Triple Success: WU Executive Academy Named Austria’s Best MBA Provider for the Third Time in a Row

Following the hattrick, now the triple win: having scored first place in the recently published 2023 continuous education ranking for Austria, the WU Executive Academy has also been named number 1 by this year’s Industriemagazin MBA ranking – for the third time in a row. And with the best result in the history of the ranking no less: in addition to the outstanding brand awareness values of all MBA programs of the WU Executive Academy across all industries (82.9%), 92.5% of the surveyed managers said they would actively recommend WU’s business school to others. The year before already, one in two executives responded that they would recommend the Executive Academy. This year now sees an almost 100% increase.

For this year’s MBA ranking, 18 Austrian MBA providers were assessed by around 500 managing directors, HR managers, and heads of other departments at companies with more than ten employees.

The results of the ranking combine awareness (a survey of brand recognition: “list of all providers”) and the likeliness to recommend an MBA program (respondents that cited experience with the mentioned providers were asked whether they would recommend them). The ranking was then calculated based on these brand awareness and recommendation rates.

In the category of brand awareness, the WU Executive Academy achieved 82.9%. “An outcome to be proud of,” Barbara Stöttinger, Dean of the WU Executive Academy, says. “I am happy that so many managers across Austria know who we are. And the fact that more than nine out of ten (92.5%) of all respondents would actively recommend us makes me incredibly proud and grateful. But there’s no secret ingredient to our success. From my perspective, our triple win can be attributed to our consistent, quality-focused work – and our many satisfied customers. We have worked hard to be ahead of the curve for many years. And especially in our challenging BANI* times, we strive to deal with the issues that preoccupy our students. The key word is new leadership.”

This is where the WU Executive Academy can offer a true added value as part of the WU, Stöttinger adds: “Being located at the interface of business and research gives us a huge competitive edge: contents taught are relevant for business practice while simultaneously being rooted in the latest research in the field. This combination is what makes our programs special, providing true added value for the managers and high potentials that decide to go for our offer.”

_{*Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear, and Incomprehensible.}

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