMD Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) and the Association of MBAs (AMBA). INCAE is one of only 13 business schools in Latin America that have been accredited by AACSB.

## Recognition

INCAE ranks high among business schools in Latin America. .
In the 2010 QS Global 200 Business Schools Report the school was placed fifth in South America.

## Honorary doctorates

INCAE has conferred honorary doctorates to individuals who have positively impacted society. Among the most distinguished are:
* (1976) Anastasio Somoza Debayle, President of Nicaragua, 1967–1972
* (1977) George F.F. Lombard, Associate Dean Harvard Business School
* (1984) Luis Alberto Monge, President of Costa Rica, 1982–1986
* (1987) Marc Lindenberg, Rector of INCAE, 1982–1987
* (1988) Oscar Arias, President of Costa Rica, 1986–1990, 2006–2010
* (1991) Hernando de Soto, Peruvian economist and ideologist
* (1991) Pablo Antonio Cuadra, Nicaraguan poet and ideologist
* (1993) Stephan Schmidheiny, Swiss businessman
* (1994) George Cabot Lodge, emeritus professor of Harvard Business School and key person for the establishment of INCAE
* (1996) Michael Porter, academic and professor of Harvard Business School
* (1997) Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, first woman president of Nicaragua 1990–1997
* (1999) Walter Kissling Gam, Costa Rican businessman
* (2005) Alberto Motta Cardoze, Panamanian businessman and philanthropist
* (2005) F. Alfredo Pellas Ch., Nicaraguan businessman

## Agreements

INCAE has agreements with universities in North America, Latin American, Europe and Asia. The school has two types of agreements. First, INCAE has exchange and/or dual-degree programs with the following universities:
* KEDGE Business School
* Yale University - Yale School of Management
* University of Michigan - The Ford School
* University of St. Gallen - Strategy & International Management (SIM)
* University of California San Diego - School of Global Policy and Strategy
* Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management
* University of Victoria - Peter B. Gustavson School of Business
* Case Western Reserve University - Weatherhead School of Management
* College of William and Mary - Mason School of Business
* Duke University - Fuqua School of Business
* Emory University - Goizueta Business School
* Vanderbilt University - Owen Graduate School of Management
* New York University - Stern School of Business
* Erasmus University - Rotterdam School of Management
* ESADE Business School
* ZLC - MIT Global Scale Network
* ESC - Toulouse Business School
* European Business School - University of Business and Law
* Florida International University College of Business
* HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management
* Instituto de Empresa (IE)
* Kozminski University - Leon Kozminski Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management
* National Chengchi University
* NUCB Business School
* Pepperdine University - Graziadio School of Business and Management
* Rice University - Jones Graduate School of Business
* Thunderbird School of Global Management
* University of Michigan - Ross School of Business
* University of Minnesota - Carlson School of Management
* University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – Kenan-Flagler Business School
* University of Southern California - Marshall School of Business
* University of St. Thomas - Opus College of Business
* University of Texas at Austin - McCombs Business School
* University of Wisconsin - Wisconsin School of Business
* Umeå University - Umeå School of Business
* Vanderbilt University - Owen Graduate School of Management
* WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management
Hitotsubashi University Business School
* Zaragoza Logistics Center
The second type of agreement provides discounts for the MBA program to accepted applicants who earned their undergraduate degrees from the following schools:
* Universidad Argentina de la Empresa, UADE - Argentina
* Universidad Privada Boliviana, UPB - Bolivia
* Universidad Privada Santa Cruz de la Sierra UPSA - Bolivia
* Andrés Bello National University – Chile
* University of Talca - Chile
* University of the Pacific - Chile
* Universidad Externado de Colombia - Colombia
* Autonomous University of Bucaramanga - Colombia
* University of Costa Rica - Costa Rica
* Costa Rica Institute of Technology - Costa Rica
* EARTH - Costa Rica
* ULACIT - Costa Rica
* Universidad San Francisco de Quito - Ecuador
* ESPOL - Ecuador
* Universidad Católica de Guayaquil - Ecuador
* Universidad de Especialidades Espíritu Santo - Ecuador
* ESEN - El Salvador
* Rafael Landívar University - Guatemala
* Universidad Francisco Marroquín - Guatemala
* University of San Pedro Sula - Honduras
* Escuela Agrícola Panamericana Zamorano - Honduras
* UDLAP - Mexico
* Keiser University-Latin American Campus - Nicaragua
* Universidad Americana UAM - Nicaragua
* Latin University of Panama - Panama
* Universidad Nacional de Asunción - Paraguay
* Universidad Nacional - Paraguay
* University of the Pacific - Peru
* University of Puerto Rico - Puerto Rico
* Universidad del Este - Puerto Rico
* Universidad Metropolitana - Puerto Rico
* University of Turabo - Puerto Rico
* Santo Domingo Institute of Technology - Dominican Republic
* University of the West Indies - Trinidad y Tobago
* Catholic University of Uruguay - Uruguay