Vlerick Business School – Gent, Belgium

Vlerick Business School is an international business school that offers world-class education programmes through theoretical knowledge and practical insight. They have a reputation for producing impactful, innovative research conducted by their expert faculty. The business school has a spirit of openness, vitality, and a passion to innovate and expand. Vlerick Business School is the oldest management school in Europe.

It was founded in 1953 and has been one of the leading innovators in the Belgian business for over half a century.  The business school has campuses in Brussels, Ghent, Leuven, and St. Petersburg that are designed to provide stimulating and unique learning environments for students, entrepreneurs, and executives.

The campus's high-tech structure allows students to constantly be engaged while in and out of the classroom. The campuses are also at the center of Europe’s most vibrant cities and provide students with a cultural experience alongside their education. The goal of the business school is to create a place where people with highly diverse goals and backgrounds can collaborate and exchange ideas to develop new insights and launch new ventures.

The Full-time MBA Programme is offered in Belgium and in China and the Part-time MBA Programme is offered only in China. The programme is designed to develop competencies and confidence in management, build synergies with peers and become a member of an international group of ambitious business professionals. The full-time program is 16 months and the part-time programme is two years long. The full-time MBA programme offers insight into every discipline of management that is relevant to the current global economy and covers elaborate subjects and theoretical domains. Students are taught how to apply these theoretical concepts in a professional context and improve upon their decision-making skills to become more level-headed within a business. Below is a diagram laying out the structure of the curriculum, provided by Vlerick Business School. 

The Executive MBA Programme is offered in Belgium, Russia, and China and teaches executives the full management spectrum. The programme is designed to foster personal and professional growth while giving networking opportunities. A one-week study trip with company visits and lectures is included in the programme. An in-company project also lets executives apply their newly learned concepts and solve specific management problems within their companies. Also included is the “Integration Game”; a 72-hour, intense, teamwork-based, creative thinking assignment that puts executives under pressure and forces them to find solutions in a frantic business environment.  

Below is the programme structure for the Belgium executive MBA programme, provided by Vlerick Business School. Vlerick Business School also offers Executive Education Programmes in the areas of:

• Accounting and Finance
• Entrepreneurship
• General Management
• Governance and Ethics
• Human Resource Management
• ICT and Business Process Management
• Innovation Management
• Marketing and Sales
• Operations and Supply Chain Management
• People Management and Leadership
• Strategy

The business school also offers management programmes customised to the needs of specific business industries in the areas of:

• Financial Services Management
• Health-care Management
• Retail and Consumer Goods
• Energy
• Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

Although Forbes and US News do not rank MBAs globally, they were included for their impact in the US

• Financial Times Rank – 84
• Financial Times European Business School Rank – 14
• The Economist Rank – 66

Vlerick Business School Ghent campus: Reep 1, 9000 Gent, Belgium