As an American company based in Europe, we at Menlo Coaching admire INSEAD’s global orientation and inherent commitment to diversity. During our interview with Dean Ilian Mihov, it’s easy to see why they coin themselves “The Business School for the World”.
Yaron Dahan, Expert Consultant and our Director of Business Development, had the chance to visit Dean Mihov at the Fontainebleau campus to discuss INSEAD’s diverse MBA class profile and what diversity goals the business school holds for the future.
This interview covers:
Jump to Related Articles for more video content on INSEAD, including additional videos from Dean Mihov.
To view INSEAD’s complete class profile, including acceptance rate, average work experience, and pre-MBA industries, take a look at our Guide to the INSEAD MBA.
The old joke goes: at American Business schools, 70% of students are American and other 30% want to be American. This illustrates a truth about INSEAD’s diversity. It is not about the number of nationalities represented in the class profile (95, by the way)—rather, it is about the fact that INSEAD has no dominant culture in the way that American schools often do. This has a number of effects on students and faculty.
Essentially, everyone in INSEAD’s MBA class is a minority. Knowing this makes students feel more at ease and also allows for an intrinsic connection due to shared commonground.
Moreover, diversity in INSEAD’s class profile has an additional positive influence on the employability of its MBA students. This may not be immediately obvious, but with each passing recruitment season, it has become apparent that employers are less inclined to hire MBA graduates with a limited perspective on the consumer market when candidates with diverse, global insights are more valuable to the company.
For instance, when targeting a new market, an employee should be able to provide thoughtful contributions on how the company must evolve to position themselves for success. INSEAD’s diverse and international MBA class allows students to gain that wide range perspective which will makes them lucrative potential hires.
As discussed in another interview with INSEAD Admissions Director, Virginie Fougea, diversity is a cornerstone value for the admissions team. INSEAD actively looks to build an MBA class that is diverse as possible. This is represented by students’ wide range of industry backgrounds and undergraduate studies. Yet the most shocking difference between INSEAD and top US MBA programs is the class’s diversity in geographic origin. Where most top US business schools sport an international diversity data point well below the majority, INSEAD’s international population makes up nearly all of its MBA class, standing at 96%.
| Northern/Western Europe | 36% |
| Asia Pacific | 22% |
| North America | 9% |
| Middle East & Africa | 18% |
| South America | 5% |
| Management Consulting | 37% |
| Financial Services | 23% |
| TMT | 11% |
| Retail, Consumer and Luxury Goods | 7% |
| STEM | 37% |
| Business | 37% |
| Economics | 13% |
| Humanities | 6% |
| Other | 5% |
(Source: INSEAD Class Profile Data)
The extensive diversity surrounding INSEAD students during their MBA studies only sets them up for success in an ever-globalized business world. With intelligent classmates from across the globe, students are bound to gain new perspectives and insight that they can carry with them throughout their careers.
INSEAD firmly believes in integrating diversity into business education. In addition to maintaining international diversity within its MBA class profile, INSEAD is actively working towards gender parity.
Currently, women represent 38% of the INSEAD MBA class, so the business school has started taking steps to increase this number. A large part of the INSEAD Gender Initiative involves trying to figure out how to have more female participants from particular nationalities. INSEAD notes that American applicants are about 45% female while Chinese ones are 60% female. In Italy, Spain, and Germany, however, female applicants only make up about 10% of the pool.
In order to combat this inequality, INSEAD is using randomized control trials based on their own professors’ research. These seem to show that female applications increase dramatically when application materials discuss female role models. Because of the lack of gender parity in the current business world—right now, only 5% of the CEOs in the top 500 companies are female—it is important to make sure that potential female applicants understand that there are successful women in business who have already blazed a trail for them to follow. INSEAD will begin testing this theory in its next round of outreach.
