EMBA programmes must meet certain criteria to be eligible. First, the school must be accredited by either the US’s Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business or Europe’s Equis. The EMBA must be cohort-based, with students starting and completing the programme together.

Data for the ranking is collected using two online surveys, the first completed by participating schools and the second by alumni who completed their programmes in 2021. Alumni responses inform six ranking criteria: salary today, salary increase, career progress, work experience, aims achieved and the new alumni network category, measuring the quality of networks, rated by surveyed graduates. Together, they account for 52 per cent of the ranking’s weight. Information from business schools informs 10 criteria that jointly account for 48 per cent of the ranking.

Salary today US$ (15%): average alumni salary three years after course completion, US$ PPP equivalent.

Salary increase (16%): average difference in alumni salaries between before the EMBA and now. Half of this measure is calculated according to the absolute salary increase and half according to the percentage increase relative to the pre-EMBA salary. 

Career progress (6%): calculated according to changes in the level of seniority and the size of the company or organisation alumni work in now versus before their EMBA.

Work experience (5%): a measure of the pre-EMBA experience of alumni according to the seniority of positions held, number of years in each position, organisation size and overseas work experience.

Aims achieved (6%): the extent to which alumni fulfilled their goals or reasons for doing an EMBA.

Alumni network rank (4%): effectiveness of the alumni network for career opportunities, launching start-ups, recruiting staff and providing event information (such as career-related talks), as rated by alumni.

Female faculty (5%): percentage of full-time female faculty.

Female students (5%): percentage of female students on the programme.

Women on board (1%): percentage of female members of the advisory board.

International faculty (5%): calculated according to the diversity of faculty by citizenship and the percentage whose citizenship differs from their location of employment. 

International students (5%): the percentage of current EMBA students whose citizenship differs from the location in which they study, or where the school’s main campus is located, as well as their diversity by citizenship.

International board (1%): percentage of the board whose citizenship differs from the location in which the business school is situated.

International course experience rank (4%): based on the percentage of classroom teaching hours, for the recent completing class, that were conducted outside the location in which the business school is situated. In-person, virtual and hybrid experiences are included.

Faculty with doctorates (5%): percentage of full-time faculty with a doctoral degree. 

FT research rank (10%): calculated according to the number of articles published by a school’s current full-time faculty members in 50 academic and practitioner journals from January 2020 to about May 2023. The rank combines the absolute number of publications with the number weighted relative to the faculty’s size.

ESG and net zero teaching rank (3%): proportion of teaching hours from core courses, for the recent class, dedicated to environmental, social and governance issues and climate solutions enabling organisations to reach net zero.

Carbon footprint rank (4%): calculated using the net zero target year for carbon emissions set by the university and/or school, and the existence of a publicly available carbon emissions audit report since 2019.

For all gender-related criteria, schools with a 50:50 (male/female) composition receive the highest score.