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Overview
01A Transformative Moment
This is a transformative moment in the history of Columbia Business School. For more than 100 years, Columbia Business School has been preparing leaders to face the ever-evolving complexities of the modern business world. Now, the move to Manhattanville will expand on our mission, allowing the School to educate more students, embrace more alumni, elevate faculty research and scholarship, engage new thought leaders and practitioners, and strengthen partnerships within the University, within the community, and throughout the city.
Featuring bold, one-of-a-kind design that disrupts academic convention and redefines modern pedagogy, the Manhattanville campus will increase networking and collaboration, both intentional and serendipitous, among all community groups—students, faculty, staff, alumni, practitioners, and the broader business community. The result will be a living ecosystem that fosters the most vibrant and valuable business school experience anywhere.
As the world of business evolves, so does Columbia Business School. The future of business is here.
Representing Values & Vision
Designed by world-renowned architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, in collaboration with FXCollaborative, the two new buildings – Henry R. Kravis Hall and David Geffen Hall – encompass 492,000 square feet, more than doubling the amount of our current space. The buildings incorporate a layer-cake design, integrating faculty, students, and staff in a way that cultivates relationships and the open exchange of ideas.
With an emphasis on idea generation, knowledge delivery, interdisciplinary learning, and deep connections between scholarship and industry, our new facilities reaffirm the School’s mission of educating and developing leaders and builders of enterprises who advance business and create value for stakeholders and society.
Columbia Business School’s location on the Manhattanville campus will strengthen its ties to the surrounding Harlem community, with a public park connecting the two buildings, retail amenities, and resources to aid small business development in the neighborhood.
Additionally, from construction to the operation of the completed buildings, the School’s future home is designed to have minimal impact on the environment. The Manhattanville campus is the first neighborhood development in New York City to earn the prestigious LEED-ND Platinum designation from the US Green Building Council.
An Interdisciplinary Hub
With a footprint that is integrated into the vibrancy of the city, our new location sits at the intersection of Columbia University, New York City, and the global business ecosystem.
A new think tank, housed in Henry R. Kravis Hall, will bring thought leaders together with business leaders and policy makers to delve into new challenges facing today’s society.
The Manhattanville campus also has direct links to university centers for engineering, medicine, and the arts. Our new home sits next door to the Lenfest Center for the Arts and the Jerome L. Greene Science Center, which houses the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, exponentially expanding the School’s potential for innovation, impact, and interdisciplinary learning opportunities.
A Lifelong Home
The Manhattanville campus is a lifelong home to the Columbia Business School community. With dedicated spaces for events, recruiting, and networking, the new campus is uniquely designed to foster education, engagement, and socializing—exchanges intended to generate provocative discussions and provide ongoing value to our intellectual community.
Henry R. Kravis Hall and David Geffen Hall feature flexible learning spaces, study rooms, a career management center, and the Lulu Chow Wang ’83 Alumni Suite. The Manhattanville campus was designed with lifelong engagement in mind.
Leadership Support
Timeline
The Path to the Future of Business
For more than a century, Columbia Business School has staked a position at the very center of business with innovative education, scholarship, leadership, and outreach in New York City and around the world. As we make our transformational move to Manhattanville, here is a look back at some of the milestones in the growth of our campus, centers, community, and impact.
The School opens its doors with 11 full-time faculty members and an entering class of 61; eight of those students are women.
Having grown five-fold since its inception and now offering BS, MS, and PhD degrees, the School gains its own building, today known as Dodge Hall, at 116th Street and Broadway.
Benjamin Graham and David Dodd '21 begin teaching value investing — their groundbreaking research methodology to identify and buy undervalued stocks and bonds — to both Columbia students and Wall Street professionals. Graham (pictured), a faculty member from 1928 to 1957, was known as the "Dean of Wall Street."
The school begins to shift its focus to graduate education, establishing the MBA degree and changing its name to the Graduate School of Business. Shortly thereafter, in the 1950s, the emblem of Hermes, the Greek god associated with commerce and entrepreneurship, is adopted as the School's logo.
Columbia Business School Executive Education provides executives from across industries and sectors with the tools, frameworks, and learnings needed to lead and excel. Designed for high-impact business leaders, the program's offerings today include more than 65 non-degree, open-enrollment programs in leadership, strategy, finance, and marketing — available in person or online — as well as a unique certificate path and custom program opportunities.
A $1 million gift from noted developers Percy and Harold Uris allows the School to construct a modern new base of operations, Uris Hall. In 1968, “The Curl” is installed on Abrams Plaza and quickly becomes a campus landmark. It is said to appear to change shape as one walks past it. The three-ton steel abstract was designed by Clement Meadmore.
The Executive MBA Program is founded to serve middle- to senior-level executives seeking a competitive accredited MBA degree while employed full-time. Students could continue past the MS degree and complete an MBA from the School through additional coursework. In 1987, the program was revised to grant the full MBA degree.
The School establishes the Public and Nonprofit Management Program (later called the Social Enterprise Program) to train students interested in pursuing careers in public service. Today's Tamer Center for Social Enterprise broadens that legacy as it prepares students to create social value in business, government, and nonprofit organizations.
The School recognizes the need for a new kind of leader, one who understands cross-cultural issues and their impact on global business. With generous support, the School establishes the Jerome A. Chazen Institute of International Business (now the Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business). In 2008, the Institute establishes a Global Immersion Program in which students spend a week meeting with business executives and government officials in the country of focus, ranging from Brazil to the United Arab Emirates.
Warren Hall is completed in partnership with Columbia Law School, offering students a light-filled, state-of-the-art building. In addition to offering classroom and study space, Warren becomes home to the School's Executive MBA Program.
The Eugene M. Lang Entrepreneurial Initiative Fund and the Eugene Lang Entrepreneurship Center are created to provide Columbia Business School entrepreneurs with the seed capital to launch their ventures after graduation. Since its inception, the Lang Fund has provided critical investments in over 40 student-started companies.
The Milstein family endowed the Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate to direct all initiatives and functions related to real estate at CBS. It delivers the renowned MBA Real Estate program, directs a comprehensive research agenda, and curates more than 50 annual events that forge a powerful real estate community and platform for sharing expertise.
Joseph Stiglitz, professor in the Finance and Economics Division, receives the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Stiglitz helped create a new branch of economics, “The Economics of Information,” exploring the consequences of information asymmetries and pioneering such pivotal concepts as adverse selection and moral hazard, which have now become standard tools of both theorists and policy analysts. He has made major contributions to macroeconomics and monetary theory, development economics and trade theory, public and corporate finance, industrial and rural organization, welfare economics, and to the theories of income and wealth distribution. (Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.)
The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing was established by the Heilbrunn family, among the foremost advocates of the value investing program at Columbia Business School, ensuring the permanency of the investing franchise at the School. Warren Buffett MS ’51 (pictured on a visit to the Center) is a known proponent of value investing.
Endowed with a gift from the Board co-chair Arthur J. Samberg '67, the Arthur J. Samberg Institute for Teaching Excellence launches, offering resources to help faculty members at all levels improve their teaching skills. The Institute's initiatives — including a unique mentoring program that pairs junior faculty members with experienced mentors—enhance the classroom experience for students and faculty members alike.
The Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics is established for the promotion of ethics in the curriculum of business schools and the development of innovative cases and research on ethics, leadership, and governance. The center engages students, faculty members, and the broader community through a variety of endowed speaker series and broad consultation to integrate ethics into the core classes taught to all MBA and EMBA students at Columbia.
The Columbia-Harlem Small Business Development Center is established to promote and support local economic growth through free one-on-one expert business advice, training, and workshops for entrepreneurs in Harlem and the surrounding areas. Since its launch in 2009, the SBDC's expert advisors have worked directly with 3,424 businesses, helping them to invest $180,175,647 in the area's economy, and create or save 5,358 jobs.
Columbia Business School and Columbia Law School jointly establish the Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law, and Public Policy in 2011. By leveraging the intellectual capital of both schools — as well as that of Columbia University — the Richman Center fosters collaboration among the University's distinguished business and legal scholars to generate curricular innovations and advanced research with the potential to inform public policy, as well as the theory and practice of business and law.
In 2011, Columbia Business School launches the MS in Financial Economics, providing students the opportunity to obtain a rigorous, graduate-level finance acumen. In 2012, the MS in Marketing Science launches, focused on adding value through marketing analytics in media and advertising, consumer products, omnichannel retailers, and financial services. In 2016, the School launches the MS in Accounting and Fundamental Analysis, teaching fundamental analysis to provide students with practical tools for fundamental investing.
The School launches the Columbia Business Lab, now the Columbia Startup Lab, a co-working facility for recent alumni entrepreneurs. It is a cross-school initiative between Columbia Entrepreneurship, Columbia Law School, the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, Columbia College, and the School of International and Public Affairs.
The School launches IE@Columbia, a program that nurtures innovations and technologies from across the University that have the potential to go to market. Participating teams of Columbia students, faculty, and staff members attend sessions to help them develop fundable, high-potential businesses. The semester-long program culminates with pitch presentations to angel investors and venture capitalists.
In 2013, the joint MS in Management Science and Engineering launches with the Industrial Engineering and Operations Research department of the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. The program emphasizes both management and engineering perspectives in solving problems, making decisions, and managing risks in complex systems. In 2017, faculty at Columbia Business School and Columbia Engineering jointly create the MS in Business Analytics to prepare students as consulting firm analysts and associates and as business analysts and data scientists. Students are prepared for the fields of financial and professional services, technology, advertising and media, and other professions that require a deep understanding and practical application of data analytics.
The Tamer Center for Social Enterprise is established with a generous gift from Sandra and Tony Tamer, building on the School's Social Enterprise Program with additional funding, fellowships, a broader advisory network, and support to prepare students to create social value in business, government, and nonprofit organizations.
Throughout the 2015–16 year, the School celebrates a century of successes, sharing stories and hosting events, and engaging its remarkable community, which has been the heart and soul of the School for 100 years.
The Columbia Business School Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Initiative is established in summer 2019, focusing on three pillars known as the 3 Cs: Community Diversity, Curriculum and Classroom Inclusion, and Culture and Climate. Headed by a Vice Dean for DEI, the DEI Initiative is a platform and resource for the CBS community to foster a culture that values difference, advances community engagement, and promotes an inclusive climate. In 2021, the school launches The Phillips Pathway for Inclusive Leadership, a unique co-curricular initiative designed to prepare students for inclusive and ethical leadership roles.
Columbia Business School leads the University in its pivot to online and then HyFlex instruction, developing a virtual space for teaching and learning.
The MBA and EMBA programs are designated STEM programs by the US Department of Homeland Security. The designation reflects the integration of technology and data analytics into the School’s curriculum and affords international students the opportunity to work in the US for up to three years after graduation under an extended Optional Practical Training (OPT) permit.
The School relocates to two state-of-the-art buildings, Henry R. Kravis Hall and David Geffen Hall, on the University's Manhattanville campus, nearly doubling the size of the School's current space.
Virtual Tours
The virtual tour above shows the two magnificent new buildings that will serve as Columbia Business School’s future home, as seen from the central “square,” a publicly accessible green space in the heart of the new campus.
To access additional tours, including inside views of the Leon G. Cooperman ’67 Commons, Arthur J. Samberg ’67 Commons, Alice & Nathan ’64 Gantcher Classroom, and more, please visit the link below.
Photos
Kravis at Night
Lecture Theater in Kravis
Social Area in Kravis
View of 125th Street from Henry R. Kravis Hall during construction.
Kravis, October 2021
Geffen Stairway
A Conference Room in Kravis
Natural Light in Geffen
Kravis Common Room
Kravis Games Room
Columbia Business School buildings and the Square from 560 Riverside Ave.
Elizabeth B. Strickler ’86 and Mark T. Gallogly ’86 Student Lounge and Screening Room in Henry R. Kravis Hall.
Henry R. Kravis Hall, seen from the West Harlem Piers.
A new classroom on the fourth floor of Henry R. Kravis Hall, looking southwest onto the Riverside Drive Viaduct and the Hudson River.
Leon G. Cooperman ’67 Commons in David Geffen Hall – Room 100
Looking down into the Arthur J. Samberg ’67 Commons in the Henry R. Kravis Hall – Room 170
View from an office in the Carson Family Dean’s Suite, located in the Henry R. Kravis Hall
David Geffen Hall, seen from the central public greenspace of the new campus.
Robert F. Smith ’94 Dining Hall in Henry R. Kravis Hall – Room 201
A view of ongoing construction, looking west along W 130 St, showing David Geffen Hall (right) and Henry R. Kravis Hall in the distance.
Make a Gift
Naming opportunities for a variety of spaces are still available in Columbia Business School’s buildings on the Manhattanville campus. Apart from the new facilities, there always exist rewarding options to attach one’s name to important aspects of the School, from professorships to financial aid awards to endowed funds to support faculty research.
To learn more about specific areas of interest and other possibilities, please contact Segovia Spelbrink - ss6293@gsb.columbia.edu.