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Master of Business Administration

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Central Asia's #1 QS-ranked fully English-taught MBA
Our MBA is a program that plays a key role in our mission to develop the next generation of business leaders in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. Intended for early-career professionals, our MBA program provides you with the skills, knowledge, and mindset needed to.
New program delivery in the evenings and weekends allows busy professionals to earn an MBA degree in 18 months while continuing their career growth.

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Master of Business Administration (MBA)

Central Asia’s #1 QS-ranked fully English-taught MBA

The Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Business MBA is a rigorous hybrid program designed for working professionals who want to accelerate their careers and take on greater leadership responsibility without putting their professional lives on hold. Based in Kazakhstan and connected to a global business education network, the program prepares you to lead in Kazakhstan, Central Asia, and beyond.

Developed in strategic partnership with Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, the program combines a globally oriented curriculum, rigorous business education, and an international learning environment. You will develop the skills, knowledge, and mindset to make sound decisions, lead across cultures, and navigate the complexity and uncertainty of today’s business environment.

The curriculum is built around the capabilities modern business leaders need — from understanding the impact of social, political, cultural, and environmental trends to managing resources, identifying emerging opportunities and risks, and leading organizations through change.

A research-intensive business school with a global perspective

NUGSB is Central Asia’s leading research-intensive business school, based on the UT Dallas Top 100 Business School Research Rankings, and ranks among the top 5 globally among young business schools for research productivity. This research-driven environment brings cutting-edge business research, global perspectives, and current insights into the classroom.

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Why MBA at NUGSB?

Demonstrated career outcomes

Every NUGSB MBA graduate holds a job offer before graduation. 75% see a salary increase above 30%. These are not projections — they reflect the career trajectories of our alumni across Kazakhstan and beyond.
18-months transformation, built around your career

The MBA is not a programme you attend — it is an experience that changes how you think, decide, and lead. Delivered in an evening and weekend format designed for working professionals, you go through this transformation alongside a selective cohort of peers whose experience and ambition match yours, without stepping back from your career.
Learn with AI, lead in an AI-driven world

Gain practical exposure to artificial intelligence and the technologies reshaping modern business. The MBA incorporates innovative learning approaches, including AI-powered business cases that allow you to test hypotheses, ask strategic questions, and receive structured responses within simulated business environments — creating a dynamic, practice-oriented experience that reflects real-world decision-making.
Internationalisation at home

Our resident faculty hold doctoral degrees from the world's leading universities — Stanford, INSEAD, LSE, Columbia, and others — and come from more than 12 countries. You do not need to leave Kazakhstan to learn from a genuinely international faculty: they bring active research, global perspective, and real-world expertise into every classroom, grounded in the Kazakhstani and Eurasian context where you will lead. Their research is not background — it is the curriculum.
Internationally accredited, globally recognised

The NUGSB MBA holds AMBA and BGA accreditation — awarded to fewer than 2% of business schools worldwide. The programme was founded in 2015 in partnership with Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, whose decade-long collaboration shaped its academic foundations and global standards. These credentials connect you to a worldwide alumni network and are recognised by employers and institutions across markets. In the QS Global MBA Rankings 2027, NUGSB's MBA was the highest-ranked fully English-taught MBA in Central Asia
The network that stays with you

The NUGSB MBA gives you entry into one of Kazakhstan's most exclusive executive alumni networks. The cohort is intentionally small and selectively admitted — the peers you study with, across industries and functions, become lasting professional relationships. Beyond your cohort, you join a growing community of NUGSB postgraduate alumni — MBA and EMBA graduates — spanning the senior leadership of Kazakhstan's most significant organisations in business, government, and entrepreneurship.
A global experience, rooted in Central Asia

The international residency at King's Business School in London brings a global dimension to your studies. Combined with NU's position at the centre of Astana's growing ecosystem of national companies, financial institutions, and government bodies, the MBA offers a uniquely Eurasian vantage point on global business.

Class Profile 2026

Campus:

Astana, Kazakhstan
Language:

English
Delivery mode:

Blended Format: Online evening classes twice a week, plus a two-day on-campus intensive every five weeks.
Program start:

End of August
Duration:

18 months

58%

Male
42%

Female

8 years

Average work experience

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Testimonials

I currently work as a Project Manager at Mother’s Home International Foundation. My first degree is in Philology, and I previously worked at the Embassy of Canada, so I was quite far removed from numbers and business. When I enrolled in this program, my goal was to change my career direction — and I was able to achieve that.
Today, I can confidently say that the knowledge taught in the program is truly applicable in practice. For example, courses such as Project Management and Managerial Accounting are ones I actively apply in my current role as a project manager.
The professors who taught us are graduates of renowned institutions such as Stanford University and Harvard University. Learning from experts of this caliber and gaining such high-level knowledge is an invaluable experience — especially considering that it can be obtained without leaving the country.

Ainagul Dussupova

MBA, 2025

One of the biggest values for what I came to MBA was — the network. And it gave me much more than I expected. I was gifted by an MBA family and after 2 years of graduation we are still close. The people that I met are incredible, starting from my group mates and professors, ending with Teaching assistants, who left me with a very warm feelings. The most important experience at GSB is the sense of home, where you start your journey with the best professionals to an amazing field —MBA world. And nothing feels impossible in that environment.

Assel Galimzhanova

Full-Time MBA, 2015 | Investor and trader of stocks and options at Stock Market

An MBA degree provided a tremendous boost to my career and life. Besides the excellent faculty, curriculum, and case-based learning, I want especially to note the powerful networking I gained. I have spent time studying alongside talented professionals with different backgrounds and professional experiences. It has provided a lot of fresh perspectives, interactions, and ways of thinking. Additional value to networking adds activity of Alumni NUGSB Association which provides powerful synergy among all graduates of the Program.

Laila Leshova

Full-Time MBA, 2017 | Marketing Consultant | Facebook Certified Digital Marketing Associate, certified by European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

Nazarbayev University was created as a result of the personal initiative of the First President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and is an insignia of Kazakhstan in global education. The University represents the quality of education, politics, and life in Kazakhstan.
When I started the program in 2014, I had just entered a key point in my career, and my focus was beginning to sharpen. One of the things that most shaped my experience was my direct exposure, as part of the program, to global elite individuals in both the private and public sectors.
I am currently working in a government organization. On a daily basis, to fulfill my managerial responsibilities I must apply various aspects of theory and practical techniques that I learned in the NUGSB Full-time MBA program, a world-class program that was developed in strategic collaboration with Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Aray Bekembayev

Full-Time MBA, 2015