Master in Management — Programme Grande École

emlyon business school is a French grande école with entrepreneurship at the centre of its identity. Founded in 1872 by the Lyon Chamber of Commerce, it is the second-oldest business school in France after ESCP.¹ Its Programme Grande École — the formal Master in Management — is a 24-month degree (extendable to 36 months with a gap year) taught from Lyon, France’s second city. The programme sits at #12 in the Financial Times Masters in Management 2025 ranking and #16 in the QS Business Masters Rankings 2026.⁴ ⁵ emlyon is not a CEMS member, which differentiates it from its main French peers — instead, the programme leans on its signature Makers’ Lab and the EarlyMakers Program as differentiators and on a wide bilateral double-degree network with WHU, Aston, HEC Montréal, Tongji, KAIST, and USP.¹ ²

Overview

The emlyon Programme Grande École (PGE) is delivered over two academic years, with an optional intercalated gap year that extends the calendar duration to 36 months.¹ Most students take the gap year — it is the standard pathway for accumulating extended internship experience and is the route through which many graduates secure their first full-time offer pre-graduation.

The PGE admits via several routes. The international degree track is the route most non-French applicants use, alongside the BCE concours (used by French prépa students) and the AST route (used by French candidates with an existing first degree).¹ The international degree track admits roughly 750 students per intake across all routes — a cohort size that sits between LBS and ESCP.

The programme positions itself unmistakably around entrepreneurship. The Makers’ Lab — a physical maker space combining design, prototyping, software, and small-scale manufacturing equipment — is embedded in the first-year curriculum and anchors the EarlyMakers Program, a structured pathway for students building businesses during the degree.¹ ³ This positioning is not cosmetic; the curriculum, the careers operation, and the alumni network all skew measurably towards entrepreneurial and innovation-led trajectories alongside the standard consulting and finance pipeline.

emlyon formally restyled itself as lowercase “emlyon business school” in its 2023 rebrand. The styling is intentional and now consistent across the school’s materials. Older external sources still write “EMLYON” or “EM Lyon” — these refer to the same institution.

Curriculum & Tracks

The first year covers the standard management canon — corporate finance, accounting, microeconomics, statistics, strategy, marketing, organisational behaviour, operations, and business law — delivered through lectures, case studies, and project work.¹ The first-year curriculum is taught in both English and French depending on track; the English-only path is increasingly the default for international students. The Makers’ Lab and EarlyMakers Program run alongside the academic core, with structured time blocked into the calendar for entrepreneurial work.

The second year is the specialisation year. emlyon offers tracks across Entrepreneurship, Finance, Strategy & Consulting, Marketing, Digital Supply Chain, and BioPharma management.¹ ² The Entrepreneurship track is the most distinctive — it includes an extended Makers’ Lab residency, the EarlyMakers Program funding round, and an accelerator-style mentorship structure that is rare among European MiMs. The Finance and Strategy & Consulting tracks are the largest by enrolment and the most aligned with the major recruiter pipelines.

A meaningful subset of students pursue double degrees in the second year, swapping the standard M2 for a year at an emlyon partner school. Established partnerships include WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management (Germany), Aston Business School (UK), HEC Montréal (Canada), Tongji SEM (China), KAIST (South Korea), and USP — University of São Paulo (Brazil).¹ ³ The double-degree route adds a year to the calendar and is the closest equivalent to the CEMS structure at emlyon’s peers.

emlyon is not a CEMS member — candidates whose primary motivation is the CEMS credential should look at HEC, ESSEC, ESCP, or Bocconi instead.

Class Profile

The PGE cohort totals approximately 750 students per intake across all entry routes.¹ The international share is around 28% — meaningfully lower than HEC (40%), LBS (92%), ESCP (98%), or Bocconi (41%). This reflects emlyon’s origins as a regional grande école rooted in the Rhône-Alpes economy and its substantial domestic recruiting pipeline through the prépa system. Female representation sits at 48%. The average age at entry is 22, and 50 nationalities are typically represented.

Test scores cluster in the 600–700 range on the GMAT — average around 640 — and GMAT Focus, GRE, TAGE-MAGE, and Cambridge English equivalents are all accepted depending on the route.¹ Pre-program work experience is typically limited to internships, in line with the European MiM standard of 0–2 years.

Academic backgrounds are weighted toward business, economics, engineering, and political science at undergraduate level, with the French prépa pipeline contributing roughly half of the domestic cohort. International admits skew toward European, Latin American, and South Asian undergraduate institutions, with smaller representation from East Asia and North America than at the more globally-positioned peers. Our piece on building a MiM profile covers the standard preparation pathway.

Application & Deadlines

For the September 2027 intake, emlyon operates four rolling rounds. Round 1 closes 15 October 2026, Round 2 on 15 January 2027, Round 3 on 15 March 2027, and Round 4 on 1 June 2027.¹ Decisions are returned within roughly four to six weeks of each deadline. Earlier rounds offer better seat availability and earlier visibility on scholarships.

The application requires undergraduate transcripts, GMAT/GRE/TAGE-MAGE, an English proficiency certificate (TOEFL/IELTS/Cambridge), two recommendation letters, two essays, and a CV. Shortlisted candidates are then invited to a remote interview with an emlyon faculty member or admissions officer. The application fee is €100.

emlyon’s process gives notable weight to evidence of entrepreneurial inclination or willingness to engage with the Makers’ Lab pedagogy. Candidates with prior venture experience, founding stories, or hands-on project portfolios are well-represented among admits, alongside the standard mix of high-academic and consulting-and-finance-bound applicants.

Tuition, Scholarships & Funding

Tuition for the 2026–27 cycle is approximately €41,000 across the full two-year programme, paid in annual instalments.¹ Lyon is materially cheaper to live in than Paris or London — typical living costs run €10,000–€14,000 per year, against €15,000–€22,000 for the major capitals. Total cost of attendance is therefore meaningfully lower than at HEC, LBS, or the Paris and London ESCP campuses.

emlyon offers a portfolio of merit and need-based scholarships. The most prominent include dedicated awards for women in business, international student scholarships co-funded by partner foundations, awards for entrepreneurship-focused applicants accepted onto the EarlyMakers Program, and country-specific awards.¹ Apprenticeship contracts — common across French business schools — can cover second-year tuition for students placed with French employers, and many students fund the programme through a mix of French student loans, Prodigy Finance, and personal or family resources.

For a broader framing of the French cost-of-attendance picture, our piece on studying in France covers the regulatory and financial context across schools.

Career Outcomes

emlyon reports a three-month employment rate of 93% for the PGE cohort.¹ The FT 2025 weighted three-year salary is US $108,000 — the twelfth-highest in the FT MiM 2025 top fifteen.⁴ The typical first-job French base salary is approximately €59,000, with bonus and signing components varying by sector.

Sector breakdown places consulting and audit at 40% of placements, finance and banking at 15%, industry at 13%, and technology at 11%.¹ The remaining 21% spread across luxury and FMCG, energy, healthcare, and entrepreneurship — the last representing a higher share than at most European MiMs given the Makers’ Lab pipeline. Top recruiters by hiring volume are the Big Four (EY, Deloitte, KPMG, PwC) and the major French and global consulting houses (Wavestone, Capgemini, McKinsey, BCG), the bulge-bracket and French investment banks (BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan), and the major French luxury and FMCG firms (L’Oréal, LVMH).

Geographic placement is notably concentrated in France — approximately 72% of graduates begin their careers domestically, with the remainder distributing across Europe (mainly Germany, the UK, Switzerland), Asia (China and South Korea via the double-degree partnerships), and the Americas. This is a less internationally distributed placement profile than HEC, LBS, or ESCP, and is the most candid caveat for applicants weighing emlyon against its top-tier peers. Candidates whose primary objective is to leave France for full-time work should weigh this carefully.

Campus & Life

emlyon’s main campus is in Écully, in the western suburbs of Lyon, with additional sites in Paris (Gerland district) and Saint-Étienne, plus international campuses in Shanghai, Mumbai, and Bhubaneswar. The new Lyon Gerland campus — opened in 2024 — sits inside the city on the south bank of the Rhône and houses much of the PGE second-year teaching, the Makers’ Lab, and student association spaces.

Lyon as a city is well-suited to the MiM cohort. It is France’s second-largest urban area, with a sophisticated business community in chemicals, pharma, biotech, banking, and consulting; a deep food and cultural scene; and a cost of living substantially below Paris. The TGV connection to Paris takes two hours, which keeps Paris-based recruiting genuinely accessible during the academic year.

The PGE has more than 100 student associations across finance, consulting, tech, entrepreneurship, sport, country networks, and the famous BDE social calendar. The EarlyMakers community — students in the structured entrepreneurship pathway — is the most visible single sub-community on the programme and tends to form tight cohorts that persist into post-graduation venture activity.

Notable Alumni

emlyon’s alumni include Jean-Pascal Tricoire (Chairman of Schneider Electric and CEO 2006–2023), Clotilde Delbos (CFO and Deputy CEO of Renault Group), Christoph Franz (Chairman of Roche and former CEO of Lufthansa AG), and Santiago Lefebvre (co-founder of ChangeNOW, the climate-tech impact summit). The alumni base spans senior corporate leadership in French industry, European corporates, and a notable presence in entrepreneurship and impact-led ventures — a reflection of the programme’s positioning around entrepreneurship and its long history in the Rhône-Alpes industrial economy.