Columbia Business School (part of Columbia University), officially named the Columbia University Graduate School of Business, and also known as CBS, was established in 1916 to provide business training and professional preparation for undergraduate and graduate Columbia University students. It is one of six Ivy League business schools.

Alonzo Barton Hepburn, then president of Chase Manhattan Bank, founded the Columbia University Graduate School of Business with 11 full-time faculty members and an opening class of 61 students, including 8 women. The School expanded rapidly, enrolling 420 students by 1920 and, in 1924, added a PhD program to the existing BS and MS degree programs.

In 1945, Columbia Business School authorized the awarding of the Master of Business Administration degree (MBA). Shortly thereafter, the School adopted the Hermes emblem as its symbol, reflecting the entrepreneurial nature of the Greek god Hermes and his association with business, commerce and communication.

In 1952, the School admitted its last class of undergraduates. The school currently offers a full-time MBA program, an executive MBA program, a PhD program, and various executive education programs.

On July 1, 2004, R. Glenn Hubbard became Columbia Business School's eleventh dean. Hubbard, the former chair of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, has worked at the intersection of the private, government and nonprofit sectors and has been actively engaged in national and international economic policy issues.

Columbia Business School is known for its close ties to Wall Street and the seminal work completed in the field of finance by professors Benjamin Graham and David Dodd. Notable graduates of the Value Investing program include Warren Buffett, Mario Gabelli, Leon Cooperman, Chuck Royce, Paul Sonkin and William von Mueffling. The school has an international emphasis, and many alumni have achieved distinction in the public as well as the private sector. Columbia Business School is affiliated with 12 winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics including current professor Joseph Stiglitz.