HEC Montréal

HEC Montréal
Established 1907[1]
Type Public business school
Endowment $ 127 million
Director Mr. Michel Patry
Academic staff 250[1]
Students 12,000[1]
Location Montreal, QC, Canada
Campus Urban
Alumni 57,000[1]
Affiliations Université de Montréal, AACSB, EQUIS, AMBA UACC, CBIE
Website www.hec.ca/en/

HEC Montréal (formerly known as: École des Hautes Études commerciales de Montréal), is the independent affiliated business school of the Université de Montréal, and the oldest management School in Canada. It holds accreditations from AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA, one of three schools in North America to hold triple accreditation in management education. The full name of HEC Montreal was École des Hautes Études Commerciales; the school was renamed HEC Montréal in 2002. The name was standardized to differentiate it from the other HEC institutions such as HEC Paris and HEC Lausanne.[2]

Contents

History

HEC Montréal was founded in 1907 by the Chambre de commerce de Montréal with the help of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society, and celebrated its 100th anniversary [3] in 2007. HEC Montréal currently has fifty research centres, including 22 research chairs.[4] The student body is made up of approximately 12,000 students and the faculty consists of 250 professors.

Programs

HEC Montreal offers a 4-year (3-year for Quebec students who completed CEGEP) bachelor's of business (BBA) program. The degree is available in different formats: the first year can either be fully in French or in English (with language courses in the other language, or Spanish). Students then select one of three profiles:

- French: core courses in French, followed by options which may be in French, English or Spanish. A semester abroad is optional but encouraged.

- Bilingual: core courses in French and in English, followed by options in French, English or Spanish. A semester abroad is optional but encouraged.

- Trilingual: core courses in French, Spanish and English, followed by a mandatory semester abroad (or Campus Abroad program), and options in any of the three.

These combinations are quite unique in the continent. Students then specialize in one of several topics: Finance, Accounting (the two most popular), Marketing, Human Resources, Operations Management, IT, Applied Economics or Quantitative Methods. Students may also combine two of these options to get a mixed specialization, or take an extra year and complete two entire specializations. Students can also obtain a double degree with the French Grande École EM Lyon: after 4 years in total, they obtain a BBA from HEC Montréal and a M.Sc from EM Lyon.

Student exchanges are very popular: over 350 students attend some of the 100+ partner universities in 30+ countries (Australia, Argentina, Brazil, France, UK, Spain, Turkey, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, China, Japan, Sweden, etc.) and another 350+ students come from these universities to HEC Montreal. International students make up a significant proportion of the student population, and the most common origins are France, Northern Africa and Latin America.

Learning French with the Bilingual BBA Students who have only taken few classes of French in the past can do their first year exclusively in English, and take French language courses as well. These courses, and a full year of life in Montreal, should prepare them to start taking classes in French the following year. In a very short time, the students can become perfectly bilingual -an invaluable asset for an international career.

The school also offers a specialized, one-year program called D.E.S.S (Diplôme d'études supérieures spécialisées) in French, in very specific topics.

The rigorous M.Sc is one of the most reputed programs in the school, and it can be taken with a major research project or with a shorter one and more courses. Several options are available, including the highly quantitative M.Sc Financial Engineering, as well as M.Sc Financial Economics, M.Sc Finance, M.Sc Applied Economics, M.Sc Information Technologies, M.Sc Analytical Techniques, M.Sc Strategy, M.Sc Accounting Control, M.Sc Organisational Development and several other options. The program is quite selective and lasts for 18 to 24 months.

The school offers MBA programs in French (full and part time) as well as in English (full time) with a duration of one year. Furthermore, an EMBA is available jointly with McGill University for executives with many years of experience.

Finally, the school offers PhD degrees together with the other universities of Montreal (McGill, Concordia-JMSB, UQÀM-ESG) in several fields related to management, finance and economics.

Research

HEC Montreal is very active in several fields of research: 25 research chairs are based in the school, including 7 Canada chairs, as well as 26 research centres. 14 professors at HEC Montreal are part of the Royal Society of Canada, and research funding was $13 million between December 2010 and May 2011. The school's researchers published 239 articles in refereed journals, 42 papers in conference proceedings and 514 papers in scientific congresses last year, while 59 of its professors published books or book chapters.[5]

World rankings and distinctions

HEC Montréal has consistently been ranked among the top B-Schools in the world by major publications.

- In an employability ranking by Emerging, published in the New York Times in 2011, chairmen and executives form 10 countries were asked which universities they would recruit from. HEC Montréal obtained a 46th position worldwide, and 2nd in Canada, ahead of notable Canadian schools such as University of Toronto (Rotman), York (Schulich), Western Ontario (Ivey), UBC (Saunder) and Queens, and ahead of other notable international schools such as ESCP-Europe (France), Boston University, Georgetown University, New York University, Carnegie Mellon University, etc. .[6]

- According to an EdUniversal ranking from 2011, the school is "universal" (highest grade) and ranks as the 24th most influential business school worldwide, right behind LSE (21st), Cornell (22nd) and NYU (23rd) but ahead of University of Toronto (Rotman,25th), IESE in Spain (25th), Northwestern University (Kellogg, 28th), University of Chicago (Booth, 33rd), all but one Canadian school, and ahead of other international schools like ESSEC, ESCP-Europe, IE Business School, Dartmouth (Tuck) and even the prestigious University of Pennsylvania (Wharton). [7]

It was listed among the top 10 "Non-US Business Schools" in Forbes' 2009 B-Schools rankings (biennial rankings).[8]

The school is ranked #15 in Businessweek's Top Non-US B-School list.[9] It was ranked #10 on Businesweek's top 10 list of "international non-US schools" in both 2006 and 2004.[10]

The school was included in the 2006 Top 100 list published by the Economist Intelligence Unit. It is also one of the 9 Canadian MBA programs highlighted by Canadianmba.com.[11]

In the 2010 QS Global 200 Business Schools Report[12] the school was placed as the 4th best business school in Canada and the 22nd best business school in North America.

No objectively fair comparisons can be drawn with US Business Schools. However, HEC Montréal was ranked 16th in the 2009 global ranking of the top 50 business schools compiled by AméricaEconomía magazine,[13] a standard reference for the Latin American business community. The School made the list of the top 20 business schools outside of Latin America offering MBA programs. HEC Montreal was also ranked 28th in North America by QS Top MBA in the 2009 rankings topping other notable Canadian business schools such as Sauder School of Business and Schulich School of Business.[14]

HEC Montréal is also well known for being a centre of financial expertise.[15] On june 22 2009, the Financial Times listed HEC Montréal's Msc programmes in finance (MSc in Finance, MSc in Financial Engineering and MSc in Financial Economics) among the best MSc in Finance programmes in the world.[16] The Standard Life-HEC Fund, an investment fund created by Standard Life and HEC Montréal, and managed by the best undergraduate and postgraduate students in Finance, took first place at the 10th Redefining Investment Strategy Education (RISE) Forum in 2010.[17] The Standard Life-HEC Fund also took first place in 2009 and 2008.

In February 2010 Expansión, a prestigious Mexican magazine, listed HEC Montréal's MBA programme among the best MBA programmes in the world.[18] This ranking confirms HEC Montréal's prestige, standing and efficient internationalisation strategy.

Since the Commerce Games, an inter-university competition, were founded in 1989, HEC Montréal's students have brought home first place ten times, second place four times and third place four times [19]

The average GMAT score is 615 for the 2009-2010 MBA class.

Buildings

HEC's main building was constructed in 1996 and has since won an award for "institutional architecture.[20] The building was designed by Dan Hanganu and Jodoin, Lamarre, Pratte and Associates [21] The building is situated at 3000 Côte-Sainte-Catherine (Map [22] ), next to the Université-de-Montréal Metro Station. The former main building at 5255 Decelles (Map [22]) is now used as a secondary building. The first building used by HEC was located in downtown Montreal but is no longer used by the school.

Academic departments

Department of Accounting Studies

Department of Human Resources Management

Department of Information Technologies

Department of Management

Department of Marketing

Department of Logistics and Operations Management

See also

References

External links