Places for the first edition were snapped up in a flash, and the second edition promises to fill up fast too. The Belgian Energy Crash Course not only meets the needs for solid knowledge of the new employees at the traditional market players who do not have a background in the sector. The programme also literally energises a community that will continue to exist after its completion.

The Vlerick Masters in International Management & Strategy (MIMS) entered the prestigious Masters in Management ranking of the Financial Times straight into the top 30 worldwide and top 25 in Europe. In Belgium, we hold the No. 1 position. With its 29th place worldwide, our new and innovative Masters programme is also the highest ranking for a new entrant into this ranking. The ranking lists the 100 best Masters in Management programmes all over the world.

We are living in an ever more globalised, complex and digital world that requires a different kind of leader. How do we make sense of the global socio-economic landscape? How can we grasp the opportunities created by new technologies? And how can businesses also take societal challenges into account and deliver a positive impact on the community? In order to answer these questions, Vlerick Business School is launching a new Global Executive MBA programme in the spring of 2020. We asked Professor Martin Weiss (Programme Director Global Executive MBA) and Yolanda Habets (Head of MBA Programmes) to talk us through the details of this immersive journey in leadership transformation.

Last year, the Indian Institute of Management Technology (IMT) searched a strategic partner in Europe for developing a Post Graduate Degree on Management focused on Banking and Financial Services. That they found Vlerick was no coincidence, as is apparent from our conversation with Professor Asish K. Bhattacharyya, Director of IMT, and Marion Debruyne, Dean, Patrick De Greve, General Director, and David Veredas, Professor of Financial Markets at Vlerick.

The 2019 Financial Times Executive Education Ranking confirms Vlerick Business School's position as an outstanding partner for training programmes for entrepreneurs, senior executives and managers. We remain the #1 ranked provider of executive education in the Benelux, a distinction we have held for the past eight years. On a European level, we keep our top 20 position, rising from 19 to 18. And finally, we are proud to rise 7 places in the global top 50, going from 38 to 31, thereby strengthening our worldwide position among the top schools in an extremely competitive market.

From next academic year onwards, the Masters in Marketing Management will make way for a revised Masters programme. “With the Masters in Marketing & Digital Transformation, we are training highly coveted digital marketing strategists whose skills can be deployed immediately.”

Founders and executives encounter challenges that other leaders have faced before them. What if they could meet like-minded people who are facing the same specific challenges? We believe that by creating a community of entrepreneurs we can help them solve their growing pains much faster and enable them to focus on what matters most: growing their business. Building further on our Entrepreneurship 2.0 initiative with Deloitte, we are now joining forces with Start-Up Survival. Together we created the Scale-up Masterclass, a powerful new, online programme to help companies make the most out of their scale-up potential.

According to the most recent ranking of the Financial Times, the Masters in General Management programme at Vlerick Business School is the best in Belgium. Within Europe we are number 35 and worldwide we rank 41 within this top 100 of Masters in Management programmes. Vlerick scores particularly well on all criteria related to career development.

The European energy sector is undergoing a huge transition. The measures in the EU Clean Energy Package are also forcing the established electricity companies to reassess their position in the market. With the support of InnoEnergy and in collaboration with Florence School of Regulation, Vlerick Business School is therefore launching several new programmes which aim to provide these companies with insights into the new business opportunities offered by the rapidly changing European energy landscape, and into how they can help to shape the transition in this way.

GDPR, new reporting standards, residents opposing the expansion of a factory, an accidental pollution, a clinical trial gone wrong, an investment product turned sour … CEOs consistently rank regulatory requirements and reputation issues among the top three business challenges. But few companies handle them strategically, on a par with commercial and business issues. With Strategy Beyond Markets, an elective for MBA and Masters students that was introduced this academic year, professor Leonardo Meeus seeks to turn the tide.