It is midday on the first field trip of the academic year. Claude Chapuis, Burgundy School of Business’s resident wine historian, finishes recounting the history of the Corton-Charlemagne vineyard. Then the 18 students of the school’s inaugural English-language Wine & Spirits Business MBA pose for a group photo amid autumnal yellow vines.
With an average age of 31, BSB’s students are from nine countries, including China, Russia, Italy and the US. What unmistakably unites them this year, besides a passion for the wine business, is that almost all are women.
“I just approved the strongest profiles,” says Jacques Thébault, director of the programme at the Dijon school. “This year it’s 14 women, four guys.”