Dear employer, Barcelona has the peculiar feature of concentrating a large number of business schools - a dozen, sold well - and between them have one of two great international recognition: ESADE and IESE. The opportunities that this unique grant to the city and the country seems no escape "some". According to well informed I got the background, these "some" in the respective directions have suggested the interesting possibility that outside these two important institutions merge, creating a single school, very well positioned internationally, capable of competing among the leaders the American and European business schools and helping to put Barcelona and Catalonia as a reference company in this sector.

Since I am not a journalist, I have not called to Carlos Losada, Director General of ESADE, or the Canals, director of IESE, to confirm or deny the rumor that I passed my sources. In any case, within the logic of globalization and the commitment to internationalization that both organizations have in recent years and is giving them such good results, the idea seems quite intelligent, the suggestion is true or not. But perhaps the reality and the opinion of the respective academic communities to make a smart idea not possible.

On behalf of Catalan Encyclopedia, 2003, I wrote articles relating to the business schools of the Encyclopedia of Barcelona, ​​in addition to the two that I mentioned, also includes EADA. The request allowed me to delve into its origins, the origins and identities defined, provide insight into current realities. Thus, ESADE was founded in 1958 in Barcelona initiative of a restless group of entrepreneurs in innovative collaboration with the Society of Jesus, following the model of the Universidad Comercial de Deusto, also a Jesuit, in order to form future managers need Catalan companies. For its part, IESE was created the same year, also in Barcelona, ​​as a graduate school of the University of Navarra, Antonio de Valero initiative, and with the aim to train entrepreneurs and managers. Its commissioning was not easy because in Valero submitted a first proposal to the University of Navarra that was rejected, and was in St. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer person who decided that the school had to move forward. In both cases it is not surprising that the site location was chosen Barcelona, ​​Catalonia was because the business model in Spain, along with Euskadi, and just coincided with the time he was considering the known Stabilisation Plan approved in 1959 .

Dear colleague, what I have told you will not be ignored by the public who addressed were different: ESADE and IESE students to career professionals. In the first case, the training has a more academic, while the latter has a more practical orientation. At ESADE academic dedication of its faculty was worth, while at IESE has appreciated combine teaching with consulting.

Today the training programs - MBA, Executive Education, In-Company Training and PhD - both schools are quite similar with the difference that the school maintains its degree, that IESE has ever offered. ESADE, until 2003, had trained more than 24,000 students and 23,800 IESE, while ESADE Alumni Association had over 7,000 members and members of the Association with the IESE 8640. As you can see, even numbers are similar, however, the profiles are different according to the origins of each.

Today the similarities, as they are competitors in the same sector, but many are actually the foundational difference: Jesuits and Opus Dei. I do not know much about their respective worldviews, but their differences are known within the Catholic Church. Foundational beliefs can stop a smart idea? We can do the respective interests of the cloisters? Or may be both the causes?

Dear friend, I repeat, I do not know what degree of certainty is the rumor, but if these were true and brilliant institutions did not reach any agreement as a result of different beliefs and values, I must ask myself a question: how legitimacy could advise / suggest / ask employers to reach agreements to merge in order to achieve greater scale to compete in the global marketplace?

Whatever it is and whatever they do, ESADE and IESE continue all deserve respect. Almost fifty years prove a career.

Joseph Albet

Director DIRECTORS ALBET BCN