While technical skills — how you construct a valuation model, or analyze a stock — are important for early career success, more nuanced skills — how to influence others, or foster innovation — become more critical at the senior management level. The Alumni Academy, a new series of executive-level mini-courses taught by Columbia Business School faculty members, aims to help alumni develop these abilities so that they can continue to move forward in their careers.
The Alumni Academy was designed for mid- to senior-level alumni with responsibilities for profit and loss, negotiation, key decision making, and managing teams, and will be available in half- and full-day modules.
Professor Rita McGrath will lead the first course, Entrepreneurial Mindset: Leadership Roles Essential for Growth and Innovation, on March 25. Well known for developing practical tools that make the innovation process less risky, McGrath has worked extensively with leadership teams in Global 1,000 companies. Participants in the course will learn how to establish a large-scale commitment to growth at the most senior levels; how internal entrepreneurs manage specific growth ventures; and how middle managers facing political and resource dilemmas can connect growth mandates with individual business opportunities.
In June, the second Alumni Academy course will guide participants through the daunting process of individual change. Professors Paul Ingram and Hitendra Wadhwa will offer alumni a unique opportunity to engage in a purposeful, goal-directed effort towards change. Participants will establish a personal change goal and check in on their progress during two follow-up sessions.
In addition to these mini-courses, alumni are invited to consider the more robust programs offered by Columbia Business School Executive Education, which grants alumni a 25 percent tuition benefit on any open enrollment program running six days or fewer. Like Alumni Academy courses, Executive Education programs further develop graduates’ ability to become effective agents of organizational change in today’s increasingly competitive business environment.