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QS Executive MBA Rankings 2026
What's the News?
The QS Executive MBA Rankings 2026 have been released, evaluating business schools on parameters such as career outcomes, employer reputation, diversity, executive profile, and thought leadership. IIM Bengaluru has retained its position as India's highest-ranked business school, placed 64th globally in the Executive MBA category. It remains the only Indian institution to feature in the global top 100.
India's Performance
- IIM Bengaluru's Ranking & Metrics:
- Secured 64th position globally, though it slipped from its previous year's rank of 50th.
- Showed strong domain-specific performance, ranking 42nd globally in Employer Reputation and 47th globally in Career Outcomes.
- Measures like diversity and executive profile continue to be areas with significant room for improvement.
- Other Indian Institutes: A total of seven Indian business schools are featured in the rankings. India is the second-most represented country in the Asia-Pacific region after China. The other ranked institutions are:
- Indian School of Business (ISB)
- IIM Kozhikode
- IIM Indore
- Institute of Management Technology (IMT) Ghaziabad
- Woxsen School of Business
- IIM Ranchi (debuted in the rankings this year).
- India's Gap: While India has high overall representation (7 institutes), only one is in the top 100. In contrast, China has 4 of its 8 ranked institutes in the top 100, and Singapore has all 3 in this elite bracket.
Global & Asia-Pacific Leaders
- Global Top 3:
- University of Oxford (Saïd Business School)
- HEC Paris
- MIT Sloan.
- Asia-Pacific (APAC) Top Performers:
- The region featured 35 business schools from 14 countries.
- Leading schools include National University of Singapore Business School (14th globally) and Melbourne Business School (29th globally).
Additional Info
- QS Rankings: An annual publication by Quacquarelli Symonds that evaluates universities and business schools worldwide. For Executive MBA programmes, the methodology weighs five indicators:
- Career Outcomes: Salary uplift and promotions.
- Employer Reputation: Perception of recruiters.
- Thought Leadership: Research output and academic influence.
- Executive Profile: Seniority and experience level of participants.
- Diversity: Gender and international representation.
- IIM Bengaluru (IIM-B): A premier public business school and an Institute of National Importance, known for its flagship Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGP) and executive education.
- Related Government Initiative: The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) by the Ministry of Education is India's domestic equivalent for ranking higher education institutions.