July 19, 2006 | Schools

Kellogg School Launches Executive Renaissance Program

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Consistent with the Kellogg School of Management's philosophy that management education should be a career-long journey, a new executive program for experienced managers with MBA degrees is now available. The Kellogg Renaissance Program: New Tools and Strategies for the Experienced MBA is designed exclusively for mid-career managers who earned MBA degrees before 1995.

“We asked ourselves a simple question-what are we teaching now that we did not teach a decade ago?” said Stephen Burnett, associate dean of executive education at the Kellogg School. “We asked our colleagues to look back over their teaching notes and course outlines and identify concepts, tools, and best practices that today are considered essential but were not a part of the classroom a decade ago.”

The first two weeks of this three-week program focus on advances made in management education and the cumulative incremental changes that have occurred in MBA coursework since the mid-1990s. Some of the topics addressed include: leading and marketing in a nanosecond culture, living the brand, the use of real options to manage risk, and anticipating and responding to non-market forces such as political groups and the press.

According to Brenda Ellington-Booth, the Renaissance Program's academic director and principal curriculum designer, “While we assume our Renaissance students will be familiar with many of the program's topics, our objective is to provide them a much deeper and critical background, especially focusing on research findings, the latest thinking, and how to apply these new ideas to their organizations.”

In addition to teaching concepts that are new in the management world, the Renaissance Program also challenges its students to rethink their approach to leadership. “Our current MBA program curriculum has far more emphasis on leadership skills than it had a decade earlier,” said Dipak C. Jain, dean of the Kellogg School. “The context for applying leadership concepts is different for a manager ten or more years out of business school than it would be for a recent MBA graduate.”

The third and final week of the program, which occurs five months after the initial two weeks, focuses on helping participants re-energize successful careers by applying the latest leadership concepts and best practices to their senior positions of responsibility.

The first session of the Renaissance Program starts Sept. 17 and will be held at the Kellogg School's state-of-the-art executive center, the James L. Allen Center, on Northwestern University's campus in Evanston, Ill.

To learn more about the program or to apply, visit: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/execed/programs/MGMT08/index.htm