HBS Denies Report on Classes in Scotland

Contrary to an article last week in The Herald, a Glasgow-based newspaper, European business executives will still have to cross the Atlantic if they want to take classes at the Harvard Business School (HBS).

The University has denied a report by The Herald that it is close to completing a deal with the Gleneagles Hotel, a resort in Perthshire, Scotland, to create a center for executive business training.

According to James Aisner, associate director of communications at HBS, the Gleneagles Hotel sent a letter to HBS Dean Kim B. Clark '74 proposing the idea of an advanced management program to be based at the hotel's 850-acre estate last March. Clark replied with a letter declining the offer, saying that HBS preferred to keep its operations based in Cambridge.

"To the best of anyone in the dean's office's memory, that's as far as it went," Aisner said. "There is no basis that we can see for The Herald's story."

Douglas Fraser, who wrote the Jan. 17 Herald article, admitted that the HBS communications office denied there was any deal in the works when he called there. He says, however, that Gleneagles Managing Director Peter Lederer told him that the two parties had nearly finalized negotiations on a £5 million project that would allow Scottish and European business executives to take short seminars and courses organized by HBS.

"[The Gleneagles Hotel] led me very clearly to believe that they were in the latter stages of negotiations [with Harvard]," Fraser said. "The view from Peter Lederer at the Gleneagles Hotel is as reported. He claims to be in talks with four business schools."

According to Lederer, however, The Herald's story was generated "inside a reporter's head." He said that while Gleneagles has been in "very private discussions" with the British government and several business schools, the resort has not spoken to HBS since an initial discussion, which he described as encouraging.

"We'd like to have further discussions [with Harvard]," said Lederer, who would not say who he spoke with or whether his initial contact with HBS was the same series of letters to which Aisner referred.

Lederer said he envisions an advanced management program where business leaders can attend two-to-three day seminars or a longer, five-week advanced management program. Gleneagles has also contacted the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, the Stanford Business School and the University of Michigan Business School.

"We'd like to conclude negotiations with a school in two to three months, then start construction by September and be in full operation by September or October of 2001," Lederer said. The hotel plans to construct a new building for the project that would house an auditorium and 60 bedrooms.

The Herald pinned the price of a course at the proposed school at £6,000 per week.

Aisner has written a letter to the editor of The Herald to provide HBS's account of the story. Fraser said he is not sure if the letter will be published.

Andrew S. Holbrook contributed to the reporting of this article.