Executives heading back to school
Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA — Amy Rand had an unusual business decision on her hands.
Associated Press
Should she plunk down $49,000 for a three-month program at the University of Pennsylvania's prestigious Wharton School? Or should she spend the money on something her company really needed — a pair of forklifts.
JIll DeSimone, of Bristol-Myers Squibb, is in the e-fellows class that began earlier this month.
Key advisers at BrainCore Inc., the New Castle, Del., records management firm she founded in 1993, surprised her.
"The answer was, 'You must go to Wharton,' " Rand said.
Although the company still doesn't have the forklifts, Rand does not regret the choice.
"The whole technological end is so important because it completely changes our geographic reach," she said. "We're no longer limited to where we can drive if we can deliver things electronically."
The Wharton post-MBA program, called "Fellows in E-Business," is designed to bring top executives up to speed in emerging technologies that will affect, and probably alter, the way they do business.
Enrollees get together for one week a month for three months to learn the latest technology and network with Wharton faculty and classmates.
The current class includes a Belgian executive who retired from his family's global sugar business and is considering his next career move; the finance director of a $4 billion Singapore financial and manufacturing concern; and the president of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
They spent their first week at Wharton earlier this month. They travel to Barcelona next month for their second classroom week and to Silicon Valley for their third week in July.
The participants work on team projects online during their off weeks, and also apply what they've learned to a project at work.
Associated Press
Jerry Wind, who runs Wharton's management think tank, developed the program.
Wharton's program updates executives in emerging technologies.
"This really came in numerous discussions with top executives around the world who felt that the fundamental problem is they really don't feel comfortable in the new technology," he said. "And if they don't feel comfortable with the new technology, they don't feel comfortable leading the company in the transformation."
Rand was among the first group of 35 fellows, who finished their program in March. She and some of her classmates say the experience brought them many benefits.
"One was the ability to go into corporations, like Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Sun Microsystems, Nokia — just a whole variety of very well-known and respected and successful companies that allowed us to come in and spend a half-day, and sometimes a full day, with their senior management staff," said Suzanne DuBose, president of the Verizon Foundation in New York.
"I see the $49,000 as really the upfront cost of being part of that whole community," she said.
DuBose was so impressed with the program she persuaded telecom giant Verizon Corp. to provide scholarships for two nonprofit executives to attend the second session. She said she bartered with the university for a relative bargain price of $40,000 each.
"One of the issues for our community is e-transformation," said George Herrera of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a Verizon scholarship recipient. "We have a serious issue when it comes to the digital divide."
Wharton hopes to run two programs a year, with 50 people in each. However, the economic slowdown has cut into the application pool, according to Neil Neveras, director of the Wharton Fellows Online Community.
One interested executive recently said he'd call back in the fall. "He said, 'I just cut my training budget for all my employees. I can't set an example now, of taking the time and spending $50,000,' " Neveras said.
Wharton enrolls about 8,000 people a year in its wide-ranging executive programs, most for weeklong sessions that cost up to $9,000.
Administrators freely admit that the programs, which generate $43 million a year, or about a quarter of Wharton's revenues, help subsidize the university's research and educational mission.
The program is probably the most expensive executive program in the country, said Robert Mittelstaedt, Wharton's vice dean for executive education. That doesn't mean one can't go higher.
Perhaps an e-fellows junket on a Russian space shuttle?
