One nagging question in recent years has been whether managers in China can match it with their counterparts in Europe, the United States and elsewhere.

An entrepreneurial culture was virtually non-existent in China until the 1990s, and the shortage of management talent in all industries is acute.

According to the specialist management recruitment website lietou.com, there were 30,000 management vacancies in the country in February.

"The No 1 constraint on economic development in China is the availability of management talent," Quelch says. "It is at one level a mile wide but only an inch deep. There are a limited number of Chinese who are extremely competent managers both in State-owned enterprises as well as in the entrepreneurial sector."

One of the problems is the patchiness of management education in China. Institutions in remoter parts of the country have been criticized as simply being networking clubs where managers make contacts with influential people rather than learn anything.

CEIBS stands out as a beacon. It was ranked 17th in Financial Times MBA international rankings this year; two years ago it was ranked eighth. The only Chinese institution ahead of it is Hong Kong UST Business School, ranked sixth. The London Business School ranked top.

Quelch, 60, is keen that CEIBS can compete at the highest levels.

"It is not merely about being terrific at teaching but to have people who are thought leaders as well and capable of having their work published in the best internationally respected journals," he says.

He has taken over from Rolf Cremer, the German economist who in his seven years as dean oversaw the school's expansion not just across China but into Africa, with a school opening in Ghana.

Quelch believes he may be better placed to recruit the talent that CEIBS now needs, and has already made some high-level appointments, including George Yip, the former dean of the Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University.

"He (his predecessor) perhaps didn't have quite the same level of network that I have as a result of the institutions I have been fortunate to be associated with," he says.

He believes that in competing with the likes of Harvard, CEIBS has one big trump card: its depth of knowledge about China, now in worldwide demand.

"That is why we have focused our branding effort on (China's) depth and global breadth. There is no international school whether it is Harvard or Duke (The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University) that can match us on China depth and no Chinese school than can compete on international breadth."