OREANDA-NEWS. The campus of the Sberbank Corporate University hosted the grand opening of lessons for the fifth group of the Sberbank 500 programme. 410 students have begun studying: 380 Sberbank managers, 24 heads of subsidiary banks and companies of Sberbank, as well as six managers from Rostelecom and the Agency for Housing Mortgage Lending - both strategic partners of Sberbank.

Sberbank 500 was launched in 2011 together with INSEAD - one of the world's leading business schools. If all five groups are added together the programme has more than 2,000 graduates who are Sberbank managers. A vast majority (66%) of the graduates from the first three groups have already received promotions at the bank.

In 2015 the Sberbank 500 programme was designated as a mandatory layered programme for middle level managers, which they need to complete in order to be promoted. The programme is highly customised to meet Sberbank's development strategy goals and actively applies the "Leaders Teach Leaders" model - all academic disciplines are developed and taught with the involvement of the bank's managers. Experts from the Sberbank Corporate University's School of Finance and School of Risk Management also play a significant role in developing the programme.

"Sberbank 500 is one of the key mandatory programmes in our Corporate University's portfolio," commented Herman Gref, CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board of Sberbank. "Our partnership with INSEAD, a global leader in management education; the scale of the programme; the "Leaders Teach Leaders" model; the effective combination of full-time and remote learning formats and extensive customisation which make the programme unique have allowed us to shape a new generation of Sberbank managers, a mature team that can successfully compete on a global level."