CIMBA Italy

CIMBA (in English, pronounced chim – buh) offers dynamic, personal, and affordable study abroad, MBA, and executive programs in Paderno del Grappa at the base of the Italian Alps in Northern Italy—just an hour north of Venice. For two decades, CIMBA has educated students from 50-plus countries and is proud to have more than 10,000 alumni living and working around the world. At CIMBA, students immerse themselves in a wide range of rigorous courses, including innovative leadership and development programming, while living amidst the Venetian countryside in one of the most popular travel and study destinations in the world. Our students’ business and cultural immersions begin from the minute they step on campus. We share a campus in the heart of Paderno del Grappa with the Istituti Filippin, one of Italy’s top boarding schools where students K-12 are educated. Although our students have different classes and live in different residence halls, they often get to know one another through a host of events designed to build cultural awareness.

Our study abroad courses have a 25:1 student-faculty ratio, and the rest of our programs have fewer than 18 students per class. Our study abroad and MBA programs are backed by the top-ranked, AACSB-accredited University of Iowa Tippie College of Business. All of our courses are taught by English-speaking professors from top universities throughout the United States and Europe. Many of them have earned prestigious degrees from universities such as Cornell, Columbia, Duke, Harvard, John Hopkins, the London School of Economics, Oxford, Princeton, Yale, and more. They’ve also lived, taught, and worked around the world in global leadership positions such as senior vice president for the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and Global Operations Financial Expert for Hewlett Packard.

Our small class sizes allow our faculty scholars and mentors to work one-on-one with students and incorporate small-group discussions and hands-on learning opportunities such as company tours and cultural excursions. Our curriculum is also infused with leadership and personal development programming designed to help you develop skills to turn ideas into practical innovations and to build confidence in your abilities to overcome the most demanding challenges.

CIMBA’s story is one of entrepreneurship and adventure. Nearly 25 years ago, CIMBA President and Founder Al H. Ringleb had a vision for creating a unique international MBA program that would open new opportunities abroad for students and faculty. The idea was to draw students from around the world to pursue their MBA, while giving faculty from top American colleges and universities an opportunity to gain international experience teaching business courses at an accredited program in Europe. As surprising as it may seem, in 1985 when “Dr. Al” first had this idea, there were few to no personal development opportunities available for faculty despite a rapidly growing interest in global business.

While debating how to move forward, Dr. Al, who holds a law degree from the University of Kansas and a doctorate from Kansas State University, began teaching and coordinating international programs at Texas A&M University. In the early 80s, he traveled extensively to and from Europe and the Soviet Union in search of business and academic partners for what would become CIMBA. Soon, businesses in both Germany and Italy, along with Clemson University, opened the door for the idea to become a reality. CIMBA was born and within a few years, the curriculum expanded beyond MBA programs to include study abroad opportunities for both graduate and undergraduate business students. By 1999, as the program moved to the University of Kansas, CIMBA announced its undergraduate program would remain focused on business, but would grow to offer courses for students majoring in communications, journalism, engineering, and more.

As CIMBA expanded, Dr. Al became more intrigued with the field of neuroscience and the way the human brain works. Since that time. Everyone has continued to develop cutting-edge innovations in this area, including a series of groundbreaking tools developed at CIMBA by the CIMBA Leadership Institute. Today, these innovations are infused into all of CIMBA’s programs, with the goal of assisting and guiding students to learn more about themselves as they seek to become better managers, leaders, and entrepreneurs. This primary focus on the student and his or her personal journey remains integral to the CIMBA experience.