Ranking: INSEAD Breaks Through As The Financial Times’s Top European B-School

When Insead launched a master in management program in 2019, it put the Fontainebleau, France-based business school on a path to rankings glory.

That journey came to a successful conclusion today (December 1), as Insead/”>Insead was named No. 1 for the first time in The Financial Times‘s annual ranking of European business schools. Insead jumped an incredible 17 places from last year as its MiM program, launched in 2019, was factored into its overall score for the first time, giving the French school programs in all categories in the magazine’s ranking.

HEC Paris fell out of first place in the Euro B-school ranking for the first time in six years, dropping to second. London Business School slipped to third from second, IESE of Spain dropped to fourth from third, and ESCP, which has multiple campuses around Europe, dropped to fifth from fourth.

2024 FINANCIAL TIMES’S EUROPEAN BUSINESS SCHOOL TOP 10

Insead HAD DROPPED 15 PLACES IN THE RANKING BETWEEN 2021 & 2023

There were some noteworthy leaps further down the ranking. Two schools made big jumps to join the top 25: Trinity Business School in Dublin, Ireland, which went from 32nd to 24th, and the UK’s Cranfield School of Management, which jumped from 37th to 25th. More dramatically, Skema Business School in France jumped to 26th from 71st, an improvement of 45 places, most of any school in the ranking; and EBS Business School in Germany moved up to 50th from 81st. (See the complete ranking on the next page.)

Porto Business School rose 14 positions to the 39th spot due to notable improvements in most evaluated categories, particularly in the Executive Education categories, where it ranks 33rd in Custom programs and 28th in Open programs. In the Executive MBA, Porto is in the 56th position, standing out as the second-best school nationally in this category. “We are very pleased with these results, which place us among the four business schools with the highest rise in positions in The Financial Times ranking, evaluating 100 institutions,” José Esteves, Dean of Porto Business School, says in a news release. “This recognition strengthens our motivation to continue developing innovative educational solutions aligned with the demands of the global market.”

But the real glory belonged to Insead, which had dropped 15 places in two years in the Euro B-school ranking before today. It had ranked as highly as second (in 2011) and third (in 2021) but never reached first. The triumph caps a strong rankings year, including a No. 3 MiM ranking by FT, a No. 2 global ranking from the magazine for its 10-month MBA program, a No. 1 by FT for custom executive education programs, and a No. 1 in P&Q‘s international MBA ranking.

Insead Dean Francisco Veloso tells Poets&Quants that the Euro B-school ranking “reflects the consistent excellence in everything we do at Insead — from our world-class faculty delivering impactful programs and groundbreaking research, to our ability to drive innovation and create value at every level of business education.”