ESSEC Business School management professor David Sluss teaches a class in the Global MBA program. As academic director, Sluss led a redesign of the program which launched this September. Courtesy photo
In 2022, when David Sluss stepped up to become academic director of the Global MBA of ESSEC Business School, he figured he’d be shepherding an already strong, boutique program ideally located in Paris’ La Défense, the top business district in Europe.
But as he dug in, he realized that while the program had strong bones, it lacked a unifying narrative. He asked himself: What is the true purpose of the MBA?
“It’s not just to train students for corporate roles – every business degree does that. Historically, MBAs were about transforming general managers into executives,” Sluss tells Poets&Quants.
“While we were equipping students with the knowledge and competencies to become executives, we weren’t socializing them into that role.”
Sluss spent a year analyzing the ESSEC MBA, looking at what the market offered, what industries demanded, and what students needed. This September, just two years into Sluss’ tenure, ESSEC launched a reimagined Global MBA – an integrated program with three distinct concentrations: strategic sustainability, innovation and entrepreneurship, and as the French would say, digital savoir faire.
The redesign gives MBAs flexibility to chart their own career paths, rooted in ESSEC’s philosophy of “learning by doing.” A key component is the four Career Learning Labs focused on luxury, finance, consulting and product management. Led by industry professionals, these labs feature dedicated workshops, learning expeditions, networking, and mentorship, and hands-on learning experiences. Students will also complete either an internship, global consulting project, or venture project, and have a dedicated Talent Center to connect students to career opportunities.
“For us at ESSEC, employability is the capacity for the MBA participant to develop themselves to the point where they are ‘world-class’ for roles or jobs that align with their long-term career goals,” Sluss says.
“Employability is where ESSEC’s program and the participant become completely integrated. The better the employability, the better the role the MBA secures, the better the financial return, the better the career trajectory, the more satisfied the alumni, the more engaged the alumni will be with our current participants. It is a virtuous cycle.”
David Sluss, Global MBA academic director
This fall, the first cohort of 49 students embarked on ESSEC’s redesigned one-year Global MBA program. Representing 20 countries across six continents, the cohort boasts diverse professional backgrounds ranging from law and international business to agriculture and engineering. Women make up 57% of the class, and students bring an average of seven years of work experience.
