Two South African business schools are celebrating their 25th birthday in 2025.
One is a self-confessed “boutique” school, limited in student numbers and shoehorned into part of its university’s theatre school.
The other welcomes thousands of students each year to its custom-built, sprawling campus, comprising some of the most expensive real estate in South Africa. Among its founding goals was to be recognised as a leading international business school. Few would deny it has succeeded.
Rhodes Business School and the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science (Gibs) also have much in common. Both are important contributors to a multilayered business school environment that enables big and small, state and independent institutions to jointly meet South Africa’s diverse business education needs.
Both are internationally accredited — Rhodes for the standard of its MBA programme, and Gibs both for its MBA and the overall quality of its executive education and other activities. It is part of an exclusive “triple crown” club of global business schools approved by UK, US and European accreditation agencies, and ranked among the world’s top providers of executive education and MBAs.
Gibs dean Morris Mthombeni says: “I consider Gibs an international institution but with a focus on Africa.”
Rhodes and Gibs were both born in 2000. Their births, however, were very different. The University of Pretoria already had a business school. In 1949, it became the first outside North America to offer an MBA. Based in Pretoria, however, most of its students were from government or state-owned enterprises.
I consider Gibs an international institution but with a focus on Africa
— Morris Mthombeni
The decision was taken to site a new school in the Joburg suburb of Illovo, close to Sandton and the heart of South Africa’s business hub. Gibs was named after Liberty Life financial services group founder Donald Gordon, who helped fund the new building. Gordon, who also helped create the Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre in Joburg, was later knighted in the UK for services to arts and business there.
For a while, both old and new schools operated in tandem before the former was officially absorbed into Gibs.
Rhodes also needed seed funding to get started. It came from financial services group Investec, which was why the school began life as the Rhodes Investec Business School, under founding director Gavin Staude.
Initial goals were modest. One was to stem the flow of commerce faculty students leaving the university after completing honours degrees because there was no scope for further study. According to current director Owen Skae, who succeeded Staude in 2010, the new school decided against a traditional research-based MBA in favour of a professional version offering practical coursework, leadership development and career mobility.
It also took the early decision to specialise in sustainability, responsible leadership and ESG studies long before they became fashionable.
Small-scale was always the goal. Skae says: “From the outset, the intent was to match the university’s intimate scale and academic rigour. The founding vision was for a high-touch, focused and agile programme rather than a mass-market offering. From inception, the vision was not to be large or corporate.”
Gibs’s vision was quite the opposite. Founding dean Nick Binedell, who headed the school for 15 years and still teaches there as an emeritus professor, made it clear from the outset that he wanted a school that would compete with the best in the world.
He had the advantage of working in a university that allowed Gibs, a faculty in its own right, the kind of operational autonomy of which many other university business schools can only dream — a benefit also enjoyed by his successors, Nicola Kleyn and now Mthombeni.
From the outset, the intent was to match the university’s intimate scale and academic rigour
— Owen Skae
Mthombeni, who has been in charge for five years, says: “The main success has been establishing an exceptional reputation for transformative teaching informed by research-led and qualified educators, able to attract high-calibre students.
“This has been built on being close to business locally, regionally and internationally, as well as leveraging partnerships with leading institutions locally and internationally. Our reputation is informed by a philosophy of continuous improvement and innovation.”
And development. As student numbers have grown, so has physical and virtual capacity. Mthombeni says there is talk of buying a neighbouring property to expand the Illovo campus. The school is also growing its online capability to meet “geographically unbound expansion opportunities”.
Sometimes these opportunities can be a little too ambitious. As early as 2005, Gibs considered opening a London office to offer executive education programmes to UK companies. Binedell went to London to ask Gordon’s advice. It was to the point: stick to South Africa and what you know. He told Binedell: “I’ve been in London for 20 years and I still don’t understand the Poms!”
Based in the Eastern Cape town of Makhanda, Rhodes Business School could never hope to compete on scale with big-city rivals. In 2024, Gibs welcomed 6,800 students to its executive education programmes. Rhodes taught 389. Gibs has 181 full- and part-time faculty teaching executive education, Rhodes 12.
Skae admits that his school needs to expand and diversify its executive education activities. It also has to increase collaboration with foreign business schools and universities, particularly in research. It could also be more active in international faculty and student exchanges.
As part of the university’s commerce faculty, its decision-making is limited in many areas. While Skae says the university is clear in its vision for the school — “as a vital vehicle for fulfilling the university’s mission of ethical, engaged scholarship and [for upholding] social impact, postgraduate strength and public accountability focus” — funds are limited.
Not long ago, there was talk of a separate campus for the school to replace its cramped quarters in the theatre building. Nothing came of it, though Skae has not given up hope.
He says: “The current strategy focuses on maximising the recently refurbished facilities and deepening integration with the broader university. The establishment of the Rhodes Centre for Entrepreneurship and investment in hybrid-ready teaching infrastructure shows that innovation and expansion are possible within the existing geographical footprint. That said, a standalone campus remains a longer-term aspiration.”
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.