This is great recognition for the Executive Education offerings within the SSE group — in the combined open and custom programmes ranking SSE is ranked 15 in the world, #10 in the category for open programmes and #25 in the custom programmes category. This is the first time that SSE Executive Education has made the top ten!

Rector Anders Paalzow: “SSE Riga Executive Education offers a range of open courses as well as custom-designed executive education programmes for both large and small/medium-sized companies since 1994. Among corporate clients in 2021 there were such companies as SEB, Groglass, Accenture, Swedbank, Samsung, Latio, Olainfarm, Exante, Forevers, Tamro, Mapon and others, trainings have been organized also for the government sector — Valsts kanceleja, Valsts kontrole and Valsts nekustamie īpašumi.”

In 2021 the Executive Education industry moved towards a higher percentage of online teaching and learning experiences, therefore the previous year challenged SSE Riga’s Executive Education colleagues' creativity and flexibility to respond to these changes.

“The general direction of Executive Education shows that in upcoming years programme participants will expect a choice between in-person, hybrid, and online courses, while corporate clients still very much value networking on-site which has traditionally been an important part of Executive Education,” Paalzow concludes.

 

Open Programmes

In year 2021, the SSE Riga Executive Education department saw a significant increase in demand for hands-on courses — “Business Negotiations” and “Assessment of the Company's Financial Situation” were the two most popular short courses. The “Mini MBA: Strategic Management Programme” has been growing in popularity as it provides the fundamentals of business management in just two weeks’ time.

“In fact, if previously we run the Mini MBA programme once per year, now we run the programme twice per year and groups are full long before the application deadline. The Mini MBA programme offers superb value to participants and some participants also use this programme to explore the experience of pursuing the Executive MBA programme that we offer at SSE Riga,” explains Director of Executive Education Department Ieva Muižniece.

 

Custom Programmes

Despite the pandemics, also the interest by companies to train their employees has remained high in 2021. SSE Riga Executive Education provided tailor-made programmes and workshops to companies from the financial, manufacturing, wholesale, and real estate sectors, fintech and IT, public authorities and others.

The demand was strong for such core skills as leadership, change management, negotiation strategies, customer relationships and presentation skills, while topics aimed at boosting digital competencies and data interpretation are experiencing increased demand.

“More and more often companies which are cooperating with SSE Riga Executive Education choose to create longer multi-module programmes, covering a range of subjects to boost employers' competencies in a wider scope — related not only to their direct professional field of responsibility but aimed at gaining a better understanding about the company's business specifics, strategic and operational dimensions and its' place in the business landscape overall,” Senior Programme Manager Elga Prauliņa sums up the trends.

 

About Financial Time Ranking

The Financial Times ranks the best executive education programmes globally, rating 65 schools for open-enrolment programmes as well as 70 schools offering custom programmes. Combined ranking lists the top 50 schools for executive education, calculated from the open and custom tables.

To compile the rankings, the Financial Times uses a combination of a variety of quantitative and qualitative indicators, including ratings from programme participants and corporate clients on programme design, teaching methods and materials, faculty and post-programme follow-up.

See the complete ranking on the Financial Times website.