December 28, 2020. Shanghai – Despite the disruption caused by COVID-19, it was a busy year at CEIBS. From record-high rankings and online learning to new appointments and virtual forums, we look back at some of the top news and events stories around CEIBS in 2020.

This year go off to a positive start for CEIBS. In late-January, the school retained its spot amongst the world’s best business schools as it again placed fifth in the Financial Times’ annual ranking of MBA programmes for the second consecutive year.

Like many organizations around in the world in 2020, CEIBS was forced to shift many of its activities online due to the coronavirus. One of the first student-led events to make the leap was INNOVATEChina, which in April brought together MBA teams from around the world for the annual pitching competition under the theme of ‘Connectivity for the Future’.

This past spring, CEIBS also launched its ground-breaking Lessons for Leaders from the Pandemic series, a programme of webinars featuring school faculty and other leading thinkers from around the globe. In just two months, the webinar series attracted more than 1,000 participants from more than 40 countries around the world.

As part of our ongoing efforts to support MBA students and alumni during the COVID-19 pandemic, in April, the CEIBS Career Development Centre went virtual with a series of online job fairs. The events were organized with the help of the CEIBS Alumni Association and the alumni chapters in Beijing, Ningbo and Shenzhen.

In June, nearly 2,000 people join in to watch the first ever virtual graduation celebration in CEIBS’ history as 150+ students from the MBA Class of 2020 concluded their learning journeys and joined the school’s alumni network of over 24,000 professionals.

The CEIBS Female Leadership Forum also went online for the first time this year, welcoming more than 100 participants for an in-depth exploration of purposeful leadership in July. The 2020 edition of the forum looked beyond women’s issues to explore the broader topic of how to lead during times of uncertainty.

TEDxCEIBS 2020 hosted eight high-profile speakers as students from the CEIBS MBA Class of 2021 broadcast the event live from the Poly Grand Theatre in Shanghai. This year’s event touched on a range of topics such as calmness, enthusiasm, persistence, studying, understanding, science, life and sports, all under the banner of Becoming: Me, Us & More.

In September, a special faculty and staff meeting was held at the school’s Shanghai campus to officially appoint Professor of Management Wang Hong as new CEIBS President. At the end of the month, CEIBS also appointed Professor of International Business and Strategy Shameen Prashantham as the new MBA Director.

The pandemic forced CEIBS to take an innovative approach to keeping learning on track in 2020. With overseas MBAs unable to enter China due to travel restrictions, we launched our first-ever ‘twin city’ model, with students enrolling at both our Shanghai and Zurich campuses. With housing and learning facilities in place, CEIBS officially welcomed the 157 young professionals of the MBA Class of 2022 with a special ceremony in early October.

October brought even more good news to CEIBS as our Global EMBA soared to a record-breaking high of #2 in the Financial Times’ list of the top EMBA programmes in the world. It marked the third consecutive year CEIBS’ Global EMBA appeared in the top five and was the highest ever ranking for a stand-alone EMBA programme in Asia.

The CEIBS Insights 2020 Europe Forum series went virtual for the first time in November and December, with more than 3,000 participants streaming the events online. This year’s series explored opportunities for Sino-European collaboration and highlighted the importance of cooperation in leading the global economic recovery.

In capping off an extraordinary year, CEIBS in December welcomed the Global EMBA 2020 cohort to our Shanghai campus with a special opening ceremony to kick off their 20-month journey of learning and discovery.

For all of the latest news and events highlights from around CEIBS, please visit our News page here.