Insead to double Abu Dhabi intake within four years

Insead aims to double its enrolment within four years as it seeks to attract executives from across the region to its Abu Dhabi campus.

Franz Humer, the chairman of Insead, wants to attract executives from the Middle East and North Africa and bring them to Abu Dhabi. AP Photo / Keystone, Georgios Kefalas

Insead hopes to double its enrolment within four years as it seeks to attract executives from across the region to its Abu Dhabi campus.

The graduate business school, which trains 500 professionals a year in the emirate, expects that number to grow to about 1,000 within three to four years.

"We want to teach certain sections of our global MBA programme here in Abu Dhabi," said the school's chairman Franz Humer. "We want to bring them here so they can learn about how business is done in the Middle East and possibly look for jobs here."

In 1999, Insead, which was established more than 50 years ago in Fontainebleau, France, claimed to have become the first business school to operate two fully fledged campuses with a permanent faculty.

It opened its other branch in Singapore to capitalise on growing economies in Asia. In 2006, the school decided to open a third campus - in Abu Dhabi and for largely the same reason.

"We want to be a platform for the region, attracting executives from the Middle East and North Africa and bring them to Abu Dhabi," Mr Humer said.

That would mean expanding its current campus, he says, which is located on Muroor Road, across from the bus station.

"We are exploring several options internally," Mr Humer said.

Mr Humer was in Abu Dhabi on a brief trip to sign an agreement with the federal Government - in the presence of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and Minister of Cabinet Affairs Mohammed Abdullah Al Gargawi - to provide government staff with training in policy development.

"The biggest challenges the UAE faces is how to compensate on the dependence of oil when some time in the future that'll run out," Mr Humer said. "How to balance that economy, and sovereign wealth funds play a major role in achieving that."

The UAE has become a hub for education, with several universities setting up in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Manchester Business School opened its Dubai branch in 2006.

The London, Manchester, Ashridge, Cass and Hult business schools all have branch campuses in the UAE. Others, including Wharton and Duke's Fuqua School of Business, have research centres here.