8.9.2026
September 8, 2026 marks a new step for the ESSEC Business School Master in Management (MIM). The first cohort to enter the reformed program begins the academic year with a new student experience: multicultural “squads,” a stronger common academic foundation, and greater exposure to the major issues shaping today’s world. This major evolution of the ‘Grande École’ program aims to develop managers who can keep learning, understand complexity, and act collectively.
Cergy, September 8, 2026, 9 a.m. In the ESSEC Grand Amphitheater, the 2026 Master in Management (MIM) cohort gathers for its first day at ESSEC. For some, it is their first time on campus. For others, it marks the beginning of a new chapter after preparatory classes or admission through the parallel admissions track. For all of them, this day marks the launch of the evolved ESSEC MIM.
Presented last June, the revamp of the Grande École program is now being implemented for the first time. As part of the Transcend 2024-2028 strategy, it reshapes the beginning of the program around a clear conviction: in a world shaped by technological, geopolitical, economic, and environmental transformations, future managers need to learn how to harness collective intelligence and draw on diverse perspectives.
During his welcome address, Vincenzo Vinzi, Dean and President of ESSEC, invited students to see their education as a continuous learning process, shaped by different disciplines, cultures, and connections. This philosophy strongly reflects the new MIM model:
“At ESSEC, you will learn the most important skill of all: learning to learn. Learning from your professors and textbooks, but also from history, from other disciplines, from the people you encounter, from different cultures, and more broadly, from the diversity of this world. It is a never-ending process of discovery, transformation, and growth.”
Aarti Ramaswami, Deputy Dean for Pre-Experience Programs, extended this reflection by inviting students to embrace uncertainty and rediscover the value of improvisation.
Drawing on her own experience of painting, she encouraged students to experiment, make mistakes, and learn along the way. She also quoted Laurent Bibard, Professor at ESSEC, from his inaugural lecture:
“Let us learn to improvise just as an artist does. This is anything but amateurish. It is about reacquiring a capacity for adaptation that humanity has always possessed and cultivated.”
Learn to learn. Experiment. Adapt. Collaborate. These principles take concrete form in the evolution of the MIM, starting with the squads.
The most visible evolution of the ESSEC Master in Management is the creation of squads. From the start of their first year in the MIM, students are placed in groups of around 40. The groups are formed by the school to promote diversity across nationalities, backgrounds, and profiles.
A squad is therefore more than a study group. During the first two terms, its members take the nine core MIM courses together. They also take part in shared activities and meet alumni and companies. Each group is supported by an academic advisor.
The goal is to turn the diversity of the cohort into a concrete learning experience.
“We will determine the composition of the groups to avoid having students from preparatory classes on one side, international students on the other, and students admitted through the parallel admissions track by themselves,” explains Wilfried Sand, Academic Director of the Grande École.
He summarizes the ambition behind the squads: “With the squads, we are not simply teaching management. From day one, we are giving our students the human experience of multiculturalism and shared responsibility.”
This revamp also brings the academic calendars of the different student profiles entering the Grande École program closer together. Students from preparatory classes and students admitted through the parallel admissions track now join the MIM at the same time and begin their journey together.
This reflects one of the key objectives of the revamp: to have time for a shared experience at the beginning of the MIM before allowing each student to progressively personalize their path.
Once this common foundation has been established, students can shape their trajectory according to their goals through academic chairs, tracks, dual degrees, internships, and international experiences.
The evolution of the MIM also strengthens the role of major contemporary issues in the curriculum. ESSEC’s four thematic institutes, dedicated to AI & Society, Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Geopolitics & Business, and Ecological & Social Transition, contribute to the program’s courses and learning experiences.
All MIM students will also take the required Future of Business seminar. It explores the transformations reshaping business and the economy. Artificial intelligence, ecological transition, geopolitics, and organizational transformation are examined through their strategic and managerial implications.
This approach directly echoes the message Vincenzo Vinzi shared with the cohort at the start of the academic year. Learning is not only about acquiring knowledge. It is also about developing the ability to question it, renew it, and learn from others.
International exposure remains a key component of the ESSEC Master in Management. Students benefit from a global network of academic partners, dual degrees, and international experiences. They can also draw on ESSEC’s campuses in Singapore and Rabat and its hubs in London, New York, and Mumbai.
Partnerships with institutions such as Yale School of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management, and Smith School of Business expose students to different academic and cultural environments.
The diversity experienced within the squads therefore extends naturally into the international dimension of the program. Students learn to collaborate with different profiles on campus, and then apply this experience in other academic and professional environments around the world.
With this revamp, ESSEC is evolving its Grande École program while preserving the fundamentals that define its identity: academic excellence, international exposure, and the freedom to build a personalized path.
A new generation of students is beginning its journey in an evolved ESSEC Master in Management designed to develop “future-fit” managers who can understand the complexity of the world and harness collective intelligence to address it.
