The Strategic Board of the Alliance of the World’s Best Business Schools Met in Portugal

After a three-year break caused by the covid-19 pandemic, a meeting of the Strategic Board of the international association of universities CEMS The Global Alliance in Management Education was held in Portugal. Only top representatives of individual member schools and representatives of corporate partners can be members of this body. VŠE was represented at the meeting for the first time by its Rector Petr Dvořák. The Rector Emeritus Hana Machková participated as a guest in the capacity of chairperson of the election committee for the election of the new president of CEMS (the mandate of the current president Greg Whitell from the University of Sydney ends in December 2022).

CEMS is an association of universities from 34 countries of the world, each country can be represented by only one “business school”. A specific feature of this alliance is the membership of corporate partners. Currently, CEMS supports a total of 75 internationally active companies, VŠE’s corporate partners are Hilti, Plzeňský Prazdroj and Škoda Auto.

Until 2008, CEMS was an association of 18 European universities. The process of globalization and the demand of corporate partners for graduates of the Master in International Management study programme (CEMS MIM; the programme is accredited at VŠE at the Faculty of Business Administration) with worldwide representation led to an increase in the number of member schools, and today CEMS is represented on all continents. Historically, the “youngest” members of this alliance are Cornell SC Johnson College of Business (USA), University of Cape Town (South Africa) and Universidad de los Andes (Colombia).

The session took place at Portugal’s Nova School of Economics and Business in the new modern campus in the seaside town of Carcavelos. The Strategic Board mainly dealt with the position of CEMS in the new geopolitical situation (e.g. the suspension of the membership of the University of St. Petersburg) and the prospects for the future direction of this important alliance of higher economic schools.

The photo shows the newly elected rectors of three member schools from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Piotr Wachowiak (Warsaw School of Economics), Elöd Takáts (Corvinius University of Budapest) and Petr Dvořák (VŠE), who decided to strengthen mutual relations and develop much more regional cooperation.