Asia School of Business (ASB)

About Asia School of Business (ASB)

Asia School of Business (ASB) is a postgraduate business school in Kuala Lumpur, established in April 2015 through a 10-year collaboration agreement between Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), the central bank of Malaysia, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management (MIT Sloan). The agreement was signed in 2015 under the governorship of Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz at Bank Negara, and the inaugural MBA cohort enrolled later that year. The first class graduated in March 2018.

ASB is registered with the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) under MQA reference 826 and operates under the Private Higher Educational Institutions Act 1996. The institution is funded by Bank Negara Malaysia and a network of corporate partners, and operates on a not-for-profit basis with revenue from tuition supplemented by scholarship endowments and corporate partnership fees. ASB does not run undergraduate programmes; the entire portfolio sits at the master’s and executive education level.

Charles H. Fine, the Chrysler Leaders for Global Operations Professor of Management at MIT Sloan, served as founding President, Dean and CEO of ASB from its establishment in 2015 until 30 June 2022, after which he was awarded Professor Emeritus status by the school. Professor Jacob Cohen, also from MIT Sloan, took over as Interim CEO, President and Dean from 1 July 2022. The Board of Governors is chaired by representatives of Bank Negara Malaysia and includes MIT Sloan faculty and senior figures from regional business and finance.

In April 2022, ASB was awarded accreditation by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International), placing the school in the top 6% of business schools globally. AACSB is the most widely held accreditation badge among research-intensive business schools, and ASB is one of a small number of Malaysian institutions to hold it, alongside Sunway University Business School, Putra Business School, and Universiti Malaya’s Faculty of Business and Economics.

The institutional positioning of ASB is specific. It is a postgraduate-only business school built on a structural collaboration with one of the world’s top MBA programmes, located in Kuala Lumpur but recruiting regionally across ASEAN, and oriented toward producing what the founders described as “transformative and principled leaders” for emerging-economy contexts. ASB does not compete head-to-head with the larger Malaysian private universities such as Taylor’s University, Sunway University, or HELP University, all of which carry full undergraduate portfolios. ASB’s competitor set is regional: INSEAD Asia in Singapore, NUS Business School, NTU Nanyang Business School, and the IIM Indian Institutes of Management.

ASB Location and Campus at Sasana Kijang, Kuala Lumpur

ASB is located at Sasana Kijang 2, No. 2 Jalan Dato Onn, 50480 Kuala Lumpur. Sasana Kijang is the educational, conference, and cultural complex of Bank Negara Malaysia, completed in 2011 and designed by the firm Hijjas Kasturi Associates. The complex sits adjacent to the BNM headquarters on Jalan Dato Onn, in the central Kuala Lumpur banking district, roughly 1 km north of KL Sentral and immediately east of Lake Titiwangsa.

The current Sasana Kijang facility was originally intended as a temporary academic home pending construction of a permanent ASB campus. In 2015, the founding announcement referenced a 30-acre plot in central Kuala Lumpur as the future permanent campus site. Construction timelines for the permanent campus have shifted over the intervening decade, and ASB continues to operate from Sasana Kijang as of the 2026 academic year. Class facilities, faculty offices, the executive education suite, and the residence hall for full-time MBA students are all housed within or adjacent to the Sasana Kijang complex.

The Sasana Kijang location places ASB students within walking distance of Bank Negara Malaysia’s library and research facilities, the BNM Museum and Art Gallery, and the central bank’s policy and research offices. The Bank Negara KTM Komuter station is approximately 700 metres from the campus, KL Sentral is roughly 5 minutes by car, and Kuala Lumpur International Airport is connected by the KLIA Ekspres rail link from KL Sentral in 28 minutes. International students arriving on student passes typically settle in the surrounding Titiwangsa, Setapak, or central KL neighbourhoods.

The Master of Central Banking residential programme is housed within the Lanai Kijang facility, the executive accommodation block at Sasana Kijang originally built by BNM for visiting central bankers and senior delegates. This facility is unique to ASB among Malaysian business schools and is a direct artefact of the school’s BNM ownership.

ASB Programmes: MBA, EMBA, and Master of Central Banking

ASB runs three postgraduate programmes. The full-time MBA is the flagship; the Executive MBA serves working senior managers in modular format; the Master of Central Banking is a specialised programme reserved for serving central bankers. ASB does not currently offer undergraduate, diploma, or doctoral programmes.

The 12-month full-time MBA is ASB’s signature programme and the basis for its national and regional reputation. The cohort size is 40 to 45 students per intake, with the August start date. The curriculum is structured around four academic terms in Kuala Lumpur, plus the 3-week MIT Sloan Immersion in Cambridge, Massachusetts, plus three Action Learning modules running concurrently with classroom teaching. Roughly one-third of the MBA curriculum is Action Learning, which is the experiential teaching format that originated at MIT Sloan and has been integrated as a core element of the ASB design. Class composition is international, with students drawn from across ASEAN, South Asia, East Asia, the United States, Europe, and Africa. The average age at entry is around 28 to 30, and average post-Bachelor work experience is 7 years.

The Executive MBA (EMBA) is structured for working senior managers and runs in modular format with classes held on alternating weekends and intensive blocks. EMBA students complete a minimum of 40 credit hours including three electives, two business practicums (one in Asia and one abroad), and a 3-week immersion at MIT Sloan in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The 2026 intake EMBA tuition fee is RM 180,000 (approximately USD 43,000), excluding the 6% Service Tax charged to international students.

The Master of Central Banking (MCB) is a year-long residential programme reserved exclusively for nominated central bankers and senior officers from monetary authorities. The programme is delivered jointly by ASB and MIT Sloan, with a 6-week immersion at MIT Sloan in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MCB content covers monetary policy, central bank operations, financial stability, payment systems, regulatory supervision, and macroeconomic analysis. The MCB is a direct expression of ASB’s BNM heritage and is one of the few academic programmes worldwide designed specifically for working central bank officers. Nominations are submitted by member central banks and reviewed by ASB and MIT Sloan jointly.

ASB also operates an Executive Education function delivering custom and open-enrolment short courses for corporate clients. These programmes are non-degreed, run on flexible schedules, and serve as an important revenue and brand-recognition channel for the school. Recent corporate partners include AirAsia, PETRONAS, Petronas Carigali, AmBank, CIMB, and Maybank.

ASB Fees and Tuition

ASB fees reflect its positioning as a postgraduate school operating in collaboration with a top-10 global business school, and the tuition figure includes the cost of the MIT Sloan immersion module that is a structural part of every programme.

Programme	Tuition (RM)	Tuition (USD approx.)	Duration
Full-time MBA (2026/2027 intake)	150,000	37,500	12 months
Executive MBA (2026 intake)	180,000	43,000	18-24 months modular
Master of Central Banking	Sponsored by central bank	n/a	12 months residential
Enrolment deposit (MBA)	10,000	2,500	One-off, at offer acceptance

The full-time MBA tuition of RM 150,000 covers all academic instruction in Kuala Lumpur and the 3-week MIT Sloan Immersion in Cambridge. It excludes housing, food, insurance, books, transportation between KL and Cambridge, and personal expenses. ASB publishes that all enrolled full-time MBA students receive some form of scholarship or financial aid, ranging from partial fee remission to full scholarships covering tuition and stipend.

The EMBA tuition of RM 180,000 is structured around a working professional’s commitments, with classes held on alternating weekends and intensive blocks. International EMBA students also pay 6% Sales and Service Tax on the tuition fee.

The Master of Central Banking is typically funded by the participant’s home central bank rather than the participant directly, in line with the programme’s positioning as a professional development qualification for serving central bankers.

By comparison with regional MBA programmes, ASB’s RM 150,000 sits below the INSEAD Asia campus MBA (approximately USD 100,000+), the NUS Business School MBA (approximately USD 65,000-70,000), and the NTU Nanyang Business School MBA (approximately USD 60,000), while sitting above the regional Malaysian and Indonesian MBA programmes that typically run RM 50,000 to RM 120,000 in total programme cost.

ASB Accreditation, MIT Sloan Partnership, and Bank Negara Malaysia

ASB carries three layers of institutional credentialing: Malaysian regulatory accreditation through MQA, international accreditation through AACSB, and the structural collaboration with MIT Sloan.

The Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) accredits ASB at institutional level (MQA reference 826) and accredits each programme (MBA, EMBA, Master of Central Banking) under the Malaysian Qualifications Framework. MQA accreditation is the legal prerequisite for ASB to award degrees recognised by the Malaysian government and is a precondition for international students to obtain student passes through Education Malaysia Global Services (EMGS).

The AACSB International accreditation, awarded in April 2022, is held by approximately 6% of business schools worldwide. AACSB applies a multi-year review process covering strategic management, learner success, thought leadership, engagement, and societal impact. ASB’s accreditation places it in the same accreditation category as MIT Sloan, Harvard Business School, INSEAD, NUS Business School, and the other regional and global peer schools that compete for the same applicant pool.

The MIT Sloan partnership operates under a 10-year collaboration agreement signed in April 2015 between MIT and Bank Negara Malaysia. The agreement is structured as an academic partnership, not as a branch-campus arrangement. ASB is an independent Malaysian-incorporated institution, and ASB students receive ASB degrees, not MIT degrees. Under the partnership terms, a dedicated committee of MIT Sloan faculty and staff provides ongoing support to ASB across curriculum development, faculty recruitment, student admissions, academic administration, and (originally) campus design. MIT Sloan faculty teach selected modules at ASB, and ASB faculty include both ASB-recruited researchers and MIT Sloan visiting faculty.

The Bank Negara Malaysia relationship is the founding institutional anchor. BNM provides the campus facilities at Sasana Kijang, contributes endowment funding, sponsors the Master of Central Banking through its Sasana Kijang network, and chairs the ASB Board of Governors. This BNM linkage gives ASB a unique positioning among private business schools globally, in that it is one of very few schools whose founding partner is the national central bank of its host country.

ASB Admissions and Entry Requirements

ASB MBA admissions run on a rolling basis with three to four application rounds per intake year. The 2026 August intake closed Round 3 on 31 March 2026; subsequent rolling rounds may be admitted depending on cohort capacity.

Applicants to the full-time MBA must hold a recognised bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution in any discipline. ASB does not require a specific undergraduate major, but applicants from non-quantitative backgrounds are advised to demonstrate quantitative competency through coursework, work experience, or supplementary certifications. ASB strongly encourages but does not require submission of a valid GMAT, GRE, or Executive Assessment (EA) score taken within the past 5 years. The current applicant pool average GMAT is approximately 660. Applicants who do not submit a test score are evaluated on the basis of academic transcripts, work experience, recommendation letters, and the admissions interview.

Work experience is a substantive admissions criterion. ASB requires a minimum of 2 years of post-bachelor’s full-time work experience, though the average for the admitted cohort is around 7 years and applicants typically present 4 to 12 years of professional experience. The application requires two professional recommendation letters, written essays, a video essay, and a virtual or in-person interview with the admissions committee.

Applicants to the Executive MBA must hold a bachelor’s degree and present 8 or more years of professional work experience including significant senior management responsibility. EMBA admissions interviews focus on leadership track record and the candidate’s career trajectory. EMBA applicants typically apply through corporate sponsorship arrangements with their employers.

Applicants to the Master of Central Banking are nominated by their home central bank rather than applying directly. The nomination process is bilateral between ASB and member monetary authorities, with admissions decisions made jointly by ASB and MIT Sloan.

International applicants must also clear the EMGS student pass process, which runs on a 4 to 8 week processing window administered separately from ASB’s internal admissions decision. Application enquiries: admissions@asb.edu.my, with the central admissions office at +603 9179 4228.

The MIT Sloan Action Learning Programme at ASB

Action Learning is the structural pedagogical innovation that defines ASB’s relationship with MIT Sloan and differentiates the school from other Malaysian and regional MBA programmes. It is worth describing carefully because it is sometimes mischaracterised in marketing copy.

Action Learning is an experiential teaching method developed and popularised at MIT Sloan, in which student teams work on real business challenges hosted by partner companies, applying classroom frameworks under the guidance of faculty mentors and industry leaders. At MIT Sloan, Action Learning labs include the China Lab, India Lab, ASEAN Lab, and the broader Global Programs portfolio, all of which deploy MIT Sloan students into international company engagements as a core part of the MBA experience.

At ASB, Action Learning is integrated more deeply than at most schools that import the format. Roughly one-third of the ASB MBA curriculum is Action Learning, delivered through three components: company-hosted business practicums in Asia, an international practicum outside Asia, and Industry Treks in which student cohorts visit clusters of companies in specific sectors or geographies. Each practicum runs over multiple weeks with a host company sponsoring a real business question, a faculty mentor advising the student team, and a final deliverable presented back to the host company.

The MIT Sloan Immersion is a related but distinct component. ASB MBA students travel to MIT Sloan’s Cambridge campus for a 3-week intensive in which they take additional courses with MIT Sloan faculty, participate in MIT Sloan student activities, and engage with the Cambridge MIT and Boston business ecosystem. The EMBA programme includes an equivalent 3-week MIT immersion, and the Master of Central Banking includes a 6-week MIT Sloan immersion focused on monetary policy and central banking content.

It is worth being precise about what the MIT Sloan partnership does and does not do. ASB students do not receive MIT or MIT Sloan degrees. ASB is not a branch campus of MIT. MIT Sloan’s involvement is as a structured academic collaborator: MIT Sloan faculty visit and teach selected ASB modules, MIT Sloan supports curriculum and faculty recruitment, ASB students attend the immersion at MIT Sloan, and the two schools share the brand association in marketing the partnership. The degrees awarded are ASB degrees, accredited by MQA and (since 2022) backed by AACSB.

The Action Learning component is among the most defensible substantive claims ASB makes. Few other Malaysian MBA programmes structure a third of their curriculum around faculty-mentored company engagements with international counterparts. The substance of the MIT collaboration is in this curricular architecture and in the immersion module, rather than in degree-co-conferral or campus branding.

How ASB Compares to Other Malaysian and Regional Business Schools

ASB occupies a specific niche in the Malaysian higher education market. It does not compete head-to-head with the large undergraduate-heavy private universities such as Taylor’s, Sunway, HELP, or UCSI, all of which run business schools as part of broader portfolios that include foundation, undergraduate, and postgraduate programmes across many disciplines.

ASB’s domestic competitor set is narrower. Among Malaysian business schools, Sunway University Business School (AACSB-accredited since 2018) and Putra Business School (the AACSB-accredited business school affiliated with Universiti Putra Malaysia) are the closest peer institutions on accreditation status. Universiti Malaya’s Faculty of Business and Economics carries AACSB accreditation as part of the broader university. None of these compete with ASB on the structural MIT Sloan partnership, but each has its own positioning: Sunway on undergraduate-to-postgraduate continuity, Putra on agribusiness and Islamic finance, UM on public-university research depth.

The regional competitor set is more direct. Within Southeast Asia, the natural comparison is INSEAD Asia campus in Singapore, the NUS Business School MBA, and the NTU Nanyang Business School MBA. INSEAD Asia is the established premium MBA in the region with tuition above USD 100,000 and a global brand. NUS and NTU are the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University business schools respectively, both well-ranked in the Financial Times and QS rankings.

ASB’s positioning against this regional set is on three vectors. First, the MIT Sloan structural collaboration gives ASB a brand association no other Malaysian or regional school carries. Second, the tuition of RM 150,000 sits materially below INSEAD, NUS, and NTU, making ASB the value option among the structurally credentialed regional MBA programmes. Third, the ASB cohort size of 40 to 45 students is smaller than the 200+ cohorts at NUS and NTU and the 1,000+ at INSEAD Asia, which produces a more intimate classroom and Action Learning experience. The trade-off is that ASB’s alumni network is smaller and the school’s recruitment relationships with regional and global employers are less mature than those of the established schools.

For prospective students choosing between ASB and the regional alternatives, the decision typically turns on three factors: post-MBA career intent (ASB places strongly within ASEAN; INSEAD and NUS place more globally), tuition affordability (ASB is the lowest-cost option among the credentialed regional schools), and pedagogical preference (ASB’s heavy Action Learning component appeals to candidates seeking experiential learning, where INSEAD and NUS are more case-method and lecture-heavy).

ASB has not yet been ranked by the Financial Times Global MBA ranking or the Bloomberg MBA ranking as of the 2026 academic year, partly a function of the school’s relatively young age (first graduating class March 2018) and small cohort size. AACSB accreditation in April 2022 unlocks ranking eligibility going forward.

ASB Contact and Practical Information

Asia School of Business operates a single campus in Kuala Lumpur. All academic and administrative enquiries are routed through Sasana Kijang.

Address: Sasana Kijang 2, No. 2 Jalan Dato Onn, 50480 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia General phone: +603 9179 4228 Admissions email: admissions@asb.edu.my General enquiries: info@asb.edu.my Website: asb.edu.my

The campus is reachable by car via Jalan Dato Onn from KL Sentral (5 minutes), by KTM Komuter at the Bank Negara station (700 metres walk), and by Grab from any central KL location. Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) connects via the KLIA Ekspres rail to KL Sentral in 28 minutes. International students arriving on student passes typically secure accommodation in the surrounding Titiwangsa, Setapak, or Bukit Bintang neighbourhoods, and ASB provides a residence hall option for full-time MBA students within walking distance of Sasana Kijang.

The MBA application cycle for the 2026 August intake closed Round 3 on 31 March 2026. Subsequent rolling rounds may be available depending on cohort capacity and should be confirmed with the admissions office. The 2027 August intake opens for applications in September 2026 and runs in three to four rounds through to March 2027.

Asia School of Business is, in short, a postgraduate business school in Kuala Lumpur, established in April 2015 by Bank Negara Malaysia in a 10-year collaboration with MIT Sloan, located at Sasana Kijang next to BNM headquarters, awarded AACSB accreditation in April 2022 placing it in the top 6% of business schools globally, running a 12-month full-time MBA at RM 150,000 per intake, an Executive MBA at RM 180,000, and a Master of Central Banking reserved for serving central bankers, with Action Learning making up roughly one-third of the MBA curriculum and a 3-week MIT Sloan immersion in Cambridge, Massachusetts as a structural component of every programme.