Executive Education

Advanced Management Program

Transforming Proven Leaders into Global Executives

As the world economy continues to evolve, so do the requirements for global leadership. The Advanced Management Program (AMP) is a powerful and transformative learning experience that explores the best management practices and latest strategies for sustaining a strategic advantage over the long term. You will emerge from AMP a visionary leader—equipped with the business expertise and global perspective to take your career and your organization to the next level of success.

What You Can Expect

AMP demands an uninterrupted eight-week commitment away from day-to-day demands—a rare opportunity to look beyond short-term solutions and tailor a "big picture" approach. Through an intensive process of self-assessment, you will acquire the analytical and strategic skills to drive innovation, performance, and effective decision making across your organization.

Who Is Right for the Program

AMP brings together the top members of executive committees, heads of business units and functional areas, as well as leaders of governmental agencies and nonprofit organizations. Graduates of the program become part of an elite network of more than 72,000 accomplished executives who span the globe and provide ongoing support and insight throughout their careers.

Investment in the Future

Since its founding in 1945, more than 20,000 executive leaders have graduated from AMP—tangible proof of its success in shaping superior leaders for today and tomorrow. This dynamic leadership development program not only changes the way you assess, manage, and solve problems, but also enhances your capacity to lead strategically in every area of your organization.

Your Course of Study

By examining a range of management concepts from three unique perspectives—customer and product markets, evolving geopolitical influences, and current capital markets , you will discover how to develop winning business strategies for today's global economy.

Comprehensive Leadership Programs Summary

Compare the key features of Harvard Business School's three comprehensive leadership programs—the Advanced Management Program, the General Management Program, and the Program for Leadership Development.

A limited amount of partial scholarship funding may be available for qualified applicants from nonprofit organizations. To be considered, you must complete and submit your application and include a request for funding. FOR MORE INFORMATION, please contact Ms. Kathryn Venne, Portfolio Director, at +1-617-495-6161.​

What You Can Expect

Grooming an executive to take on the responsibilities of global leadership can take years of on-the-job training—time that most companies cannot afford in a rapidly changing world economy. The Advanced Management Program accelerates the leadership development process by empowering you to think broadly, manage globally, and compete strategically. Working closely with other senior executives, you will acquire the knowledge and skills to position your organization for future growth and profitability.

While immersed in AMP, you will:

• Develop a heightened awareness of the extraordinary financial conditions and external forces shaping global competition today
• Enhance your portfolio of leadership approaches and discern how to apply the right technique to your organization's special circumstances
• Engage in an intensive process of self-assessment to improve your performance as a senior executive
• Acquire the latest frameworks and tools for your company to formulate a competitive and winning strategy
• Gain the high level of confidence that inspires effective decision making across the organization
• Execute better judgment by expanding your analytical and strategic skills
• Join the HBS alumni network of more than 72,000 accomplished global executives

As an AMP graduate, you will return to your company with a broader perspective of global leadership, a deeper understanding of how to apply best practices, and the inner confidence to turn your personalized action plan into concrete results.

"There are very few opportunities in life where you can actually remove yourself from your day-to-day responsibilities and dedicate yourself to learning and development. I would recommend this program for people who need to rethink their techniques, frameworks, and analytical approach. From that perspective alone, AMP has been a fabulous learning experience that will live with me for the rest of my career. "
Marianne Erlandsen [Managing Director, Regional Head], The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, U.S.

Your Course of Study

For eight intensive weeks, you will work alongside a diverse group of the world's most senior executives and engage daily with the HBS faculty—intellectual thought leaders who pioneered the case method and business concepts practiced by top executives worldwide. Highly structured, yet deeply personalized, AMP delivers the 360-degree feedback and one-on-one coaching that bring about a full-scale transformation—at both the individual and organizational levels.

Building Competitive Advantage Through Operations

Three key themes are woven throughout this course: operational execution, empathy, and the role of investors in achieving operational excellence. You will gain the skills needed to:

• Identify current and future challenges and opportunities in operations
• Understand how operational capabilities can lead to sustainable competitive advantage
• Examine the drivers of excellence in operations by focusing on the role of the leader and the general manager

Key topics addressed include:

• Maximizing talent—setting up your company to derive extraordinary work from ordinary people with fairly typical skills
• Building on past success—identifying what has led to prior success and what will distinguish your firm in the future
• Managing day-to-day issues—understanding the importance of addressing everyday problems related to quality, availability, and customer service

Business, Government and the International Economy: Leading in the Global Economy

This course provides a framework for analyzing national economic management and international competitiveness, as well as growth strategies for driving profitability in any global climate. It focuses on seven "trajectories" that define the business context:

• Asia's high growth
• Latin America's recovery from a debt crisis
• Collapse of socialism in the USSR
• African renaissance
• Islamic resurgence
• European integration
• Japanese and U.S. descent into deficits and debt

Key topics addressed include:

• Policy issues around the world—analyzing competitiveness and economic management in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the United States
• Up-to-date global intelligence—examining the regional trajectories of growth, development, and governmental strategies leading the world economy toward globalization
• Executive decision making—focusing on the essentials of competitive analysis, including national income accounting, balance of payments, fiscal and monetary policy, and real exchange rates

Financial Management: Mastering the Essentials of Corporate Financial Management

This curriculum provides a framework for understanding the financial dimensions of competitive strategy and managing more effectively in an unpredictable global economy. You will examine the three responsibilities of a financial manager:

• Assuring that the firm does not run out of cash
• Making good investment decisions
• Making good financing decisions

The financial management sessions are designed to provide:

• A conceptual framework for analyzing financial issues and assessing the financial health of a firm
• A toolkit of analytical techniques
• An understanding of financial instruments, institutions, and markets
• An appreciation for the financial issues typically encountered within a firm and how the firm's financial decisions can facilitate its competitive strategy

You also will engage in six short case modules:

• Module 1: Financial Forecasting
• Module 2: Capital Budgeting Decisions
• Module 3: Financial Markets and Institutions
• Module 4: Capital Structure Decisions
• Module 5: Cost of Capital
• Module 6: Comprehensive Cases

Key topics addressed include:

• Profitability and growth—focusing on the executive's role in balancing profit and growth, as well as addressing value gaps in highly dynamic environments
• Capital cost and cash flow—conveying the essentials of capital structure, capital markets, financial institutions, and standard analysis techniques
• Shareholder value—highlighting the levers for enhanced shareholder value and understanding the effects of value-based management concepts

Leadership and Corporate Accountability

This course focuses on the responsibilities of companies, their leaders, and their boards. You will explore the related economic, legal, and ethical dimensions and learn how to drive performance that delivers on all three dimensions.

Through a series of complex dilemmas set in different regions of the world, you will build a framework for accountable decision making and good governance. You also will have opportunities to consider the role of business in society and to reflect on your own business leadership philosophy.

Key topics addressed include:

• Leaders as fiduciaries—examining the responsibilities of companies, their leaders, and their boards
• Global standards of business conduct—understanding the economic, legal, and ethical dimensions of these responsibilities in driving performance
• Societal and individual implications—considering the role of business in society and assessing your personal philosophy of business leadership

Leadership in Organizations: Managing Innovation and Organizational Effectiveness

Organizations succeed not only by optimizing current strategies, but also by innovating for the future. Focusing on your role as an individual leader, this course equips you with the skills to build and manage a high-performing organization that drives change.

Following an introductory session, you will engage in three modules that focus on the key facets of leadership organizations:

• Personal Leadership—explores how effective leaders take charge of their careers and avoid the pitfalls of derailment that can arise along the way
• Team Leadership—examines how leaders leverage the skills and capabilities of others around them to get things done inside the organization
• Organizational Leadership—focuses on how leaders build and manage high-performing organizations

Key topics addressed include:

• Winning in the short term—acquiring a set of methodologies and action-planning tools for diagnosing and solving organizational problems
• Leading innovation streams—exploring the techniques for managing incremental and disruptive innovation, as well as the organizational dilemmas inherent in managing strategic contradictions
• Leadership and change—analyzing the options for articulating a clear vision, building a coalition of support, and aligning an organization that is capable of reinventing itself

Marketing: Leveraging the Power of Marketing

Focusing on ways to create value, this results-oriented overview of marketing prepares senior leaders to leverage the firm's sales and marketing functions across multiple areas. You will gain effective strategies for maximizing the potential of digital marketing for greater bottom-line and shareholder value.

This course explores the issues that general managers typically confront when dealing with the customer-facing functions of a firm, including marketing, sales, and service. These functions span the entire process and include:

• Understanding market, segment, and customer needs—what they want versus what the firm can do for them
• Converting and enhancing this knowledge to create customer value through viable value propositions
• Communicating and delivering the customer value created with the engagement of the customer Extracting a fair share of this value for the firm

Key topics addressed include:

• Customer management—focusing on the successful management of customer acquisition and retention, segmentation, profitability, and lifetime value
• Corporate brand management—examining proven ways of developing, managing, and extracting value from a corporate brand and/or subsidiary brands to enhance business performance
• Marketing and the CEO—exploring how to develop a set of company-specific metrics that enables the board to monitor marketing results on an ongoing basis

Negotiation

Managerial and executive success requires the ability to negotiate. Whether you are forging an agreement with suppliers, trying to ink a deal with potential customers, raising money from investors, managing a conflict inside the firm, or tackling a dispute that is headed toward litigation, your ability to negotiate will affect your performance.

Through a strategy-oriented framework, this course explores how to plan, negotiate, receive feedback, and discuss the essentials of negotiation strategy. You will improve your analytical, decision-making, and negotiation skills through:

• Powerful dealmaking concepts—examining the tools and strategies needed to create and sustain corporate value
• Hands-on negotiation simulations—gaining a better understanding of the behavior of individuals and organizations
• Effective negotiation tools—approaching negotiation systematically, engaging with all parties, and closing the deal

Key topics addressed include:

• Capturing an appropriate share of the value that is created
• Achieving superior results in a vast array of competitive environments
• Resolving disputes and achieving desired outcomes even when others are becoming emotional or appear irrational
• Thinking strategically in competitive contexts by anticipating the strategy of others
• Understanding the vital role of ethics in negotiation, even when the parties' ethical standards vary dramatically
• Working with people whose backgrounds, expectations, perspectives, and values differ from your own

Strategy: Setting Competitive and Corporate Strategy

Examining both competitive and corporate strategy, AMP imparts concepts and frameworks for thinking analytically about strategy in times of crisis. This course prepares you to craft the overarching direction of your firm by focusing on where you will compete, how to win in those arenas, and how to sustain a competitive edge over the long run. You will learn how to:

• Size up the external environment of your firm in its entirety
• Configure your firm's internal choices to attain a competitive advantage within its external environment
• Prepare your firm for the future

Key topics addressed include:

• Environmental scanning—assessing the structural attractiveness of an industry, while identifying the threats and complements to business profitability
• Competitive positioning—emphasizing the art of configuring discrete internal activities to create new sources of competitive advantage
• Competitive sustainability—analyzing the role of senior executives in applying competitive analyses, responding to generic threats, managing risks, and employing the best alternative strategies
• Corporate strategy—applying strategic analysis to evaluate available resources, market opportunities, and the effectiveness of organizational structures, systems, and processes

Personalized Learning

To amplify the impact on both you and your sponsoring organization, AMP offers several activities devoted to personalized learning, including 360-degree feedback, one-on-one coaching, and project work that focuses on issues within your organization. As a result, you will develop a plan of action for successfully addressing your organizational challenges.

Key topics addressed include:

• Leading organizational renewal—examining key issues at the intersection of leadership and competitiveness, including strategies for leading change, fostering innovation, winning in the short term, and changing the workforce
• Crafting country-specific business strategies—exploring AMP cases that focus on doing business in specific countries and regions, and various ways of engaging in the international arena—from joint ventures to foreign direct investments
• Leveraging information technology—analyzing the current realities of IT and exploring how the future direction of IT will impact corporate leaders; you will have access to state-of-the-art IT infrastructure on the HBS campus, and all necessary hardware, software, and databases will be provided to support a range of teaching tools, including simulations, webcasts, and videoconferencing

Additional Integrative Learning

With an eye on the challenges resulting from the global economic crisis, the curriculum will include a variety of integrated learning experiences. Topics will include decision-making processes, the Balanced Scorecard, negotiation, leadership values, corporate responsibility, sustainability, emerging markets, outsourcing, and global competition, and the challenges facing particular parts of the world.

Midcourse Break

A four-day break is scheduled midway through the program. During this interlude, family members are invited to campus to participate in a two-day event that includes special class sessions for spouses, social gatherings, as well as activities for younger family members. The break also allows participants the opportunity to spend time in the New England area or travel home.

"One of the benefits of being exposed to such a wide range of cultural and industry backgrounds for eight weeks is that I now understand that people approach things from very different mindsets. In my industry in the UK, for example, we may have a very different approach as we look at new markets in other areas of the world. AMP gave me the rare opportunity to experience the intensity of having six different conversations in a day with people from widely different backgrounds. And I am looking forward to building on that intensity when I get back to the office."
Jez Maiden [Group Finance Director], National Express Group PLC, U.K.

Who Is Right for the Program

AMP is designed for an elite group of senior executives who are proven business leaders. Successful applicants will hold leadership positions one or two levels from the CEO, and will be identified by their sponsors as a key part of the company's succession plan.

An ideal candidate for AMP is:

• A member of the executive committee
• The head of a major business unit
• A senior functional head
• A senior member of the operating group

Typically, participants come from organizations with annual revenues in excess of $250 million and have approximately 20 to 25 years of work experience, including a significant amount of time as a senior manager or an officer of the company. They represent widely diverse industries and more than 53 countries. This broad, global representation offers an unequaled opportunity for participants to share and expand their worldviews, while enhancing their understanding of different cultures.

Past Participants Represented:

Participating Companies Have Included:

"AMP has reinforced that I need to consider where my gaps and strengths are and how I want to improve as a leader. It’s also important to make sure my team complements what I bring to the table. AMP emphasized that a big part of leadership is not just what I bring to the table, but it’s about depending upon the team and working to align and mobilize the people and organization."
Carolin Archibald [President], Medela Inc., U.S.

Meet the Program Faculty

The Advanced Management Program is taught by a core faculty of senior Harvard Business School professors who are recognized thought leaders, skilled educators, groundbreaking researchers, and award-winning authors. HBS faculty leverage their business expertise and field-based research to create new knowledge and enduring concepts that shape the practice of management. Other HBS professors join the core faculty to present special topics, conveying their specific insights to further enrich the learning experience. The result is a teaching team that exposes participants to multiple perspectives, challenging their thinking on many levels.

Core Faculty

Other Participating Faculty

"The caliber of the people was unmatched because the program draws the best and the brightest from the business world. And that’s certainly due to the curriculum, the case study method, and the phenomenal faculty. When you bring all that together, you do get the best program."
Kathleen Bock [Principal], The Vanguard Group, U.S.

Investment in the Future

Why AMP?

Unparalleled Resources – The Harvard University community offers a wealth of educational resources. Participants will interact daily with world-renowned HBS faculty members—in​tellectual thought leaders who pioneered the business concepts practiced by top executives worldwide. With access to Baker Library—the world's largest business archives—participants are immersed in an unrivaled learning experience.

Highly Relevant Curriculum – The faculty continually updates the AMP curriculum, using the newest cases and the latest teaching materials to address the most recent trends and innovations. This year's program content reflects the current economic climate and includes special sessions on the global financial crisis. For participants, the learning experience is both profound and practical. Equipped with actionable frameworks and tools, they return to their companies truly transformed—extraordinary leaders for extraordinary times.

Global Peer Network – Over the course of eight weeks, a highly accomplished group of executives comes together to exchange valuable insights and share a once-in-a-lifetime learning experience. To promote diversity and reinforce the extraordinary sense of community, participants are assigned living groups that remain intact throughout the program. As a result, AMP graduates become part of an elite network that provides ongoing support and insight throughout their careers.

Intensive Learning Environment – For more than 60 years, this carefully crafted program has been refined to promote intensive learning on multiple levels. The result is a profound educational experience that fosters professional, intellectual, and personal development. From classroom sessions and case discussions to personal coaching and peer-to-peer learning, many processes are combined to create an optimal learning environment.

Legacy of Effectiveness – With more than 20,000 graduates to date, AMP has become one of the top programs for organizations seeking to prepare their executives to step into the most senior leadership positions. As evidence of its effectiveness, one in every ten Fortune 500 senior executives are AMP alumni. Understanding the power of this program, many companies send one or more promising senior leaders to AMP each year—helping to create teams of leaders who speak the same language, embrace the same values, and promote the same culture.

Why Eight Weeks?

Proven Learning Format – Achieving the management expertise and personal development required for senior leadership demands an uninterrupted commitment: the time to abandon preconditioned points of view, explore new alternatives, and adopt new attitudes and behaviors. Away from the daily demands and distractions of the office and home, AMP participants are afforded the rarest of commodities: time to tailor specific and effective strategies for execution within their own organizations.

"My mission was to go deep into those subjects where I haven’t had professional or educational training. Now I have a better feel for how those areas are impacting the entire company as well as the area in which I’m working. So I feel much better prepared to be a part of the senior leadership team—and to make change happen."
Rich Crawford [Chief Technology and Operations Officer], Owens-Illinois, Inc., U.S.

The Learning Model

Why HBS? – With more than 60 years of experience in executive education, Harvard Business School is the leading provider of advanced learning opportunities that strengthen the leadership capacity of both individuals and their organizations. Unlike any other, the HBS Executive Education learning model immerses the world's most promising managers in a transformational experience that transcends the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and tools—and fosters professional, intellectual, and personal development. Every program challenges executives to grow as leaders, to shape powerful ideas into decisive action plans, and to think and manage differently in a changing business world.

Philosophy – Every HBS Executive Education leadership development experience is shaped by the School's cross-functional approach to general management, innovative teaching methodologies, and residential learning environment that promotes teamwork and collaboration. Participants are exposed to an in-depth education that goes beyond frameworks and theories—and prepares them to exercise their enhanced leadership skills to build sustainable competitive advantage for their companies.

Case Method – Pioneered by Harvard Business School, the case method is one of the most effective tools for teaching general management and leadership—especially to practicing managers. Case studies offer multiple levels of learning, compelling participants to identify relevant issues and to apply practical business lessons to their own companies. Cases provide an opportunity to study real general managers—in action—and to imbed frameworks and theories in the context of practice. At HBS, Executive Education participants benefit from an added dimension that no other school can offer: the opportunity to be taught by many of the faculty who wrote the cases, who know the case protagonists, and who have personal knowledge of the problems encountered, alternatives considered, and solutions presented.

Faculty – HBS Executive Education programs are taught by full-time Harvard University professors, not by consultants and lecturers hired on a part-time basis. As a result, participants have the chance to interact with world-renowned thought leaders: the authors of the cases, articles, and books that have redefined modern management practices.

Interaction – Every facet of an HBS Executive Education program—from participant selection…to amphitheater classroom seating…to learning group design…to social activities—is carefully crafted to promote dynamic interchange and shared learning among accomplished peers from diverse companies, industries, and countries. To reinforce the School's extraordinary sense of community, Executive Education participants live on campus in suites of single, private rooms arranged around a common area, providing ready access to colleagues and fostering peer-to-peer engagement. The intellectual stimulation of learning in the company of peers is one of the most rewarding aspects of the program experience, and most participants establish a network of friendships and business contacts that lasts a lifetime.

The Learning Commitment – Residency on campus is required, and classes are held six days a week. Active involvement in all classroom sessions, case discussions, and other program activities is expected. Participants devote considerable time and intellect to the learning experience, putting in long days and nights. Therefore, they must be free of outside responsibilities during their stay at HBS.

"The AMP experience is truly reflective of our global economy. In my class, there are 39 countries represented. And, although we are from different cultures, what matters the most to everyone—the core of our humanity—is very much the same. We care about our employees, our families, our communities, and about making a positive contribution with our talents, training, and opportunities."
Stephen Miller [Executive Vice President], The Biltmore Company, U.S.

Alumni Status

Learning That Lasts A Lifetime – Reflecting the School's commitment to foster lifelong learning and to strengthen individual leadership capabilities, HBS will continue to provide AMP graduates with relevant educational resources and opportunities long after the program ends. After completing the program, participants will become alumni of Harvard Business School with exclusive access to:

• The HBS alumni network – Tap into a global resource of more than 72,000 MBA and Executive Education alumni in over 150 countries
• The HBS Alumni Clubs and Associations – Connect with members of 85 Alumni Clubs and Associations worldwide on diverse business and social levels. Besides strengthening alumni relationships and offering opportunities for continued learning, many Clubs and Associations provide community service, reinforcing the HBS mission "to educate leaders who make a difference in the world."
• The Baker Library services – Access a comprehensive collection of content assets and thought-leadership pieces on wide-ranging aspects of management and leadership online at http://www.library.hbs.edu/resources_alumni.html.
• The HBS Publishing Alumni Plus Program – Identify yourself as an alumni member when placing an order and receive a 20-percent discount on regularly priced items. This includes HBS Press books, Harvard Business Review article reprints, and case studies (subscriptions not included). If other discounts are offered (such as quantity or special pricing), the lowest available discount will apply. After completing a program at the School, alumni will receive a free one-year subscription to Harvard Business Review.
• A 30-percent discount on all HBS Executive Education Open-Enrollment programs
• A lifelong HBS email forwarding address

"It's not just about what you learn in the lectures, it's about what your living group can do for you and connecting with other people who've been through similar experiences."
Cindy Batchelor [Managing Director, Head of People & Communications], National Australia Bank Ltd., Australia