Executive Program in Corporate Strategy
Strengthen yourself as a leader by adding strategic value to your company. Translate objectives into an execution plan across multiple units, learn how to coordinate and communicate corporate strategy, and evaluate your strategy to combat competition.
In today's turbulent business world, leaders find themselves in a complex competitive environment where corporate strategy is more critical than ever before. Those who are able to think strategically and predict the impact of industry evolution are able to make competitive shifts and maintain profitability.
In this program, executives will learn techniques to understand the competitive structure of an industry and a company's competitive advantage. Participants will analyze various strategic decisions, including positioning, pricing, new venture, technology, and diversification. In addition, the program will look at how organizational structure impacts effective strategy development and implementation.
Participants will apply the program material to define long-term strategic objectives and initiatives and will translate these objectives into an execution road-map.
By attending this program, you will:
- Better understand the economics of value creation and competitive advantage in your industry.
- Appreciate the importance of taking a customer-centric view of your business to drive innovation and growth.
- Assess and refine your company’s strategy and business model.
- Learn how AI tools can help or impact corporate strategy.
- Create coherence between corporate level strategy and lines of business strategy.
Location
Chicago Booth, Gleacher Center, Chicago, ILThis program is for senior-level executives and general managers who are responsible for the formulation and implementation of corporate strategy in a multi-national firm. Titles include: president, CEO, CFO, vice president, director, partner, and senior manager.
Robert Gertner
Gertner received a National Science Foundation Research Grant, an Olin Fellowship in Law and Economics and was a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He has held visiting positions at CEPREMAP in Paris, Cornell Law School, The University of Chicago Law School, and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Gertner is a trustee of the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, a national organization devoted to large-scale social research in public interest.
Gertner received a bachelor’s degree summa cum laude in economics from Princeton University in 1981 and a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1986. He worked as a consultant for AT&T prior to attending MIT.
Marc Knez
Knez has been a full-time management consultant working with clients in financial services, telecommunications equipment, hospitality, and consumer products. During his time as a consultant, he was a senior vice president of Sibson Consulting and a Principal at the Capital H Group. He is currently on the board of directors of the Metropolitan Capital Bank.
He believes his past experience provides him with the ability to bring both perspectives to the classroom. He specializes in bridging the gap between academic research and applied decisionmaking in the context of strategic planning and technology strategy. He also has brought this perspective to executive education. He has taught executives at the Financial Management Program at General Electric, and the McKinsey & Co. mini-MBA program, as well as conducted customized education for Northrop Grumman, MTV Networks Asia, Metropolitan Life, and the William Wrigley Jr. Company.
Knez earned a bachelor's degree in economics at the University of Arizona and a PhD in decision sciences at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1991.
When not teaching or conducting research, Knez enjoys spending time with his family and playing golf.
Chad Syverson
"My engineering background definitely spurred my research interest in productivity. I like to visit factories and investigate how things are put together, what can go wrong when they are, and what factors influence companies’ operating success (or lack thereof)."
Syverson is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and has served on National Academies committees and as the chair of the Chicago Census Research Data Center Board. Prior to his appointment at the University of Chicago, Syverson was a mechanical engineer for Loral Defense Systems and Unisys Corporation.
He earned bachelor's degrees in 1996 from the University of North Dakota in economics and mechanical engineering. He earned his PhD in economics in 2001 from the University of Maryland. Syverson joined the Chicago Booth faculty in 2008.
Gregory Bunch
He works with Fortune 50 companies, family businesses and start-ups in the areas of innovation and strategy. He has worked with a broad array of companies including Abbott Labs, American Express, Danaher, Dover, ETS, Harley-Davidson, Hewlett-Packard, Kimberly-Clark, McDonalds, PepsiCo, State Farm and Yum! Brands.
Greg was an alderman in the City of West Chicago, serving on the infrastructure, public safety and development committees.
Greg has lectured nationally and internationally on topics related to strategy, creating customers, and innovation. He earned a bachelor's degree from Wheaton College in philosophy and an MDiv from Harvard University.
Ram Shivakumar
Shivakumar received a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Madras, India, a master's degree in financial mathematics from the University of Chicago, and a PhD in economics from Indiana University.
Shivakumar is an avid crossfit, yoga and golf enthusiast.
Industry Analysis and Positioning
- Economic framework for analyzing the structure of your industry
- How the competitive position determines a firm's performance
Competitive Advantage, Sustainability, and Entry
- How capabilities and assets determine competitive advantage
- Effects of competition on competitive advantage and entry decisions
Corporate Strategy
- Resource allocation and coordination between business units
- Optimal scope in terms of diversification and vertical integration
- Effective organization and management of multiunit companies
Strategic Planning
- Defining long-term and strategic objectives and initiatives
- Translating strategic objectives into an execution plan
- Strategy Implementation
- Competitive strategy, organizational structure, and resources that enable implementation
- Organizational mechanisms required for effective implementation
New Venture Strategy
- Analysis of new business opportunities
- Analyze future competition for products which do not exist
AI and Technology in Strategy
- How to utilize AI tools such as large language models in corporate strategy
- The impact technology shifts have on strategy across industries
Strategic Thinking and Decision-Making
- How to develop and analyze unique, creative strategies
- Utilizing decision models and avoiding decision traps
Excellent program. Reinforced my knowledge of strategy. More importantly, it stretched my thinking with new concepts that provide a much more nuanced approach to strategy formulation. Truly an excellent program and will put what I learned to use immediately.
—David Rovin, Director Commercial Lines Product Management, American Family Insurance
[Executive Program in Corporate Strategy] has provided me with actionable strategic tools. Too often academia provides retrospective frameworks that are difficult to apply or are easily misused. UofC has provided prospective frameworks, how to apply them and addressed use/misuse.
—Robert Morris, Vice President and General Manager, General Binding Corp.
The administration personnel was very attentive and kind: many thanks! Asking the right questions is far from being an easy task when you're either building your strategy or even trying to understand others. At UChicago, the instructors instill you in a way you learn how to choose the right questions to ask. This very well-coordinated and exciting learning process instructors put you through is really shaking and teaches you to see what really makes a difference to your business.
—Guilherme Leoni, Engineer, Petroleo Brasileiro S.A
As an entrepreneur, these classes provided me with outstanding tools to manage and grow my business in both a creative and systematic fashion. Outstanding material and speakers.
—Doug Zell, CEO, Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea, Inc.
I give the program an A+! A recipe for success—outstanding instructors, stimulating interaction with talented classmates, great program content, and a beautiful facility. Result: useful concepts I can take home and implement.
—Randy Kesterson, Senior VP of Operations, Curtiss-Wright Flight Systems, Inc.
It was fantastic to dissect and analyze cases with other professionals from various industries and countries. It is insightful to see/hear the issues other industries are focused on and how they are preparing their organizations for these challenges. The peer-to-peer learning was rich.
—Ronny Bryant, Strategic Leadership Consultant, State Farm
This program typically runs three times a year, Spring, Summer, and Fall.