Academics - Global Executive MBA (GEMBA)

The INSEAD GEMBA is a holistic experience - each class has an unparalleled diversity of nationalities and business backgrounds, enabling participants to learn from each other and build a close-knit yet globally distributed network.

The biggest difference in this programme – I spoke to colleagues of mine and students from other schools and checked this – is the actual quality of teaching. There is a focus here on teaching students”

Ponz Pandikuthira, GEMBA Alumni

The GEMBA Course Curriculum

The GEMBA curriculum combines breadth and depth, theory and practice, hard skills and soft skills. The idea is to make an immediate and lasting impact on your work. However, the GEMBA is not simply an intensive business programme. It is an intense all-round experience and you have to attend – and prepare for – all modules without exception, as well as completing a substantial volume of work between modules.

On-Campus
Off Campus

On-Campus

12 Core Courses	4 Elective Courses	3 Key Management Challenges	Business Simulation	Leadership Development Programme (LDP)
The core curriculum covers the fundamental disciplines that all business leaders need.	Choose 4 electives to go deeper into subjects of your personal interest.	Choose 3 out of a selection of cross-disciplinary courses.	An innovative, INSEAD developed, team game to apply your general management skills.	A programme-within-a-programme to bring out the leader in you.

Core Courses Key Management Challenges Elective Courses

Off Campus

Implementation Essays	Reflection Papers	Final Project	Preparation and Independent Study
2 essays focusing on your own experiences of putting GEMBA learning into practice.	3 papers reflecting on your chosen Key Management Challenges and their application to your work.	A project based on a real-life experience to demonstrate your learning across the GEMBA.	You will need to prepare for all the on-campus sessions, amounting to an average of 10-12 hours of homework per week .

The Leadership Development Programme (LDP) runs throughout the programme with on- and off-campus elements. Read more on LDP >

Programme Schedule

The programme takes place in modular format on the Europe Campus, Asia Campus and Middle East Campus depending on the section you join. Most people opt to start on the campus that’s closest to home, but some decide to build their business travel around modules on the other side of the world. The campuses are equally diverse with world-class faculty. Whichever route you select, you will study on all three campuses and come together as a single class for the second half of the programme. The class graduates together in Singapore.

View GEMBA Programme Schedule

Practical Elements

Management education is all about bridging theory and practice. This is particularly true in our GEMBA programme where participants alternate between the classroom and the real world. While our learning methods are firmly grounded in theory, they emphasise practical learning and actionable insights.

Implementation Essays

Participants are required to choose 2 core courses or electives on which to write an Implementation Essay, applying learning from coursework to practical issues and problems that they face at work.

Peer Exchange

As part of our Leadership Development Programme (LDP), each participant has the opportunity to spend some time on the premises of a fellow participant's organisation. These structured exchanges provide an excellent opportunity to learn from the business practices and context of others. Participants give each other feedback and include this component in their reflection paper within the LDP.

Capstone Business Simulation

A powerful computer-based simulation will allow participants to exercise their disciplinary skills in a competitive and highly realistic business game. Competitive results are assessed by simulated markets.

The Final Project

The final project requires participants to apply the course content while working on real opportunities for implementation post-programme. Projects can even be company sponsored.

Learning Methodology

Interactive

The GEMBA has an intensive and rigorous academic curriculum that builds on your experience and talent. Our classes are highly interactive. One role of the faculty is to tap into such experience and to encourage exchange of best practices and collective learning through active debate.

Multiple Teaching Formats

You will experience a wide variety of teaching styles and techniques, including case studies, computer simulations, role-plays, short videos, small group presentations, simulations and lectures. These are designed to maximise your learning experience.

Life-Long Learning

It is essential for executives to keep developing themselves: this is why the INSEAD GEMBA is seen as the start of a life-long learning process. For example, our GEMBA alumni have the opportunity to return to campus every year to take electives or KMC's they may have missed (for a fee). Also, our alumni association provides opportunities for ongoing exchange.

Faculty and Research

There’s a mind-boggling heterogeneity in the GEMBA classroom – different professional backgrounds and different industries, as well as different cultures.

Pascal Maenhout
Belgian
Associate Professor of Finance

> View Faculty profiles

INSEAD’s 144 resident faculty members represent 40 nationalities and are among the most highly respected in the world for their research, teaching and real-world influence. Their record speaks for itself.

Research

Ranked in the world’s top ten by the Financial Times, our professors’ research is also rated best outside the US by the University of Texas’s influential ranking. See our [email protected] platform to sample some of the latest research, and our Centres of Excellence (insert link) for an overview of key INSEAD initiatives and research centre

Teaching

Our faculty are dedicated and expert teachers. They are also innovators, creators of real-time role-plays (such as ‘Your first 100 days’, now available as a GEMBA Key Management Challenge course) and computer-based simulations (such as Markstrat, used by 500 business schools worldwide).

Real-World Influence

Several of our faculty were practitioners and entrepreneurs before becoming professors. Many work as consultants and are board members for leading companies. And they all influence business practice through teaching, research, publication and media appearances. For example, INSEAD professors developed ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ and published the much-discussed ranking of the ‘Best-Performing CEOs in the World’, while three faculty members currently appear in the prestigious ‘Thinkers 50’ list.

An Advance Preview

You can sample learning from our faculty by attending our regular masterclass events around the world. But if you can’t make it in person, the INSEAD Knowledge website is packed with videos and articles based on INSEAD research.

Enquiry?

If you have any questions related to our programmes or application procedures, we are here to help you.

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FAQs

Can I waive any previously completed courses or apply for credits?

No. Our experience has been that our GEMBA offers unique value, even to those participants well versed in a discipline. Plus, the design of the INSEAD GEMBA implies that everyone in the class takes all the courses together, contributing to each others' learning.