Saïd Business School (Oxford Saïd or SBS) is the business school of the University of Oxford. The school is a provider of management education.
Business and management classes started at Oxford in 1965 when the Centre of Management Studies, later relaunched as Templeton College, Oxford, was founded.[2] In 1988, a committee chaired by Claus Moser, Baron Moser recommended that the University create a new School of Management Studies. By 1990, Clark L. Brundin became founding director of Oxford's school of management studies.[3] In 1996, the school re-branded as Saïd Business School after a donation of £28 million from Wafic Saïd.[4] New premises were built on Park End Street and opened in 2001. The Thatcher Business Education Centre was opened on the same site in 2012 after a further donation from Saïd. The School has another centre at Egrove Park, on the former site of Templeton College, and in 2019 acquired an old power station in Osney to convert into a Global Leadership Centre.
Saïd Business School is the University of Oxford's department for graduate students in business, management and finance. Undergraduates are also taught as part of the Economics and Management course together with the Economics Department.
As of June 2022, the Dean of Said Business School is Professor Soumitra Dutta.
History
Business education at the University of Oxford dates back to 1965, when the Oxford Centre for Management Studies was founded. The centre was renamed Templeton College in 1983 as a result of a donation from Sir John Templeton.[5]
In 1988 a committee chaired by Sir Claus Moser (warden of Wadham College) recommended that the University set up a new School of Management Studies. The University agreed to establish a Business School in 1990 and the Oxford School of Management Studies was set up in premises at the Old Radcliffe Infirmary with its first intake of students arriving in 1993. The first director was Dr Clark Brundin, who had been the vice-chancellor of the University of Warwick since 1985. He was also appointed as president of Templeton College.[6]
Saïd Business School was founded in 1996 when Syrian-born businessman Wafic Saïd offered the University a donation of £28 million.[7] A site for the new premises was found on Park End Street opposite Oxford railway station on what was formerly the Oxford Rewley Road railway station. The building was designed by Edward Jones and Sir Jeremy Dixon.[6] The opening on 5 November 2001 was accompanied by a demonstration by students concerned about the controversial nature of Wafic Saïd's donation. [8] Saïd was linked with the UK's signing of the Al-Yamamah arms deal.[9]
In 2007 Templeton College merged with Green College to form Green Templeton College, based on the existing Green College site. The former Templeton site at Egrove Park then became the Saïd Business School Executive Education Centre. In 2012 the Thatcher Business Education Centre, financed by a donation from Saïd, was opened on the Park End Street site.[5] Saïd donated a further £15 million in 2019 to finance the conversion of the old Osney power station into a Global Leadership Centre.[9]
In 2020 Saïd Business School lost an employment tribunal case brought by its former director of custom executive education.[10] The tribunal found that the whistleblower had been unfairly dismissed and awarded her £1,499,606.62.[11]
Saïd Business School's main degree programmes are its one-year full-time MBA programme, 21-month modular Executive MBA programme, the DPhil or PhD Programme in Management Studies, the MSc in Financial Economics in cooperation with the Economics Department, the two-year MSc in Major Programme Management and the one-year MSc in Law and Finance (MLF) in conjunction with the Oxford Law Faculty.[12]
Undergraduate programme
Saïd Business School offers one undergraduate programme: Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Management. This programme is taught jointly by the Department of Economics and the Business School.[13]
Graduate programmes
SBS building
MBA
Saïd Business School offers a one-year full-time Master of Business Administration degree, which enrolls approximately 320 students per year. In the 2018–2019 class of 315 students, 61% were male and 39% were female with 62 nationalities represented and averaged 5 years of work experience.[14] The MBA programme was updated for the 2014/15 academic year[15]
EMBA
Saïd Business School also offers a 22 month or 24 month part-time 'Executive Master of Business Administration' degree designed for people with more than 5 years' management experience. The Oxford EMBA is studied through 16 week-long modules largely taught in Oxford, but with at least two conducted in key international markets. As of 2016, the programme ran two iterations per year, with new cohorts starting in both January and September. There were 61 students in September 2022 class, from 33 different nationalities and 41% of which are women. There are several scholarships for women available each year for outstanding candidates.[16][17]
1+1 MBA
Dean Peter Tufano started the Oxford 1+1 MBA programme which allows students to pair the one-year full-time MBA programme with one of a selection of one-year MSc programmes offered by other University of Oxford departments.[18]
MSc in Major Programme Management (MMPM)
The School runs a part-time two-year MSc in Major Programme Management. It accepts approximately 50-60 students per cohort, running a programme that features 8 modules and a thesis. Module topics (in 2022) are:
The School starts a part-time (hybrid) two-year MSc in Global Healthcare Leadership in September 2022/23 academic year. It was intended to start in the 2021/22 year but deferred due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This programme is being managed under both Said Business School and Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Services. It has 8 modules each proceeded by a week of teachings in Oxford.[12][20]
University of Oxford is 1st in the 2022 Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
2023 QS Global MBA Rankings by Career Specialization:[24]
Finance: 7th in world
Entrepreneurship: 7th in world
Information Management: 5th in world
Technology: 3rd in world
Consulting: 19th in world
2022 Financial Times Executive MBA: 15th in the world [25]
2023 CEO World Magazine B-school rankings: 5th in the world.[26]
In the inaugural LinkedIn MBA Ranking (2024), Saïd Business School ranked 15th in the world. [27]
Admissions
The 2022-23 cohort of students on the MBA course comprised 64 different nationalities, with 93% coming from outside the UK. Nearly half (48%) were women. The median GMAT score was 690 and median GRE composite score was 320 (Quant - 160; Verbal - 160). The cohort's average work experience was 5 years and average age was 29 years.[28]
