ESSCA head: French students enjoy their time in Budapest – INTERVIEW

ESSCA School of Management creates knowledge and develops responsible managers and entrepreneurs, while fully considering the human, ethical and economic dimensions of organisations in a multicultural environment driven by technology and social innovations. The French university has one of the best management courses worldwide and operates a campus in Budapest. We talked about their mission, programs, how they use AI in education, the strengths of their Budapest campus and his impressions about the Hungarian capital with CEO and Dean Jean Charroin.

DNH: ESSCA has a French base, but it already has campuses in several countries. Can you tell us your secret?

Jean Charroin: 30 years ago, ESSCA began its internationalisation process by establishing its first European campus in Budapest. At the time, it was an ambitious strategy aimed at providing quality education and management skills to an economy that was in the process of opening up to the European and Western markets. Today we are proud that ESSCA is the only French business school in Hungary that provides a diploma labelled by the Conférence des Grandes Ecoles.

I joined the school in 2018. At that time we were contemplating whether it is feasible to be a multicampus network with a large portfolio program or not. Michael Porter the famous professor of corporate strategy says: “When you do not make a choice you are stuck in the middle.” When we were at the crossroads of choosing between a multicampus organization or a multiprogram portfolio, I said that we have to make a tradeoff and we opted to develop a multicampus network with a very narrow portfolio program.

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ESSCA has 3 major programs, two of which recruit 90% of all students: the bachelor in management and the master in management. On top of this, the institution is about to launch an MBA program. Almost 95% of our students are in 3 programs at 10 different campuses. With such a narrow portfolio we were able to “copy and paste” a program to have a standardized and efficient approach. If you want to meet the international standards laid out by the most prestigious accrediting bodies in the world such as the American AACSB, the British AMBA and the European EQUIS, and also meet the guidelines of the French Ministry of Education, your institution has to be efficient. This means achieving operational and academic excellence. There are just over 110 business schools in the world that have received recognition from all three aforementioned bodies, i.e. that have been awarded the ‘Triple Crown’.

These accreditations can also serve as the basis of inter-institutional collaborations. For example, all our students have to spend at least one semester abroad, and thus, it is of the utmost importance to propose them international partners, which are of the same quality as ESSCA.

2023 is an exceptional year in the life of ESSCA, as – in addition to Budapest – the Paris Campus is also celebrating its 30th anniversary. The School opened its Luxembourg and Malaga Campuses this year, and will also inaugurate a new facility at its Bordeaux Campus.

DNH: Decades come and go in the life of the ESSCA, but you always teach to a high standard. How do you maintain this high level? Do you renew the university’s strategy from time to time?

Jean Charroin: The School continuously strives to integrate new practices, principles and challenges into all of its activities and to be a trend-setter in shaping the educational field. All of its instructors receive training from ESSCA on how to use the ever-creative and inventive methods it is developing for teaching, tutoring, teamwork, etc. in their varied roles.

The businesses are also effectively incorporated into the school’s operations: for example, they have seats on the Board of Trustees, test panels, curriculum development committees, etc. This proximity to the corporate world shows how diligently ESSCA works to ensure that students obtain the most up-to-date, relevant trainings, specializations, courses and skills.