Association of MBAs

The Association of MBAs (AMBA) is a global organisation headquartered in London, UK. It was founded in 1967 with the primary objective of accrediting Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs.





== Roles ==

Based in London, AMBA is one of the three main global accreditation bodies in business education (see triple accreditation) and styles itself as the world's impartial authority on postgraduate management education. It differs from AACSB in the US and EQUIS in Brussels as it accredits a school's portfolio of postgraduate management programmes but does not accredit undergraduate programmes. AMBA accredits approximately 2% of the world's business schools, and is the most international of the three organisations having accredited schools headquartered in 54 countries, compared with the 52 for AACSB and 38 for EQUIS.

Business schools can become associated with AMBA by applying for accreditation or by applying to be part of the AMBA Development Network.

All MBA students and alumni of the 277 accredited member schools receive free life-long individual AMBA membership. AMBA also accredits generalist BBA programmes, MBA programmes and DBA programmes, and admits as members students and graduates thereof.

AMBA's long-serving president until 2017 was the late Sir Paul Judge, the founding benefactor of Cambridge Judge Business School in Cambridge, UK. AMBA's current Chief Executive is Andrew Main Wilson, who joined the organisation from the Institute of Directors in 2013. Bodo Schlegelmilch was elected Chairman of the AMBA Board of Trustees in 2018.





== History ==

The Association of MBAs was founded in 1967 as an MBA alumni club by eight UK graduates from Harvard Business School, Wharton, Stanford and Columbia, and two graduates from the first intake of London Business School. The founders saw a lack of awareness in Europe of the value of the MBA degree, which at that time was primarily an American qualification.