Tag: Financial Times

WashU Olin’s Full-Time MBA rose two places among US-based business schools—from 20th to 18th—in the latest ranking of global programs from the Financial Times, released on February 13.

This year’s ranking—the Financial Times’ 25th-anniversary edition—came with a substantial shift in its methodology—which included the addition of new categories and the shifting of category weights. Still, Olin stayed firm in its placement among global programs, with a drop of only two spots from 29 to 31.

The FT’s changes played out in a variety of ways. For example, Olin’s ranking for weighted salary improved from 47th to 37th at the same time the ranking decreased the weight for that category. Olin graduates on average saw salaries rise $18,460 to $162,694.

WashU Olin’s strong showing domestically and relative global stability came largely as a result of solid career outcomes for Olin graduates. For example, the dimension looking at salary percentage increase rose to 130% from 123% last year—and, again, the weighting for this category declined.

Meanwhile, in a new category called “sector diversity,” referring to the diversity of job sectors students worked in at the time of admission, Olin ranked ninth.

“Even as methodologies change, we value the affirmation this ranking provides of the education and experience we provide to Olin MBA students,” said Anjan Thakor, interim dean at WashU Olin. “We remain confident that we’re on the right track toward providing the foundation our students need to succeed as 21st-century leaders.”

In its second year ranking the top postgraduate business programs in the Americas, the Financial Times has placed WashU Olin eighth on the two continents—rising nine places since last year, the highest jump among the top 25 schools.

The FT ranking is a composite of its rankings for the full-time MBA, Executive MBA, open executive education programs, and custom executive education programs at business schools in North, South and Central America (see the full ranking on this page).

Olin’s strong performance in the EMBA ranking—placing sixth globally—and a strongly improved showing in the FT global full-time MBA ranking contributed to pushing the full postgraduate program up in this latest survey.

Olin’s full-time MBA ranked 50th globally and 24th among B-schools in the Americas in FT‘s last ranking (jumping 18 places).

“This is a strong statement about the overall quality of Olin’s entire portfolio of programs,” said Dean Mark Taylor. “The work continues, of course, buoyed by these and other similar results recently.”

Those results include:

• In early November, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Olin’s full-time MBA 32nd in the country, up four places from the previous year.
• The Financial Times global MBA ranking in March, in which Olin jumped 18 places, landing in the world’s top 50.
• The FT’s global ranking of executive MBA programs last month, in which our Shanghai Executive MBA moved up to sixth in the world.
• In November’s ranking of entrepreneurship programs by the Princeton Review, WashU held firm on its No. 7 ranking for undergraduate programs and moved up four spots to rank No. 18 in the graduate program ranking.
• The Economist’s 2018 global ranking of MBA programs, also in October, placed Olin 37th in the world, up six places from the previous year.
• Poets & Quants’ undergraduate ranking in 2017, which placed in the top two in the nation along with Wharton.
• The TFE Times master of finance rankings placed Olin fourth in the US in 2018.

Olin’s executive education programs, spanning the Midwest and the nation’s capital through WashU programming at the Brookings Institution, placed 12th nationally and 32nd in the world in a new Financial Times ranking released Sunday night.

Olin also ranked fourth in the nation in the percentage of women participating in executive education programs, with 47 percent female participation. Olin’s programs also placed highly in terms of program growth, ranking 11th globally and third in the nation. The Times based that metric on revenue growth in open programs as well as growth in revenues from repeat business.

“We help develop business executives at over 150 companies across the nation, amounting to more than 2,000 leaders every year,” said Samuel Chun, assistant dean of executive education and professor of management practice. “We’re gratified that the Financial Times rankings recognizes this, and we’ll strive to increase our reach and impact.”

Olin provides a wide variety of “open enrollment” executive education programs on the St. Louis campus, on topics ranging from marketing strategy and motivating people to emotional intelligence and finance for non-financial managers. The program also encompasses courses through the Brookings Executive Education program, where participants can take courses in leadership, strategic thinking, and leading change, among others.

Olin Executive Education designs content to allow leaders to apply what they’ve learned immediately when they return to work. While Olin frequently draws executives from the St. Louis region, it also works with corporate partners across the nation and around the globe.

Most programs are held at the Charles F. Knight Executive Education & Conference Center on Washington University’s campus. However, the Olin Executive Education team can conduct programs at venues around the world. Since 1993, Olin corporate programs have successfully served thousands of employees from a diverse client base.

Olin placed in the top four globally and top three in the United States in a new Financial Times ranking of the best full-time MBA programs for women, released Sunday night. The WashU MBA program is ranked just behind programs at Stanford and UC Berkeley and just ahead of Harvard’s.

New faculty in 2017. First row, Karam Kang, Xing Huang,
Ashley Hardein; second row, Hannah Perfecto, Zhenyu Liao;
third row, Sydney Scott, Rachel Ruttan.

The release of the ranking was timed for its proximity to this week’s International Women’s Day on Thursday, which Olin will mark by hosting nearly 700 attendees for its special program, “The ‘She’ Suite: Celebrate International Women’s Day with Women in the C-Suite and in Leading Roles.”

“This new ranking gives tremendous affirmation to our efforts to expand women’s voices in Olin’s MBA program,” said Dean Mark Taylor. “It also challenges us to continue the momentum. It’s about fairness, but it’s also about diversity. Diversity drives innovation and appreciating diversity is a core value for Olin.”

Using data gathered from previous rankings, the Financial Times also examined its numbers through several female-centric lenses. For example, Olin ranked first in the US for female percentage increase in salary post MBA and first globally for parity across genders in the starting salary of newly minted MBA graduates. Olin also compared favorably in the percentage of female enrollment, with nearly 40 percent women in the incoming class in 2017—the sixth highest percentage among the top US schools.

“Diversity drives success in business as well as the classroom,” said Olin MBA Shelley Lavender, Boeing senior vice president and head of Boeing’s strike, surveillance and mobility business. “The work Olin is doing to attract women and men from around the globe is ensuring its graduates experience the powerful, profound, and positive impact that diverse teams bring to all aspects of our life.” Lavender also heads Olin’s MBA advisory board.

The news was welcomed by Perri Goldberg, MBA ’18, president of the student-run Olin Women in Business organization, which was named Chapter of the Year at the National Association of Women MBAs Conference in October 2016.

“I am so proud of our school—the admissions effort to attract more female students, our welcoming, collaborative, and inclusive community, the supportive, yet challenging faculty,” said Goldberg. She said the organization has made a priority of collaborating with Olin in creating a welcoming, inclusive environment for both women and men.

“I am confident that this top ranking will attract other strong females and males into the program,” she added, “and I cannot wait to see what our community and OWIB will do in the future.”

Dean Taylor also noted that while the results are encouraging, there are still areas of opportunity. For example, with around a quarter of its faculty female, Olin is about average among the top US schools but is striving to improve: in its most recent round of faculty hiring last year, six of the seven new faculty members were women.

Olin Business School’s Executive MBA program in partnership with Fudan University in China is number seven in the 2017 Financial Times’ annual ranking of the world’s top 100 EMBA programs.This survey marks the sixth consecutive year that the Olin-Fudan EMBA has been ranked in the FT’s top ten global programs.

Alumni of the Olin-Fudan program reported gains in the important areas of salary increase, career progress, and work experience. Olin-Fudan EMBA graduates are among the top earners of the schools in the ranking with an average salary of $360,250, the third highest globally.

“Olin’s partnership with Fudan University pioneered the executive MBA in China in 2002 and has consistently been a leader,” said Mark Taylor, dean of Olin Business School. “The large number of top American and European business schools that have followed us to Asia in recent years are a testament to our successful program and our outstanding alumni who have propelled their global careers to new heights after earning the Olin-Fudan EMBA degree.”

The Financial Times ranking is based on two surveys: one of business schools and one of their alumni who graduated in 2014. Criteria in 16 categories are weighted for the overall ranking. For more on the FT ranking methodology and details of this year’s survey, link to the Oct. 16 edition of the FT.