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Founded by Gustave Roy on Dec 4, 1881.1
Founded in 1881 by Gustave Emmanuel Roy, president of the Paris Chamber of Commerce (CCIP), with 57 students in its first class, the École des hautes études commerciales de Paris (HEC) aimed to be in the fields of management and commerce what the École Centrale de Paris was in the field of engineering.
In 1921, the school introduced the case-based method of the Harvard Business School, but most of the lectures remained theoretical. In 1938, the HEC program was lengthened to 3 years.
Due to French corporations' demand for North-American-style management education, at the end of the 1950s, the case-based method was generalized and a one-year classe préparatoire was created to prepare for the entrance examination, which had become more difficult. As a result, only 9% of HEC students had attended university in 1959, whereas 47% had done so in 1929.
In 1964, French President Charles de Gaulle inaugurated a new 250-acre (100 ha) wooded campus in Jouy-en-Josas. In 1967, HEC launched its executive education programs. Women have been accepted at HEC since 1973. Only 27 women were accepted that year and HEC jeunes filles (HECJF), another school dedicated to women, was closed. Its alumnae are officially considered graduates of HEC, and include Édith Cresson, the first female Prime Minister of France.
The doctoral course was established in 1975 but until 1985 doctoral students had to complete their thesis at the university. In 1985 the HEC obtained the right to award the title of doctor, before ESSEC (2010) and ESCP (2012).
The school has developed professorships financed by companies (Deloitte, EDF, Toshiba and others) to multiply links between HEC and companies. The HEC Foundation, founded in 1972, has the specific aim of developing these connections and the financing of the school by companies.
Ties with businesses were strengthened in the 1990s and this led to greater specialization, with the establishment of finance and entrepreneurship courses in 1986. As a consequence of the financial Big Bang and the explosion of the City, more and more graduates went to work in England and, in general, abroad. In 2006, a third found their first job abroad. In 2015 the school adopted a new legal statute to allow private investors to join the board of directors.
In 1988, HEC founded the CEMS network with ESADE, Bocconi University and the University of Cologne.
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On 1 July 2008, HEC Paris joined ParisTech and then Paris-Saclay University as a founding member. The university campus of Jouy-en-Josas, in the Yvelines department, is located in the northern part of the technological cluster of Paris-Saclay, which brings together a quarter of French public research. HEC Paris is part of the network of graduate schools of business (ESC) in the Paris Île-de-France area, together with ESSEC and ESCP Business School.
In 2016, the school adopted a new legal status and became a public-private partnership (École consulaire or EESC), largely financed by the public Chamber of Commerce in Paris.
In 2017, HEC launched a portfolio of new dual degree programs called M2M with the University of St. Gallen, the Yale School of Management, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Fundação Getulio Vargas.
The same year in March, the school launched the Executive Master in innovation & entrepreneurship program in collaboration with Coursera.
On 15 September 2020, the school co-founded with the Polytechnic Institute of Paris the artificial intelligence research center Hi! PARIS.
In October 2023 the school announced the creation of a Bachelor of Arts in data, society and organisations in collaboration with Bocconi University in Milan.
In December 2024, the foundation announced the results of the 2019-2024 "Impact Tomorrow" campaign. 213 million euros were raised, a record for a French grande école.
The end of 2025 saw the business school announce its 2026-2031 strategy. Named "new responsibilities" ("nouvelles responsabilités"), it is based in particular on the complete overhaul of its Jouy-en-Josas campus, the creation of "HEC Institute" to contribute to public debate, and the objective of 25% of students receiving scholarships by 2030 after an increase in tuition fees exceeding 70,000 euros for the Master in management program in the fall of 2025. To achieve these objectives, the foundation intends to raise 300 million euros over five years.
In 2026, HEC welcomes 135 nationalities to its main campus and teaches new subjects such as geopolitics, eloquence, and social sciences.
From Wikipedia’s article on HEC Paris, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5