What It Means to Study at LSB
We recently interviewed the Academic Directors of all five of our degree programs. Across five programs and five Academic Directors, there was a resounding consistency in seven areas. Together, they form the hallmarks of an LSB education.
We know our students by name
Every Academic Director interviews every applicant personally. Dr. Matteo Forgiarini does it for the Bachelor. Dr. Teodora Szabo-Douat does it for the MiM. This is not a formality — it is how we build cohorts. “We try to create the group of students that will be on the same level and the best one,” says Dr. Srdjan Redzepagic of the MIF. The result is a community, not a student body. When the Dean’s List ceremony arrives, students bring their families into the room and are recognised one-to-one. That is what personal scale looks like in practice.
Our faculty bring the real world with them.
Every program draws on lecturers who hold — or have held — senior industry positions. In the MiM, tax and audit courses are taught by managing director and partner-level professionals from the Big Four. In the MBA, Dr. Zoltan Horvath is explicit: faculty are “international, corporate-minded people” whose industry experience ensures that “whatever is being discussed in that classroom is very much up to date, state of the art, and applied in that sector.” Theory is the starting point, not the destination.
We teach through real problems.
From the BIB’s 48-hour company simulation in Belgium, to the MIF’s six-month industry internship, to the MBA’s strategic consulting projects with live clients — every program asks students to act, not just to analyse. “Nothing beats actual real consulting experiences with real clients on real problems,” says Dr. Horvath. Dr. Stephen Rosenbaum structures the Weekend MBA’s consulting project at double the weighting of a standard subject, co-taught by three professors alongside companies who bring genuine problem statements into the classroom. The work is iterative, pressured, and consequential — because that is what professional life is.
We take critical thinking seriously.
In an era when AI can produce a plausible answer to almost any question, our directors are united on what that means for education. Dr. Szabo-Douat names critical thinking as one of the five formal learning goals of the MiM. Dr. Horvath frames the entire MBA around two questions — decision-making and leadership — and asks students to interrogate every class exercise against them. “If you don’t see how the one thing we do right now makes you a better decision maker or a better leader, just stop the class and ask why,” he says. The goal is judgment, not information.
Luxembourg is not just a location — it is a curriculum.
The second-largest fund industry in the world. One of the richest countries in Europe. A capital city where, as Dr. Rosenbaum puts it, highly motivated and capable professionals “are bumping into one another all the time.” Our students graduate into one of the world’s most concentrated pools of international financial, institutional, and commercial talent. Roughly 80% of LSB students receive a full-time job offer directly following their internships. Most stay in Luxembourg. The city that surrounds our campus is an integral part of the student experience.
Our cohorts are genuinely international.
The MiM alone counts more than 50 nationalities. Across every program, students arrive from different industries, educational backgrounds, and parts of the world. Dr. Szabo-Douat emphasized: “We always learn from our students.” This is not diversity as a statistic. It is the mechanism by which students learn to lead, collaborate, and think differently. In Luxembourg, where international is not the exception but the norm, that preparation has immediate professional value and acts as a faithful mirror to the ecosystem in which the school is embedded.
We believe in transformation, not just qualification.
Our Weekend MBA students, in particular, are often people using the degree to change direction — professionally and personally. “It’s a life transformation,” says Dr. Rosenbaum. “It’s not just a career transformation.” Dr. Forgiarini, watching 20-somethings build their first companies while still enrolled, describes it as a phenomenon that makes him emotional: “Young people building piece by piece, day by day, they are building their future. And that is something that is peculiar for that level.” That sense that what happens here matters is present in every program.
Together, these seven hallmarks are what it means to be at Luxembourg School of Business. It is a way of doing things that is consistent across our degree programs and beyond.
