Established as a joint venture between Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, and the Leningrad State University, a new business school named the Leningrad International Management Institute (LIMI) was created in 1989. Following the renaming of the city, LIMI was changed to International Management Institute St. Petersburg (IMISP) in 1992. IMISP was created in response to the need for the development of a new managerial culture in the former USSR. Since then, the school has been preparing executives and entrepreneurs for the complex task of managing businesses in a new and constantly changing environment.
IMISP is a well-respected institution in the field of management education and is a member of the Russian Association of Business Education (RABE), the International Higher Education Academy of Sciences, the Russian Foundation for the Development of Additional Professional Education, the Association of Non-Governmental Institutions of Higher Education, and a member of AMBA and CEEMAN. IMISP strives to advance management practices and methods with insights from the Russian context that contribute to management education and cultivate professionals and leaders with global perspective, innovative capability, entrepreneurial spirit and social responsibility.
IMISP has a program portfolio with the internationally designed Master of Business Administration (MBA) as its cornerstone. Since its inception, the institution’s goal has always been to provide advanced training and professional re-qualification of executives in the area of general management, and to thus give an impetus to their career development upon completion of the course. Besides EMBA programs, IMISP also offers professional re-qualification programs. These are long-term programs in General Management. The target group includes adult Russian-speaking individuals residing in the St. Petersburg region (evening format) and other regions of Russia (modular format) and people willing to acquire new professional knowledge or improve their qualification in general management. The market of re-qualification programs is turbulent and generally characterized by price competition and differentiation. IMISP also offers executive non-degree programs. These programs may vary from relatively long-term (3-4 months) to quite short ones (2-4 days) and “grow” from immediate market needs. Therefore, this part of the IMISP portfolio is substantially renewed each academic year. Since these are not degree programs, IMISP has maximum flexibility in designing and delivering them with a focus on medium-sized customers in St. Petersburg and the surrounding areas. IMISP holds an impressive market share for many of its products. Most particularly, the 25% market share for its EMBA highlights the high regard in which the institution and its programs are held. IMISP is also involved in numerous other knowledge dissemination activities that build its brand and increase its revenue creation base.
IMISP constantly seeks for feedback on its quality through
• industry feedback through extensive contact, consultation and evaluation of its products, outputs and current standing in the market.
• accreditation and rankings where IMISP seeks accreditation and re-accreditation of quality assurance processes:
- with the St. Petersburg Committee on Education, by which it is licensed
- as member of the Russian Association of Business Education (RABE)
- as member of the International Higher Education Academy of Sciences
- as member of the Russian Foundation for the Development of Additional Professional Education
- as member of the Association of Non-Governmental Institutions of Higher Education
- as accredited member of AMBA
- as IQA-accredited member of CEEMAN
- it was named a “top business school with strong global influence” by EDUNIVERSAL
- in the last five years, Business Journal listed its MBA program among the top three ones in Russia three times
IMISP provides high quality education in the context of the academic disciplines that the school focuses on. IMISP graduates are held in high regard by local, regional, and transnational employers, and it has built an impressive reputation beyond is geographical location. While understandably influenced by current economic realities, IMISP has a strong lecturing and consultation culture and admirable record of impact in the management education arena.
»CEEMAN International Quality Accreditation is very special due to the following reasons. It is the only accreditation system for business education that considers a lot of regional peculiarities and contexts, within which accredited schools operate. Other systems make an accent mainly on quality of internal processes, paying less attention to the actual contribution of institutions to business and societal development in particular regions or countries. Having nearly 20 years of experience with IQA, we are convinced of the unique fairness of its approach, where excellence meets relevance.«
Professor Sergey K. Mordovin
Rector of the International Management Institute St. Petersburg