INSEAD Wins European CEO Race

B-Schools With The Most CEOs in Top European Firms

Want to become a CEO at a top firm? Conventional wisdom says go to Harvard or Wharton. When it comes to running a top European firm, aspiring CEOs might be better off earning their MBA at the “Business School for the World.”

That was the finding from a recent analysis by Business Insider. According to their research, INSEAD is the top producer of CEO talent in the largest public firms in Europe – 245 companies in all. These include “the UK’s FTSE 100, France’s CAC 40, Germany’s DAX, Spain’s IBEX 35, and Italy’s FTSE MIB.”  Mind you, this is MBA talent, with undergraduate degrees, master’s degrees, and Ph.D.s excluded from the results.

Among MBA programs, INSEAD graduated 12 CEOs. Their ranks include: António Horta-Osório (Lloyd’s Banking Group), Börje Ekholm (Investor), Gonzalo Gortázar (CaixaBank), Helge Lund (BG Group), Flemming Ornskov (Shire), Tidjane Thiam (Prudential). André Calantzopoulos, a 1984 INSEAD grad, helms Philip Morris International. Globally, INSEAD MBAs account for nine CEOs in the Fortune 500, more than Stanford, Booth, Wharton and Kellogg.

IESE ranks third, with their most notable CEO alumni being Gas Natural’s Rafael Villaseca Marco. According to Business Insider, four CEOs from the Spanish stock index’s top 35 companies hail from IESE’s MBA program.

Not surprisingly, you’ll find three American MBA programs in Business Insider’s top five. They are led by Harvard Business School, where seven CEOs from top European programs hold MBAs. Among them, you’ll find Vittorio Colao (Vodafone), Erik Engstrom (Reed Elsevier), Michael Mack (Syngenta), Ulf Mark Schneider (Fresenius), Sir Martin Sorrell (WPP), and George Weston (Associated British Foods). Overall, Harvard Business School leads all schools in graduating CEOs, with a who’s who among American CEOs. They include Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan Chase), Jeffrey Immelt (General Electric) and Alan Lafley (Procter & Gamble), along with CEOs at Kraft Foods, Ford Motor Company, MetLife, Boeing, and Corning.

Wharton and Booth rank fourth and fifth respectively on Business Insider’s list. Booth boasts several heavy hitters, including José Antonio Álvarez (Banco Santander) and Brady Dougan (Credit Suisse), not to mention Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Chevron’s John Watson and Bridgestone’s Masaaki Tsuya. Wharton’s list is less distinguished among top European firms. However, its roster features prominent American CEOs like Alex Gorsky (Johnson & Johnson) and John Bryant (Kellogg).

HEC Paris (AstraZeneca’s Pascal Soriot), Cranfield School of Management (Barclays’ Anthony Jenkins), IE Business School, and SDA Bocconi (Atlantia’s Giovanni Castellucci and Pirelli’s Marco Tronchetti Provera) also rank among Business Insider’s top 11 programs for CEOs in top European companies. American stalwarts like Northwestern Kellogg (Diageo’s Ivan Menezes and Richemont’s Bernard Fornas) and Columbia Business School (Telefónica‘s César Alierta) were also ranked.

Other MBA programs that yielded notable CEOs of European companies include: Stanford (Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Carlos Brito), the University of California-Berkeley (Novartis’ Joseph Jimenez), Southern Methodist University (British Petroleum’s Bob Dudley) and the University of Southern California (Glencore Xstrata’s Ivan Glasenberg). In addition, City University (Cass) is the alma mater of Muhtar Kent, CEO of Coca-Cola.

To see Business Insider’s ranking, click on the link below.

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Source: Business Insider