Johnson Cornell Tech MBA ranks No. 4 in entrepreneurship excellence

When changes in tariffs and regulations created trade uncertainty last spring, Salik Tehami, MBA ’25, and four of his classmates recognized a business opportunity and formed a startup that has become one of many successes to arise from the Johnson Cornell Tech MBA program.

“Our product is an AI-native platform to help trade compliance teams be more proactive,” said Tehami. The team’s startup, SAIL, became one of the winners at Cornell Tech’s annual Startup Awards this year, earning a $100,000 investment and providing a foundation for growth.

Startup bootcamps. Acquisitions. Millions in seed funding. Such opportunities are familiar to Johnson Cornell Tech MBA graduates, and today, the business education website Poets & Quants named the program No. 4 among the 2026 World’s Best MBA Programs for Entrepreneurship.

“Our students bring their ambition and intellect, and our faculty and industry mentors create space for incredible growth and success,” said Andrew Karolyi, Charles Field Knight Dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. “It is affirming to have our shared commitment recognized in this ranking.”

Greg Morrisett, dean and vice provost of Cornell Tech in New York City, where the program is based, said the ranking reflects the program’s commitment to students’ success.

“The ranking underscores the value placed on entrepreneurship at Cornell Tech, where our Studio curriculum helps develop students into startup founders,” Morrisett said. “By then investing into these startups, Cornell has helped these founders to become effective business leaders as well as valuable alumni contributors to the New York City tech ecosystem.”

Established in 2014 as the first tech MBA degree in the United States, the program is a partnership between the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management in the SC Johnson College and Cornell Tech. It has spun off dozens of startups and inspired other institutions to develop their own tech-focused MBA programs.

The Johnson Cornell Tech MBA experience supports students interested in building independent startup ventures, new businesses within enterprises, or public-interest ventures, program directors said. Participants come from diverse backgrounds ranging from fintech and consulting to engineering and healthcare — and they are encouraged to act on their ideas and develop them in the context of science, whether that means the science of building a startup or the technology behind product development.

Central to the process are studio courses, where students hone their products and startup ideas in a workshop model, which includes maker days and bootcamps in topics like health tech, AI, hardware, robotics, and human-centric design. Students receive weekly feedback from coaches and industry professionals. Studio courses complement classes such as Operations Management; Data Analytics and Modeling With AI; and Entrepreneurial Finance.

Students can then compete for startup funding and ongoing support; tap into the broader New York City community; and seek funding through programs such as Big Red Ventures, the Jonas Weil Entrepreneurship Fellowship; and Ignite Cornell Lab to Market.

This year, Poets & Quants changed their ranking methodology to identify which schools are supporting students in turning their ideas into ventures — and whether students are starting companies, engaging with mentors, joining startups after graduation. The data used for the ranking is available on their website.