NHH and AFF amongst the world's top 40

Financial Times (FT) announced this year's ranking of the world's executive education programmes. The NHH and AFF environment has strengthened its position and is now ranked 17^th in Europe and 40^th globally. NHH/AFF open executive programmes have never been ranked higher. 'This is a fantastic result', says Rector Jan I. Haaland. In Norwegian

14.05.2012 - Ed. (translated by James Hosea)

Financial Times (FT) announced this year's ranking of the world's executive education programmes. The NHH and AFF environment has strengthened its position and is now ranked 17^th in Europe and 40^th globally. NHH/AFF open executive programmes have never been ranked higher. 'This is a fantastic result', says Rector Jan I. Haaland.

'This is a very strong result. Executive education is the most competitive part of our educational activities. We compete with the world's best business schools and manage to strengthen our position', says the NHH Rector.

NHH and AFF participate together in the FT ranking with AFF's Solstrand and Young Leaders programmes and NHH's Corporate Finance programme.

AFF celebrates its 60th anniversary this year and this ranking shows that the Solstrand and AFF Young Leaders programmes continue to meet the high international standards expected for such executive education programmes.

'We have had good results in the ranking over the last three years, but still manage to creep upwards. AFF has invested heavily in improving the programmes in recent years', says Mai Vik, CEO of AFF.

The NHH Corporate Finance programme is designed and led by Professor Karin S. Thorburn from NHH and Professor B. Espen Eckbo from Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

'The FT ranking shows that NHH has an extremely professional course offering for financial markets. The flagship AFA programme, to which Corporate Finance is an add-on, is undoubtedly the most popular executive education programme in Norway, with four applicants per place. And it has been so for almost 25 years', says Professor Thore Johnsen, head of the AFA programme.

In the ranking the Financial Times measures the quality of open, non-degree earning executive education programmes, based on feedback from participants and data provided by the institutions involved. NHH/AFF perform particularly well in course design, new skills and learning and aims achieved.

The winner this year is the IMD in Switzerland, with Harvard Business School in the United States in second place. NHH/AFF was ranked best in Scandinavia, ahead of both Aalto University and Stockholm School of Economics.

The Financial Times also ranked custom executive programmes, with NHH/AFF coming 69^th in the world. Together with the result for open executive programmes, this places NHH/AFF in 49^th place in the Financial Times' combined Executive Education ranking.

Find out more from the Financial Times here: http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/rankings