Centrum PUCP Graduate Business School

Centrum Católica Graduate Business School — the graduate business faculty of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP) — was founded in 2000 in Lima, Peru, as a specialised school designed to raise the calibre of business leadership across the Andean region. PUCP itself dates to 1917, making it one of the oldest and most respected universities in Latin America, and Centrum was built to bring that academic heritage into the world of management education. Operating as a university-affiliated, private institution, Centrum combines Jesuit-influenced values around ethics and social responsibility with a practical orientation toward the real challenges of doing business in high-growth, high-complexity markets. Its academic philosophy rests on developing leaders who can navigate uncertainty — a design choice that reflects, honestly, the environment most of its graduates actually work in.

Accreditations and Rankings

Accreditations

• AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business)
• AMBA (Association of MBAs)
• EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System — EFMD)

Centrum PUCP holds triple-crown accreditation, placing it among fewer than 1% of business schools worldwide to have earned recognition from all three major accreditation bodies.

Rankings

• América Economía MBA Ranking: consistently ranked among the top 10 MBA programmes in Latin America (2023)
• Financial Times Executive Education (custom programmes): listed among providers recognised in the Latin American market
• QS Global MBA Rankings: ranked among the top programmes in Latin America (2023)

Executive Education at a Glance

Centrum PUCP's executive education offer spans both open-enrolment programmes and fully customised corporate solutions, with particular strength in areas directly relevant to the Latin American business context: strategic management, corporate governance, finance for non-financial executives, supply chain and operations, and sustainability and ESG in emerging markets. The school has built a reputation for working closely with Peru's leading corporations and state-owned enterprises — organisations like Grupo Romero, Petroperú, and major players in mining, infrastructure, and retail — to design programmes that address specific organisational challenges rather than generic management concepts.

Open programmes typically run between two days and six weeks, depending on format, and are available in-person at the Lima campus, in blended formats, and increasingly via online delivery to reach executives across the broader Andean region — Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Flagship open programmes include the Senior Management Programme (Programa de Alta Dirección), leadership and negotiation intensives, and a well-regarded Corporate Governance programme aimed at board members and C-suite executives. Tuition for open programmes generally ranges from approximately USD 1,500 to USD 8,000, depending on duration and depth, with some corporate group rates available on application.

Campus and Facilities

Centrum PUCP's main campus is located in Santiago de Surco, one of Lima's principal business districts, placing it within easy reach of the headquarters of Peru's largest financial institutions, mining companies, and multinationals. The facilities include modern case-study amphitheatres, dedicated executive education suites designed for cohorts of senior professionals, and collaborative spaces that reflect the school's emphasis on peer learning among experienced practitioners. Lima itself is a significant part of the value proposition: a city of over 11 million people that functions as the commercial and financial hub of the Andean region, where real business decisions — about resource extraction, infrastructure investment, consumer market expansion, and political risk — are made daily and can be studied in real time. Participants frequently cite access to business leaders and live case material from the local market as something they genuinely could not replicate in a classroom elsewhere.

Faculty and Research

Centrum PUCP's faculty includes full-time researchers alongside a carefully selected group of practitioners and visiting professors drawn from partner institutions in Europe, the United States, and across Latin America — a structure that keeps teaching grounded in both academic rigour and operational reality. Research strengths include competitiveness and economic development (the school houses one of Latin America's leading teams working on the World Competitiveness Yearbook methodology), sustainability and corporate social responsibility, and strategic leadership in emerging-market contexts. The school's affiliation with PUCP gives faculty access to one of Latin America's strongest university research ecosystems, spanning law, economics, engineering, and the social sciences. Several Centrum faculty members sit on the editorial boards of international management journals and maintain active consulting relationships with Peruvian and regional organisations, ensuring that what is taught in executive programmes reflects current practice rather than historical theory.

Student Body, Alumni, and Career Outcomes

Executive education cohorts at Centrum PUCP are dominated by mid-to-senior professionals from Peru's private sector, government agencies, and state enterprises, though regional participants from Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Chile feature regularly in flagship programmes. The broader PUCP alumni network numbers in the tens of thousands across Latin America, with Centrum graduates occupying C-suite and board-level positions in sectors including banking, mining, energy, retail, and public administration. Employers represented within the alumni community include BCP (Banco de Crédito del Perú), Interbank, Southern Copper, Grupo Breca, and a range of government ministries and regional development agencies. For executives whose careers are anchored in the Andean market, the Centrum network functions as a genuine professional community — one where introductions made during a weekend programme frequently translate into long-term business relationships.