Where Top CEOs Got Their MBAs

Where Top CEOs Got Their MBAs

Getting an MBA isn’t a requirement to become a CEO.

That still begs the question: Where did the one-third of Fortune 500 CEOs who hold an MBA attend business school?

Ilana Kowarski and Melissa Shin, of US News, recently mapped out where top CEOs got their MBAs from.

RANK

Among the top 100 CEOs of Fortune 500 companies who do have an MBA, US News found that they didn’t necessarily attend highly ranked b-schools.

“Several of these CEOs earned their MBA degrees from B-schools that did not receive a rank in the U.S. News Best Business Schools rankings,” Kowarski and Shin write. “For instance, Stephen Squeri, the chairman and CEO at American Express Co., earned his MBA degree from Manhattan College’s O’Malley School of Business, which has an unranked full-time MBA program.”

INTERNATIONAL

While the US is a stronghold for b-schools, many Fortune 500 CEOs chose to earn their MBAs abroad.

For instance, according to US News, Ramon Laguarta, the chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Inc., received his MBA from the ESADE Business School in Spain.

A Financial Times report also found that INSEAD, which is based in France, produced nine Fortune 500 CEOs. They include António Horta-Osório of Lloyd’s Banking Group, Tidjane Thiam of Prudential, and André Calantzopoulos of Philip Morris International.

US B-SCHOOLS

American b-schools still hold an edge for Fortune 500 CEOs.

In the US, Harvard Business School, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and Columbia Business School all graduated two or more Fortune 500 CEOs.

Sources: US News, Financial Times

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