Meet The HEC Paris MBA Class Of 2022

PARIS IS THE PLACE TO BE

“Diplomacy is key, and I think the HEC teaches you that from beginning to end, you have to learn how to talk to people from different cultures and religions and backgrounds who have different work experiences and different ideas about how capitalism should be run, how a company should be run, how you contribute to a company and to an organization.”

That’s not to say there isn’t a bit of French character at the school, adds Associate Dean Andrea Masini. “I would say that our students come here because they want to have a global experience with a French flavor. They want to have exposure to global companies, but they want to take advantage of a country with great traditions. And being an Italian, of course, I appreciate that combination.”

No doubt, Paris ranks with New York City, Hong Kong, and London as the best locations to earn an MBA. The city boasts the largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies in continental Europe. The metro serves as the European headquarters for 75% of these firms. Not surprisingly, Paris boasts the highest GDP among European cities, while acting as the continent’s top center for research and development. It even includes Station F, Europe’s largest startup incubator that’s home to 3,000 startups.

Beyond that, the City of Light is a cultural and tourist hub. Champs-Elysees may be the most expensive luxury shopping district in the world. That doesn’t count landmarks like the Eiffel Tower or Louvre Museum, let alone strolls along the Seine between breaks in the city’s world-famous bakeries and coffee houses. Despite its name, HEC Paris is technically outside the city limits. The main campus is found in the town Jouy-en-Josas 17 kilometers away. As a result, HEC Paris enjoy the best of two worlds: an easy commute to Paris via public transportation from the comfort and quiet quarters inside a forest.

ONE OF THE TOP MBA PROGRAMS IN THE WORLD

“This may disappoint some, but I see the positive side of being outside the city,” explains 2020 grad Liz Miller. “I love the campus. In an MBA, the best resource is your classmates. Having the campus with most of the class living on the premises allows deep connections to be formed. If we were in the heart of Paris, people would leave after class to go to their apartments spread throughout the city. There wouldn’t be late-night bonding over a glass of wine or spontaneous movie nights. The campus is one of the biggest selling points of HEC Paris.”

Rankings are another. The HEC Paris name goes far worldwide. This week, for example, The Financial Times ranked HEC Paris as the top business school in Europe, when full-time MBA, executive MBA, Masters in Management, and executive education courses are factored together. Such performance is a testament to the caliber of the school’s curriculum and faculty. Earlier this year, HEC Paris climbed 10 spots to rank #9 in The Financial Times’ global MBA ranking, with higher starting pay being a major driver in the surge. The school also made a 10-point jump in The Economist’s 2019 ranking to place 3rd in the world. Here, HEC Paris performed well in quantitative and qualitative measures. Notably, it ranked 2nd in the world for pay increases. At the same time, the 60,000 member alumni network earned the highest survey marks from student and alumni in the Breadth of Alumni Network, Internationalism of Alumni, and Potential To Network. Considering graduation outcomes, the same survey respondents ranked HEC Paris 3rd for Diversity of Recruiters.

“[HEC Paris] is one of the MBA programs with the best return on investment in the world,” adds Andrea Masini. “Graduates on average manage to double their salaries when they leave the program, but also because we try to keep our tuition fees relatively low as much as we can. And we have generous support from the HEC Foundation that provides us with scholarships. Second, participants come here to look for career transformation, and the outcome is impressive. We had in the last graduating class, 73% of our graduates changing industries, 72% changing function, and 61% changing location.”

AN INTERVIEW WITH ANDREA MASINI

In June, HEC Paris joined forces with the Creative Destruction Lab to bring together entrepreneurs, scientists, and investors to better scale ventures to fight climate change. That was just one headline from the full-time MBA program’s 50th-year anniversary. In October, P&Q reached out to Andrea Masini, HEC Paris’ Associate Dean for MBA Programs to discuss new developments at the school, along with taking a deeper dive into the school’s response to COVID-19 and the annual Off-Site Leadership Seminar. Here were his thoughts on the state of the HEC Paris MBA.

P&Q: What are the most exciting new developments at your program?

Masini: “The most exciting new development is that last month we launched the Creative Destruction Lab-Paris, a new initiative that puts our MBA students on the front lines of creating or growing a startup. The program, started by Rotman School of Management in 2012 and now at 9 locations worldwide, has a proven track record for vaulting science – and technology – based companies to commercial success. Dedicated to climate change, the HEC Program has attracted some of the most innovative start-ups in the field and it will benefit from the expertise of an impressive pool of experts from all around the world.”

P&Q: What is the two most unique or differentiating features of your full-time program? How do they enrich the MBA experience?

Masini: “The HEC Paris MBA experience is unique due to its ideal program architecture and strong sense of community and diversity.

1) Ideal program architecture: 

While maximizing ROI, the 16-month duration of the program, maximizes our participants’ chances to transform their careers. It gives students enough time to graduate with the latest knowledge of today and well-prepared to solve the business problems of tomorrow.

In the first phase of the program, participants develop the core management skills needed to excel in any industry, anywhere in the world. And go deeper during the second phase of the program, where they have the flexibility to pursue specialized studies and hands-on learning in the sector of their choice.

It is the ideal length of time to have a real impact on the future of our students – it gives them time to digest new information and build a CV through internships and specialized courses without keeping them out of the workforce for too long.

2) Community and diversity: 

Our MBA students form a close-knit community for life. A perfect equation between our class size –around 290 participants today – and our individualized approach to learning means that our students’ ideas and input are valued.

Our 94 percent international student body enriches the overall experience of the program, helping students to shape their view points, and prepares them to work with people from many different backgrounds and cultures.

Students discuss, debate and brainstorm in a personalized and stimulating environment, with 140 professors – representing 25 nationalities – who sharpen their analytical skills and give them rock-solid insights for making decisions.”

P&Q: How has COVID-19 impacted your business school?

Masini: “Despite the COVID crisis, we observed an unprecedented number of applications to our MBA program for both the September and the upcoming January intake. Given the circumstances, we provided full flexibility to all enrolled students to either follow courses join us in-person following strict government guidelines, from a distance, or to defer their studies to the next intake.

We put an academic continuity plan in place that preserves the uniqueness of the HEC Paris MBA experience, while allowing participants to follow courses from their homes if they wish to.

We planned to deliver a significant part of our program face-to-face in the safest possible environment. In addition, we complemented face-to-face teaching with distance learning, either synchronous or asynchronous (to facilitate self-paced studies). And most importantly, we maintained the same academic requirement and rigor.

Such mechanism provides the necessary flexibility to switch seamlessly from one pedagogical model to another, depending on the nature of the course and on the constraints imposed by the sanitary protocols.

Our priority remained the health and safety of our students, faculty and staff. Therefore, we put in place a number of measures aimed at minimizing sanitary risks: compulsory masks in all spaces including for faculty, social distancing measures, etc. In addition to that, we deployed a massive testing policy, and asked all our students to provide a negative PCR test before they were granted access to the campus.

Despite the obvious challenges and constraints, we see a lot of happy faces among our incoming and returning students. They are keen on starting their HEC Paris MBA journey and on sharing this memorable experience with their classmates, either on campus or virtually.”