Leading Swiss organization for Executive Management Education as well as Management Training for High Potentials and the management of the future

The particular ambition of the St. Gallen Business School is to transfer proven as well as the latest findings from management research and teaching to executives, specialists, experienced managers and emerging leaders.

In contrast to universities and technical colleges, whose core target group is still students, our business school has focused on the target group of "managers" from the beginning in 1985. Managers have very different expectations than students. While students are primarily interested in being taught the basics of business and thus a solid theoretical foundation, younger managers primarily expect the technical and methodological tools to master the challenges they face on a daily basis. Experienced managers, on the other hand, require a "sparring partner" who knows the typical problems faced by top managers from personal experience.

Management seminars for executives

We seized this need for differentiation as a great opportunity 40 years ago and have since then concentrated with all our strength and ambition exclusively on the target groups of "executives, experienced managers and high potentials".

In dealing with these highly demanding participants, very specific didactic and pedagogical approaches and lecturer qualities have proven to be correct over time, leading to a comprehensive framework of competence in various areas.

On the one hand, this consists of a well-founded selection of the knowledge to be imparted in a very short time: This requires not only a large amount of specialist knowledge, but also knowledge of what is currently happening in practice and what can be tackled in which situations and how. Other aspects concern the didactic and specialist experience of the lecturers: Knowing how to discuss highly condensed information and experience with managers requires special qualities from the lecturers.

New competencies and new skills: The St. Gallen Management Seminars

Building up such focused competencies takes time and cannot be accomplished overnight. We have taken the time.

This resulted in an “SGBS selection of knowledge”, which we consider indispensable for executives and managers, but which is only accessible to participants if it is taught at an appropriate level.

Only when these essential factors are met can one justifiably claim to be imparting management knowledge "on an equal footing". Only then will acceptance, enthusiasm and concrete implementation benefits arise among participants and customers.

Thanks to this unique focus on maximum practical suitability and on top-class lecturers, the St. Gallen Business School has developed into one of the most prominent and successful continuing education partners for companies in the German-speaking world as well as internationally.

Executive MBA: Study part-time for Managers

The immediate visible result is the consistently high number of participants in open seminars, an increasing number of seminars being held not only in Switzerland, but directly in Germany and Austria, a large number of long-standing in-house training customers, a rapidly growing number of graduates from our EMBA and the St. Gallen Practical Studies, and increasing requests for cooperation with us. Particularly valued: the part-time management training.

St. Gallen Consulting

That is why many of our 90 lecturers an professors have now also become consulting partners for top managers and entrepreneurs. Lecturers who have made a name for themselves as solid practitioners, "temporary managers" and management consultants. What our lecturers have in common is that they have been cultivating and developing their specialist area for a long time. They also see themselves as mediators between business research and business practice.

The focus of all training courses is on achieving maximum implementation effect: we base our training on system-oriented management theory and the St. Gallen “Integrated Management Concept” developed by our former advisory board chairman, Prof. Dr. Dres. hc Knut Bleicher. This approach, which has now become a standard, is the basis and starting point for our training courses.

Business and Management

The concept enables us to divide the diversity of business knowledge into modularly structured units without losing the overall picture. This ensures that we are always aware of the overall context. This allows us to separate the essential from the inessential. The knowledge that can be imparted from this should enable managers to optimize their own management performance and lead companies to success.