EXECUTIVE EDUCATION
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A Certificate in Leadership.
Scope and Purpose
The certificate program in leadership, formerly known as The SMU Mid-Management Program, is a 12-week series designed to provide today's managers tools and concepts to become a leader. By learning cutting-edge ideas and practices that are likely to define the competitive and organizational landscape, you will be able to lead your organization to the next level of success. The program offers a broad survey of select topics and subject areas that also lay the foundation for many business school degree programs. The purpose of all the sessions is to give working managers the knowledge, insight, and skills needed to think and work cross-functionally within their organization and become a leader.
Although each week's session is designed to give class participants a concise overview of a particular business discipline or topic, the entire program is organized around four distinct leadership competencies to build a big picture, cross-functional perspective:
- Leading change from the middle
- Thinking and acting strategically
- Organizational effectiveness and integration
- Understanding and applying core functional disciplines
These competencies serve as a platform for integrative learning. At the program's conclusion, each participant should be able to develop a better appreciation of how different parts of the organization interrelate and impact one another. In addition, the participant will understand the issues and concerns of managers from different parts of the organization.
An individual project is assigned to enhance each participant's awareness and appreciation of many of the key business and organizational issues that will confront middle and general managers as they evolve in their professional careers.
Who Should Attend
This program is well-suited for managers who want a foundation in current business theory and practice. Class participants typically come from one of the following three backgrounds:
- Those newly promoted from supervisory management roles to ones involving greater responsibility
- Those within a function or department who have steadily accumulated greater levels of responsibility and oversight in a variety of different tasks and roles
- Current middle-managers who wish to enhance or refresh their skill sets with leading-edge ideas or concepts with a solid academic grounding
Program Time and Place
The class meets on Tuesday evenings from 6:00 p.m -9:00 pm at the Cox School of Business on the SMU campus.
SMU Certificate
Certificates of Completion are awarded to participants who complete an individual project and attend the introductory full-day session and at least 9 of the 11 evening sessions. The program is also approved for Continuing Education Units (CEUs).
How You'll Benefit
Key Topics Covered in This Program
The goal of the program is to help practicing managers become more effective by providing them a foundation in current business theories and practices. This 12-week overview of important subjects from the business school will give you a framework to make informed business decisions about issues affecting your company and your career. Unlike many company in-house programs that focus on narrow skill areas, the breadth of this program will allow you to develop a broader understanding of functional areas outside your normal activities and professional training. By attending this program, you will:
- Broaden your base of knowledge, transitioning from
specialist to generalist, as you develop your professional career
- Expand your business vocabulary by exploring the foundation
of accounting, finance, marketing, strategy, human resource
management, and more
- Explore the interrelationships among functional areas of business
- Examine emerging challenges that are transforming the
corporate landscape (e.g., flattening organizations, new technologies,
workplace issues)
- Prepare yourself to move up in the organization as you
develop a broader understanding of effective management techniques
- Receive, upon completion of the program, a certificate
indicative of your interest and initiative in advancing your career
Program Faculty
David Lei, Academic Director for Leading Tomorrow's Business: Building Competitive Organizations and Associate Professor in the Strategy and Entrepreneurship Department at the Cox School of Business David Lei currently teaches a range of topics in strategic management for all degree-granting programs at Cox. His research interest include corporate strategy, strategic alliances, and technology-based investments. His current focus is firm-based sources of competitive advantage, technological convergence, and the application of complex adaptive systems to understand strategic change. He has published a book, Strategic Management: Building and Sustaining Competitive Advantage (third edition), on global strategy, knowledge-based competition, and organization design, and he has consulted with numerous organizations on topics related to strategic alliances, corporate renewal, and scenario development. He holds a doctorate in Management from the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University.
David Mauer, Phyllis Gough Huffington Professor of Finance and Chair of the Department of Finance at the Cox School of Business David Mauer holds a PhD from Purdue University. Previously, he taught finance at the University of Miami for two years. In 2004, he received the SMU Distinguished Teaching Award; in 2000, he was honored with the Distinguished MBA Teaching Award; and since 1999, has been consistently recognized for outstanding teaching in the MBA program. His research has appeared in Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Business, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and Financial Management. He currently serves on the editorial boards of several finance journals.
Jon E. Porter, President and Founder of PorterPro, LLC, which provides sales and marketing consulting to technology companiesJon E. Porter is President and Founder of PorterPro, LLC, which provides sales and marketing consulting to technology companies. Previously, he has held numerous field sales, national account management, sales management, and senior level sales and marketing positions. For 14 years, Porter headed sales and marketing training at Verizon (GTE). He has also worked with many domestic and international sales organizations to develop new skills and capabilities in dealing with complex sales issues. He is a member of the Professional Society for Sales and Marketing Training, a seminar leader for the American Management Association, a trustee with the Marketing Science Institute in Boston, and he serves on the faculty of the Executive Education Division at SMU’s Cox School of Business. Porter has a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science from the University of Houston.
Ulrike Schultze, Associate Professor of Information Technologies and Operations Management at the Cox School of Business at SMUUlrike Schultze teaches systems analysis and design, business process consulting, electronic commerce and IT implementation in both the undergraduate and graduate levels. She holds a PhD in Management Information Systems from Case Western Reserve University. All her undergraduate and Master's level work was completed at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Ulrike's reserach focuses on the impact of information technology on work practices and she is particularly interested in the unintended consequences of technologies including knowledge management and Internet-based self-serve technologies. She typically relies on ethnographics research methods, which means that Ulrike spends six to eight months in organization to gain an in-depth understanding of a technology's impact. Her research has been published in MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Information & Organization, and other journals.
Paula K. Strasser, Director of the Cox Business Leadership Center at SMU
Paula K. Strasser is an Adjunct Professor in the Management and Organizations department and a leadership consultant to various organizations. She was Director of International Training and Development and Director of Communications for Pearle, Inc. and served as the Director of Pearle Eye Care University. Prior to Pearle, her experience includes Director of Training and Assistant Vice President for two major bank holding companies, Educational Therapist for a psychological academic center, and Personnel Manager at the University of Kansas. She received a Master's degree in Educational Administration with an emphasis in Human Resources Management and Psychology from the University of Kansas.
Michael van Breda, Associate Professor of Accounting at the Cox School of Business at SMU. Michael van Breda teaches managerial accounting at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He also teaches accounting theory, financial accounting, and advanced topics in accounting. He earned a PhD in Accounting from Stanford University and an MBA from University of Cape Town. His undergraduate degree, in Pure Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, is from the University of Stellenbosch. In 22 years of teaching at SMU, he has been Chairman of the Accounting, Business Law, and Tax Department; Director of the SMU-in-Oxford program; and Director of the Graduate Certificate Program in Finance. He is the author of Prediction of Corporate Earnings and Accounting Theory and he has published numerous articles. His primary research interests are accounting theory and accounting history. Prior to SMU, he taught at MIT in Massachusetts. Before coming to the United States, he managed a private bank in Johannesburg, South Africa.
