THE Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has submitted plans for a business school next to its headquarters at Gogar Park. The bank is expected to invest more than £30 million in the project it is developing with American Ivy League college Harvard on the outskirts of the Capital. The new centre aims to rival international business schools such as Harvard, Insead in Paris, IMD in Switzerland and leading British schools like the London Business School.

EMBA-Global, the top-ranked partnership programme between Columbia Business School and London Business School, is expanding to Asia. London Business School and Columbia Business School are launching EMBA-Global Asia in partnership with The University of Hong Kong. The programme has been designed specifically for globally-focused executives and managers, primarily based in Asia, who seek to deepen their understanding of both Western and Eastern business perspectives and who are passionate about the opportunities offered by Asia’s rapid economic development.

Henley Management College have recently disclosed the details of their new program, Mastering Leadership. The program, which will have its pilot run in mid-July, with further dates in March and December of 2009, is appropriate for highly experienced and senior leaders with a minimum of eight years’ experience in challenging leadership and business management roles.

20 June 2008

The Center of Creative Leadership (CCL) has teamed up with a leading US sailing academy, Offshore Sailing School, which is located in Florida, the Caribbean, Chesapeake Bay and near NYC, to provide executives and senior managers custom programs to build their leadership and teamwork skills through intense sailing instruction embedded in an assessment-rich interactive experience.

Direct Marketing guru, Drayton Bird, is Dean of a new school for marketing located in Brussels. The European Academy of Direct and Interactive Marketing - EADIM, is Bird's brainchild and has been created in collaboration with FEDMA (the Federation of European Direct and Interactive Marketing) . The Academy, although based in Brussels, is looking to the emerging economies of eastern Europe to be its main marketplace.

Olin Business School at the Washington University of St Louis (WUSL) has announced the creation of a partnership with the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, designed to advance research, teaching and cultural understanding.

Citi Foundation has dedicated $ 1.5 million research grant to Centre for Analytical Finance (CAF), at the Indian School of Business (ISB). The grant will be dispersed over a period of three years. ISB has also recently partnered with IBM India for an Open Collaborative Research (OCR) which targets at research on improving the efficiency of the services sector.

20 May 2008

The second cycle of the Government Leaders Programme has been launched by the Mohammed bin Rashid Programme for Leadership Development. With the ultimate aim of grooming government leaders whose primary duties include implementing the Dubai Strategic Plan 2015, the Government Leaders Programme was developed in collaboration with Insead business school and Duke Corporate Education.

20 May 2008

The workshop is one of several initiatives through which the Association of African Business Schools (AABS) promotes excellence in business and management education in Africa by supporting graduate business schools through capacity building, collaboration and quality improvement.

The Financial Times has published its annual ranking of business school based executive education provision - in both open and custom programs. 2008 has not elicited much change at the top.