INSEAD, a contraction of "Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires" (European Institute of Business Administration), is a non-profit graduate-only business school that maintains campuses in Europe (Fontainebleau, France), Asia (Singapore), the Middle East (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates), and North America (San Francisco). INSEAD offers a full-time Master of Business Administration, an Executive MBA (EMBA), a Master of Finance, a PhD in management, a Master in Management, Business Foundations Post-Graduate degrees, and executive education programmes.
Its MBA programme, which is taught in English, is consistently ranked among the best in the world. The MBA has produced the second-most CEOs of the world's 500 largest companies, only behind Harvard Business School and the sixth most billionaires. Despite its relatively small size as a specialist, graduate-only university, INSEAD educated the second-most C-suite executives of listed companies in the world's 19 biggest economies, behind Harvard University. INSEAD is among the top 20 universities globally that produced most of the world's ultra high-net-worth individuals.
The school has a strong reputation in entrepreneurship. Notable companies founded by INSEAD alumni include Admiral Group, Wise, Nubank, MongoDB Inc., Asklepios Kliniken, L'Occitane, Gorillas, Blablacar, Tudou, Ecovadis, Light Chaser Animation Studios and Business Insider.
INSEAD admits no more than 12% of students of the same nationality and requires each student to speak two languages on entry and three languages by graduation.
INSEAD was founded in 1957 by venture capitalist Georges Doriot, Claude Janssen, and Olivier Giscard d'Estaing. Original seed money was provided by the Paris Chamber of Commerce. The school was originally based in the Château de Fontainebleau, before moving to its current Europe Campus in 1967.
Georges Doriot, a professor at Harvard Business School and a General in US Army during World War II, wanted an institution that would introduce business education to Europe and bring European businessmen together post-war.