Women in Leadership: Keys to the C-Suite

HEC Montreal

Montreal, Canada

HEC Montréal — formally the École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Montréal — was founded in 1907, making it the first business school in Canada. Affiliated with the Université de Montréal, it is a publicly supported institution that has always held a distinctive bilingual (French-English) identity, reflecting Québec's place in the broader North American economy. Its founding mandate was explicitly professional: to train managers capable of driving the economic development of French Canada. Today, that practical orientation endures alongside a strong research culture, and the school graduates roughly 13,000 students annually across undergraduate, graduate, and executive programs. Accreditations and Rankings Triple Crown Accredited: AACSB EQUIS AMBA HEC Montréal holds all three major international accreditations simultaneously — a distinction shared by fewer than 1% of business schools globally. Rankings: Financial Times Executive Education Open Programs: Ranked among the top global providers (consistently listed in the FT's annual global ranking) QS Global MBA Rankings: Listed among the top programs in Canada RepTrak / Léger: Consistently ranked as the most reputable business school in Québec Note: Specific annual FT rank positions vary by year and program category. Only rankings verified with confidence have been included here. Executive Education at a Glance HEC Montréal's executive education arm, operating under the banner HEC Montréal Executive Education, is one of the largest providers of professional development in Canada, training more than 8,000 executives and managers annually. The portfolio spans over 200 short programs in open-enrollment format, alongside a substantial custom corporate offering for organisations seeking tailored interventions. Topic strengths are notably deep in management and leadership, finance, supply chain and operations, data analytics, and governance — areas that reflect the school's long-standing research clusters. Programs are available in French, English, and bilingual formats, which is genuinely unusual in North American executive education and particularly valuable for Québec-based multinationals navigating both linguistic environments. Durations range from intensive two-day workshops to certificate programs stretching across several months. The school's flagship long-duration open program is the Certificat en management series, while shorter themed intensives attract participants from across Canada and internationally. Tuition for open programs typically ranges from approximately CAD $1,500 for short workshops to CAD $10,000+ for multi-module certificate tracks, positioning the school as strong value relative to U.S. peers of comparable academic standing. Campus and Facilities HEC Montréal's main campus occupies a purpose-built facility in the Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood, directly adjacent to the Université de Montréal campus on the northern slope of Mont-Royal. The building — a modern structure completed in the early 1990s and subsequently expanded — was designed specifically for management education, with tiered amphitheatres, breakout spaces, and technology infrastructure suited to case-based and workshop learning. Executive participants also have access to the school's dedicated Conference Centre, which regularly hosts high-profile business events and provides a professional environment distinct from the main student campus. Montréal itself is an underappreciated asset: a genuinely bilingual, tech-forward city with a large and growing ecosystem in AI (home to Mila, the world-renowned AI research institute), finance, aerospace, and life sciences — sectors that give case discussions and guest speakers a real-world density hard to replicate in smaller markets. Faculty and Research HEC Montréal employs approximately 300 professors, drawn from institutions across North America, Europe, and beyond, with a notable concentration of researchers trained at top French and European grandes écoles alongside North American PhD programs. Research strengths particularly relevant to executive participants include supply chain management, business analytics and AI applications, organizational behaviour, sustainability, and financial risk — each backed by dedicated research centres such as the CIRRELT (Interuniversity Research Centre on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation) and the GRC (Governance and Risk Centre). Faculty are expected to maintain active research agendas, but many also consult for major Canadian and international corporations, which keeps their executive education delivery grounded in current practice rather than purely academic theory. Several HEC Montréal professors are among Canada's most frequently cited business researchers, lending credibility to the curriculum that participants can verify independently. Student Body, Alumni, and Career Outcomes Executive cohorts at HEC Montréal skew heavily toward professionals from Québec and the rest of Canada, though international participants — particularly from France, North Africa, and Latin America, reflecting the school's Francophone connections — are a consistent presence in longer programs. The school's alumni network exceeds 80,000 graduates worldwide, with particular density in Montréal's financial district, the provincial government and parapublic sector, and major Canadian corporations such as Desjardins, Bombardier, CGI, and the major Canadian banks. For senior executives completing certificate-level programs, the primary outcome tends to be peer-network enrichment and internal career advancement rather than lateral job moves — consistent with how most participants engage with executive education globally. The bilingual nature of the alumni community is a practical advantage for anyone operating across Québec's linguistic divide.