IESE Business School

IESE Business School is the graduate business school of the University of Navarra. It was established in Barcelona in 1958 by Opus Dei, a Roman Catholic organisation. From 1963, in collaboration with Harvard Business School, it offers a two-year Master of Business Administration degree, an executive MBA, and executive education courses. It has other campuses in Madrid, Munich, New York City and São Paulo. History The Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE) was created by Opus Dei in 1958. The first name of IESE was Centro de Estudios de la Empresa, then Escuela de Directores del Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE) and finally IESE Business School. Antonio Valero Vicente, commissioned by Jose María Escriva de Balaguer, was its main promoter and first dean. Valero visited the École des Administrations des Affaires de Lille, run by an MBA from Harvard Business School (HBS), to get advice on the pedagogical model, the case method. IESE launched its first training project for entrepreneurs during the 1958-59 academic year. The first program, called Programa de Alta Dirección de Empresas (PADE), was aimed at business leaders with a decade of experience in senior management. The first classes were held at the Hotel del Parque in Sant Andreu de Llavaneres. The following academic programmes were Programa de Dirección de Empresas (PDE) 1959–1960, and Programa de Desarrollo para Alta Dirección de Empresas (PDADE, later known as PDG) in 1961. In 1963, after consulting professors Ralph M. Hower and Steve Fuller, the Harvard-IESE Committee was set up, and IESE launched the Master in Business Administration and Economics (MED) in 1964. It was the first time the term "master's" was used in Europe; it later took on the standardized name of MBA.