The A-Z of Business schools: IESE International Graduate School of Management

Age: 40

History: Set up in 1958 to train Spanish managers. Five years later - and jointly with Harvard business school - developed Europe's first MBA, a two-year programme. Since 1980 has offered a bilingual Harvard-style Masters in Business Administration, taking students from all over the world. Also offers Executive MBA, a part-time qualification, to Madrid executives.

Address: Two campuses: one in the Pedralbes district (a residential suburb) of Barcelona which houses the bilingual MBA; the second in Madrid which houses the executive MBA.

Ambience: Barcelona campus has been expanded. New building houses a library, extra classrooms and a cafeteria. And the beautiful Mediterranean city gives you sunshine, sea, mountains and the art of three painters - Picasso, Miro and Dali.

Vital Statistics: IESE is the international graduate school of management of the University of Navarra. Described as one of the leading European business schools by the guide Which MBA?, the school is part of Opus Dei, the highly influential and reticent group in the Catholic Church. That may explain the emphasis on the moral and ethical side of doing business. MBA is done like Harvard's - mainly by the case method.

Added value: The bilingual Spanish-English MBA seeks to ensure that graduates end up not as a globe-trotting English-speaking rep. of a multinational company, but a multilingual person who knows the cultures and has lived in them. During the first year, classes can be taken entirely in English or entirely in Spanish. English speakers are given an intensive course before the programme begins. Extra Spanish lessons are offered during the first year. In the second year they do some classes in Spanish.

Easy to get into? You need a degree plus GMAT and an English test if your mother tongue is not English.

Association of MBA's accreditation: Yes.

Glittering alumni: Pedro Batalla Casanovas, investment banker, International Finance Corporation; Adriana Casademont, president of Casademont; Luis Enrique Yarur, president of the Banco de Credito, Chile; Jan Peter Oosterveld, managing director, Philips Corporate Strategy.

International connections: Students come from 40 countries. One half come from outside Spain. Exchange programme means they can spend a term in another internationally-renowned business school. Each year around 50 second-year students go abroad and an equal number come to IESE.

Gurus: Don Rafael Termes Carrero, Spanish banker who writes about ethics in business; Pedro Nueno Iniesta, expert in entrepreneurship; Brian Subirana, who has made a CD-rom, a case study in Spanish and English, called Virtual Distribution on the Internet and the Transformation of the Publishing Industry.

Student profile: Average age is mid-20s on the full-time MBA; male/female numbers this year 175:50 on the full-time MBA. Average age of Executive MBA students at graduation, 31.

Cost: pounds 9,200 a year for full-time MBA.

Who's the boss? Prof Carlos Cavalle, mountain climber and tennis player and one of the founders of IESE.

Next week: INSEAD