IESE Business School

IESE Business School is the Catholic graduate business school of the University of Navarra. It was established in Barcelona in 1958 by Opus Dei.From 1963, in collaboration with Harvard Business School, it offers a two-year Master of Business Administration degree, an executive MBA, and executive education courses. It has other campuses in Madrid, Munich, New York City, and São Paulo.
The Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE) was created by Opus Dei in 1958. The first name of IESE was Centro de Estudios de la Empresa, then Escuela de Directores del Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE) and finally IESE Business School.
Antonio Valero Vicente, commissioned by Jose María Escriva de Balaguer, was its main promoter and first dean. The founder of Opus Dei had listened to businessmen from Madrid, the Basque Country and Catalonia who, led by the Madrid naval engineer Alejandro Crespo Calabria, had expressed their concern and desire for the education and training of business leaders with a Christian vision. Valero visited the École des Administrations des Affaires de Lille, run by an MBA from Harvard Business School (HBS), to get advice on the pedagogical model, the case method.
IESE launched its first training project for entrepreneurs during the 1958-59 academic year. The first program, called Programa de Alta Dirección de Empresas (PADE), was aimed at business leaders with a decade of experience in senior management. The first classes were held at the Hotel del Parque in Sant Andreu de Llavaneres. The following academic programmes were Programa de Dirección de Empresas (PDE) 1959–1960, and Programa de Desarrollo para Alta Dirección de Empresas (PDADE, later known as PDG) in 1961. In 1963, after consulting professors Ralph M. Hower and Steve Fuller, the Harvard-IESE Committee was set up, and IESE launched the Master in Business Administration and Economics (MED) in 1964. It was the first time the term "master's" was used in Europe; it later took on the standardized name of MBA.
After almost two decades of collaboration with Harvard, the bilingual Spanish-English MBA was introduced in 1980, and collaboration was extended to other North American universities such as the University of Michigan Business School, the MIT Sloan School of Management and NYU Stern School of Business. In 2001, the Global Executive MBA was established. At the same time, IESE developed in-company programmes for transnational companies in Spain and leading Spanish companies. In 2006, IESE launched an Advanced Management Programme (AMP) for senior managers in Poland, which has been running annually since then. In 2007, after expansion and renovation, the new Barcelona campus was inaugurated. In 2009, the Global CEO Program for Latin America was launched in partnership with CEIBS and Wharton.
In the following years, the campuses in New York City (2010), Munich (2015), and São Paulo (in collaboration with ISE Business School), were consolidated and opened. In 2021, the expansion and opening of the new Madrid campus was completed.
In 2021, the Institute for Sustainability Leadership (ISL) was established to foster cooperation between academia and business. ISL researches and measures environmental targets, governance systems for sustainable cities and financial instruments for their development.
In 2023, IESE launched the Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Management Initiative to explore how AI is impacting management. It also prepares executives to put Al to use in their companies in an ethical and socially responsible way.
IESE's main campus is located in the Pedralbes neighbourhood of Barcelona, at the foot of the Collserola mountain range. The 52,000 m2 campus features more than a dozen buildings. The newest was inaugurated in 2018 and houses the research division and doctoral programmes. The Barcelona campus is home to MBA programs and a wide range of Executive Education programs.
Since its founding in 1974, the Madrid campus has focused on Executive Education programmes - PDD, PDG, and PADE. It also offers the Executive MBA and a special programme for public sector managers. In 2019 it introduced the Master in Management (MiM) programme The campus is located in Aravaca, on Cerro del Águila in front of Casa de Campo, a northwestern suburb of the Spanish capital. The Master building was built in 1991 and extended in 2004. The renovated campus was opened in 2021: to the original 19,000 m2, a further 16,300 m2 with green spaces and an auditorium were added.
The institution opened a campus at 165 West 57th Street in Manhattan in 2007. Housed in a neo-Renaissance building that was built in 1916, the campus delivers customised programmes for companies and general management programmes for executives, including the C-Suite Pathway program.
The centrally located Munich campus, founded in 2015, has focused on Executive Education programs for companies and professionals working in Germany and Central Europe. It offers the Executive MBA program and courses included in the MBA and Global Executive MBA programs, as well as the General Management Program (GMP).
The activities have been held since 2000 at the ISE Business School in the Bela Vista district of São Paulo, home to several educational and financial institutions. In addition to the general management programmes for executives, it offers the Executive MBA.
Since the late 1950s, the institution has sent faculty members to doctoral programmes in the United States and Europe. It has established long-term academic partnerships with Stanford, MIT and CEIBS.
IESE also contributed to the founding of 15 business schools, mainly in low- and middle-income countries. IPADE (Mexico, 1967); IAE (Argentina, 1978); PAD (Peru, 1979); AESE (Portugal, 1980); INALDE (Colombia, 1985); IEEM (Uruguay, 1986); Lagos Business School (Nigeria, 1991); IDE (Ecuador, 1992); CEIBS (China, 1994); UA&P School of Business Administration (Philippines, 1995); ISE (Brazil, 1996); ESE (Chile, 1999); MDE Business School (Ivory Coast, 2003); and Strathmore Business School (Kenya, 2005), and the Timoney Leadership Institute (2019) in Ireland.The partner schools are independent and developed with local faculty and staff.
The institution is governed by the Executive Committee and the International Advisory Board. The Executive Committee is responsible for the strategic development, faculty recruitment, programme portfolio and operations of the school. It is chaired by the dean, who in turn reports to the rector of the University of Navarra.
The International Advisory Board (IAB) and the Executive Committee of the IESE Alumni Association provide strategic guidance to the school's management on its initiatives, governance, education programmes, institutional development and corporate sponsorship.
The Supervisory Board was established in 2023 to oversee the Executive Committee and the dean in strategic planning, execution and key decision-making.
Since 1963, the IESE-Harvard Business School Committee has met annually in the United States or Europe, mainly to advise on the development of international programmes.
The International Advisory Board (IAB) analyses the global socio-economic context from the perspective of business, emerging trends, entrepreneurial and executive education needs and innovation in the field of management and leadership. IAB members are managers and academics from Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. Appointed by IESE's dean, they meet regularly to assess humanistic and management issues, as well as the emergence of new challenges and opportunities.
On all campuses, the institution offers the following academic programs, which had a total of 1,596 students in 2023-24: Full-time MBA (684 students), Executive MBA (687), Global Executive MBA (73), Master in Management (MiM, 118 ), PhD in Management (34); Advanced Management Program (AMP), Global CEO Program (GCP) in collaboration with MIT Sloan School of Management, and some others.
The research in particular business areas is conducted through chairs with leading companies and foundations: Abertis, Alcatel-Lucent, Banco Sabadell, CaixaBank, Banco Santander, Indra, Nissan, SEAT, Puig, Schneider Electric, Intent HQ...
Research is also carried out in different centres, led by professors and with a team of researchers. Companies and specialised organisations collaborate with them: Center for Business in Society, Center for Corporate Governance, Center for Globalization and Strategy, Center for Innovation Marketing and Strategy (CIMS), Center for International Finance (CIF), Center for Public Leadership and Government, Center for Research in Healthcare Innovation Management, Entrepreneurship Innovation Center, Institute for Media and Entertainment, International Center for Logistics Research, International Center for Work and Family, and Public-Private Sector Research Center.
In 2021, the institution launched the Institute for Sustainability Leadership (ISL) to promote the exchange of knowledge and experience between the academic and business worlds. The ISL, led by Professor Fabrizio Ferraro, is generating knowledge on the monitoring and measurement of green targets, governance systems for sustainable cities and financial instruments for impact investment.
IESE is certified by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), Florida, the EFMD Quality Improvement System (EQUIS), Brussels,and the Spanish ANECA.
It ranks in the top ten in international rankings of executive education programmes, Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Executive MBA, with the Global MBA; ranked third in the world by the Financial Times in 2025 and first in Europe among business schools.
The first alumni chapter was that of Catalonia, created in 1961. Regional groups for Valencia (Levante), Mallorca (Balearic Islands) and Madrid were established soon after, followed by Aragon (1973), Andalucia (1975), and Galicia, La Rioja, the Basque Country and Navarre (1986). The Argentine-Uruguayan chapter became the first foreign chapter in 1986; the U.S. alumni chapter was set up in 1987. In Warsaw (Poland) the alumni chapter is very significant, with 643 members in 2024.
In 2021 an alumni meeting was held at the expanded Madrid campus and was attended by more than 5000 executives and business people.