GISMA BUSINESS SCHOOL

The German International School of Management and Administration (GISMA), was founded by former German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, in 1999.
GISMA was founded with the purpose of offering internationally recognised academic management education in Germany, allowing students to reap the benefits of an international education offered in a German environment. GISMA was founded with the help of the State of Lower Saxony and several large companies located in and around Lower Saxony, such as Continental, Georgsmarienhütte, Nord/LB, Siemens, TUI and Volkswagen.

Until August 2013, GISMA was operated and financed as a public/private partnership, partially by the State of Lower Saxony and partially by the sponsoring companies, with the political rationale for GISMA to retain management talent in Germany and attract international talent to study and, subsequently, work in Germany. GISMA’s founding basis – the combination of the strong German location and the international focus of the programmes – has remained the guiding principle and rationale for the school’s existence.

From 1999 to 2013, GISMA offered full-time and executive MBA programs in cooperation with Purdue University, Indiana, USA and from 2008 to 2013 also with Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH), one of the largest public universities in Northern Germany. A Weekend MBA program was offered with LUH until 2015.

GISMA’s MBA programmes have been accredited by the Association of MBAs (AMBA) since 2011.
In August 2013, GISMA was acquired by Global University Systems (GUS) and is now part of the GUS global alliance of institutions of higher education. Founded in 2003 and reorganised in 2012, GUS is an international group aiming at empowering higher education institutions with the tools needed to gain global presence. With over 40,000 current students globally, GUS’s portfolio ranges from business, finance and law to arts and hospitality courses, delivered at vocational, undergraduate, postgraduate and executive levels across international campuses and online.

Since May 2014, GISMA has been offering the MBA programme in cooperation with the AMBA-accredited Maastricht School of Management (MSM). In May 2015, GISMA also partnered with MSM to offer the Master in Management programme. MSM shares GISMA’s international mission and focus, and the partnership thrives on complementarity between the two schools.

In January 2016, GISMA and Grenoble Ecole de Management (GEM) partnered to run the Grenoble MBA, Grenoble MIB, Grenoble MSc Marketing Management and Grenoble MSc in Innovation, Strategy and Entrepreneurship in Berlin.

Grenoble Ecole de Management (GEM) is triple-accredited – an honour shared by less than 1% of the world’s elite business schools. GEM’s triple accreditation includes: AMBA (Association of MBA’s), EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System), AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business).