In April, Vlerick Business School in Belgium and the Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad launched their Global Executive MBA, becoming the latest in a wave of education partnerships Indian institutions have struck with European counterparts over the past year in senior-level and executive education. 

What is notable is not the volume of these partnerships, but how Indian schools and executives are talking about what they want to gain from them. It marks a striking shift in the balance of global management education.

“Executive education in India is undergoing a fundamental shift,” says Atish Chattopadhyay, Director of IMT Ghaziabad. “It is moving beyond degrees and short-term programs to building collarless leaders, professionals who can integrate thinking with execution and work seamlessly with AI and evolving technologies.” The focus, he says, is now on “outcome-based capability, not credentials, immersive, experiential learning, not classroom instruction, and continuous new-skilling, not episodic interventions.”

For Chattopadhyay, the Vlerick partnership is an expression of that shift. “This is not about importing a model, but co-creating one that integrates technology, sustainability, and cross-regional learning.”

The shift is not happening in a vacuum. Nine Indian business schools now feature in the Financial Times Global MBA Ranking 2026, with the Indian School of Business climbing 15 places to 12th globally and IIM Bangalore jumping 23 places to 34th. The economy underneath them is growing at around 6.5 per cent a year. And with that, European schools are arriving because Indian institutions and the market they serve have become more compelling than many the European schools have historically focused on.

David Veredas, Full Professor, Partner and Associate Dean Sustainability at Vlerick Business School, who leads the new programme, uses similar language. “We see this as a partnership of equals. Both institutions bring their strengths, and both learn from the collaboration.”

The data backs up the timing. GMAC’s 2025 Application Trends Survey, the global benchmark for business school demand, found that applications to Indian graduate management programmes from international candidates rose around 25 per cent in 2025, while total applications in India grew 10 per cent. At the same time, applications fell four per cent in the UK and dropped one per cent in the US. GMAC’s separate Prospective Students Survey shows Western Europe has now overtaken the United States as the top study destination for candidates from Central and South Asia. And a record 53 per cent of Indian candidates now plan to apply to domestic programmes, up from 38 per cent in 2019.

For Indian institutions, this is what it looks like when a market reorganises around you. Himanshu Rai, Director of IIM Indore, has watched it happen at close range. “A decade ago, executive education in India operated within a relatively closed, institution-driven ecosystem, dominated by top-tier schools,” he says. “Today, the market reflects a fundamental re-architecture, and executive education has become demand-led, with corporations actively shaping content to solve real business challenges, such as digital transformation, innovation, and global competitiveness.”

The numbers at IIM Indore alone tell the story. Participant enrolment has climbed from 1,923 in 2014-15 to 7,569 in 2024-25. Revenue has grown from ₹1.86 crore in 2013-14 to ₹81.5 crore in 2024-25. “This sharp increase underscores the transformation of executive education from a niche offering into a major institutional revenue stream and strategic pillar,” Rai says. “The most important structural shift is the move from credentialism to capability development. Professionals are no longer enrolling solely for brand signaling, they seek immediate applicability and measurable outcomes.”

That demand profile is exactly what is pulling European schools in. Aalto University Executive Education in Finland is beginning to build its Indian presence this year. “India combines scale, strategic fit and a genuinely open moment,” says Laura Sivula, Aalto’s Director of Academic and International Affairs. “The geopolitical map of Indian executive education is being redrawn. Flows that historically routed through the US and UK are being reconsidered, and European partners are being looked at seriously for the first time.” She is clear about what kind of partner Indian institutions want. “Indian institutions are actively seeking counterparts who engage as equals rather than as senior partners.”

Frankfurt School of Finance and Management runs a similar model with two Indian institutions, Management Development Institute in Gurgaon and Administrative Staff College of India in Hyderabad. Andreas Emser, Director of Executive Education, describes the joint programmes in Frankfurt as being designed for specifically for Indian cohorts, with travel to other European countries built in. The University of Glasgow’s Adam Smith Business School has reached a similar conclusion through its entrepreneur-focused programme with IIM Indore. Director of Internationalisation Xiang Li says India-Europe partnerships “can add great value to executive education learners through extended networks for knowledge acquisition and business opportunities beyond India.”

What unites these partnerships, beyond timing, is what they say about India’s growing influence on the global higher education stage. Veredas sees a market that no longer follows. “India’s executive education market feels highly energised and forward-looking. It is not following global trends, in many ways, it is helping define them,” he says.

Chattopadhyay frames the same point in a single line: “In a global economy, leadership must be both locally grounded and globally fluent.” 

It is a description of the partnership Vlerick and IMT Ghaziabad are building, and a description of what every European school now hoping to work with an Indian counterpart will have to offer. The partnerships announced this year are unlikely to be the last. They are the early signs of a global management education map being redrawn around Indian demand.

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