Leading Professional Service Firms
Thriving in the economic downturn will take top-notch talent, breakthrough ideas, and exceptional client service. But professional service firms that seek to capitalize on the next business cycle may face even greater challenges. To address these issues and opportunities, Harvard Business School offers Leading Professional Service Firms. This intensive weeklong Executive Education program explores how top managers balance the day-to-day pressures of running a business against the exhilaration of building long-term enterprise value.
What You Can Expect
Designed with a special focus on the unique challenges facing today's professional service firm, this program provides you with the tools and insights to align interests of talented employees with the firm's strategy, to strengthen client relationships, and to enhance long-term performance.
Your Course of Study
Through lectures, group discussions and case studies highlighting issues experienced by professional service firms, you will benefit from the latest thinking on developing, governing and growing service firms. Immersed in group problem-solving exercises, you will formulate effective go-to-market strategies and deliver consistently strong client service. You also will acquire the skills to cultivate a firm culture that enables you to anticipate, adjust to, and ultimately profit from changing market conditions.
Who Is Right for the Program
This leadership development program is designed to meet the needs of company leaders and executives whose firms provide services in areas such as consulting, legal, accounting, architecture and engineering, marketing, venture capital, investment banking, software development, and technology integration.
| Fee: | $11,500 |
The program fee covers tuition, books, case materials, accommodations, and most meals.
Programs, dates, fees, and faculty are subject to change.
In accordance with Harvard University policy, Harvard Business School does not discriminate against any person on the basis of race, color, sex or sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, age, national or ethnic origin, political beliefs, veteran status, or disability in admission to, access to, treatment in, or employment in its programs and activities.
What You Can Expect
Managing a professional service firm during periods of economic adversity is a balancing act that requires extraordinary leadership abilities. Senior managers must consistently maintain fiscal discipline while impressing clients, motivating staff, and displaying leadership strength. Leading Professional Service Firms not only prepares you to improve service fundamentals, but also equips you to lead your company confidently through a downturn and position it to capitalize on the eventual recovery. Working closely with a group of accomplished peers, you will develop new insights into formulating effective strategies, creating an organization that can execute those strategies, and driving growth in all economic cycles. Specifically, you will be better able to:
- Devote attention to attracting and developing talented professionals—your firm's most vital resource
- Build a company culture that not only supports the attitudes and behaviors critical to your company's success, but also encourages the personal satisfaction of each team member
- Implement corporate governance, decision-making processes, and performance metrics that are well suited to the unique characteristics of your firm and the realities of the service economy
- Sharpen core competencies and adhere to best practices, thereby maximizing the value delivered to your clients
- Drive long-term strategic planning, while effectively executing your firm's current business strategy
How Will My Organization Benefit?
Executive Education programs at Harvard Business School are a significant investment for both you and your organization. Going far beyond the basic transmission of skills and theories, each leadership development program provides applicable lessons in the classroom that can be implemented successfully within your organization. You will acquire a fresh perspective on global business from our groundbreaking curriculum, world-renowned faculty, and an accomplished group of elite peers from around the world.
"Leading Professional Service Firms challenged me to rethink the way professional service firms are led, and expanded my portfolio of solutions for dealing with current business issues. Already, the program has helped me to restructure our firm and find new ways to motivate our consultants to get the maximum return. In the long term, the program will definitely help me improve the performance of our organization."
Paul Spaans [Partner], KPMG Management Services, The Netherlands
Your Course of Study
Through in-depth case analysis of successful service firms, you and a select group of leaders from other firms will explore the latest strategies for building world-class, highly profitable service companies. By analyzing issues common to the service-driven business model, you will acquire the skills to define the best strategy for your firm and to drive the execution of that strategy. Just as important, you will assess and improve your own performance, balancing leadership responsibilities with your client-service demands.
Curriculum topics include:
Addressing Industry Challenges
- Examining how the service sector has grown and evolved, and what these changes mean for company leaders
- Establishing and communicating service value throughout the organization
Creating the Best Professional Staff and Corporate Culture
- Reviewing key considerations for hiring, developing, and motivating a highly skilled professional staff
- Rewarding your star performers on service delivery or management tracks
- Creating staff incentives to ensure the effective execution of your strategy
- Operating as one company across offices, divisions, service lines, and geographies
- Fixing broken or suboptimal cultures in teams, groups, or companies
Controlling Your Destiny
- Responding to market shifts with innovative services
- Leading change in your industry and your company to maintain your competitive edge
- Establishing best practices for corporate governance, including frameworks for formulating strategy and making informed strategic decisions
- Implementing models for scaling successful services and managing mergers and acquisitions
- Understanding the leader's role and balancing both short—and long-term demands on your time
"Leading Professional Service Firms has helped me to become a better leader. The program addresses major issues that relate to people, business, governance, and values. As a result, I am now focused on rewarding people who develop others and on aligning individuals' interests with the firm's goals. I believe that this will improve their motivation and also will lead to better long-term productivity."
Aimee George-Leary [Senior Associate], Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc., U.S.
Who Is Right for the Program
Leading Professional Service Firms is specifically designed for company and practice leaders around the world who are responsible for defining and executing company or service-line strategy. As different types of service firms face similar challenges, participants represent a range of industries, including consulting, legal, accounting, architecture and engineering, marketing and advertising, venture capital, investment banking, computer software development, and technology systems integration. Typical attendee titles include:
- Chief executive officer
- Executive vice president
- Partner
- Principal
- Managing director
- Office manager
- Practice leader
Visit the admissions section for details about our application process.
Past Participants Represented:
| Industries | Nationalities | ||||
| 1% | Chem/Pharm/Bio | 2% | Africa | ||
| 1% | Communications | 4% | Asia | ||
| 1% | Consumer Products | 8% | Australia/NZ | ||
| 6% | Financial | 46% | Europe | ||
| 1% | High Technology | 2% | Latin America | ||
| 1% | Manufacturing | 1% | Middle East | ||
| 2% | Nonprofit Services | 36% | North America | ||
| 2% | Other | 1% | Other | ||
| 6% | Other Services | ||||
| 72% | Professional Services | ||||
| 1% | Raw Materials/Energy | ||||
| 5% | Real Estate/Construction | ||||
| 1% | Utilities/Telecommunications | ||||
Participating Companies Have Included:
|
Allen & Overy |
KPMG InternationalLinklaters |
"Leading Professional Service Firms was a challenging and enlightening program. Interacting with peers from different types of professional service firms enabled me to examine pertinent and compelling issues in ways that departed from the 'law firm' context. As a result, I can analyze my own individual practice, my group's practice, and our entire law firm's operations from much broader and more meaningful perspectives. This refined focus on the 'business' of practicing law will prove invaluable as we continue to grow our firm and intelligently manage our resources."
Robbie Poplin [Partner; Practice Group Leader], Kilpatrick Stockton, U.S.
Meet the Program Faculty
Like all Harvard Business School Executive Education programs, Leading Professional Service Firms is developed and taught by a core faculty of HBS professors. Our faculty members are widely recognized as skilled educators, groundbreaking researchers, and award-winning authors.
Through publishing, consulting, and teaching, they leverage their business expertise and field-based research to create new knowledge and enduring concepts that shape the practice of management. The result is a teaching team that exposes participants to multiple perspectives, challenging their thinking and encouraging new practices that result in superior business leadership. For more detailed biographies, click on each faculty name.
Thomas J. DeLong, Philip J. Stomberg Professor of Management Practice. Member of the Entrepreneurial Management and the Organizational Behavior Units; and faculty cochair of the "Global Colloquium on Participant-Centered Learning."
Robert G. Eccles, Senior Lecturer of Business Administration. Member of the Organizational Behavior Unit; and faculty cochair of "Building Client Management Capabilities in Professional Service Firms."
Heidi K. Gardner, Assistant Professor of Business Administration. Member of the Organizational Behavior Unit.
Boris Groysberg, Thomas S. Murphy Associate Professor of Business Administration. Member of the Organizational Behavior Unit; and faculty cochair of "Driving Performance Through Talent Management."
Robert Steven Kaplan, Professor of Management Practice. Member of the Organizational Behavior Unit.
Jay W. Lorsch, Louis E. Kirstein Professor of Human Relations. Member of the Organizational Behavior Unit; faculty chair of the "Board Leadership Workshop," the "Corporate Governance Programs," "Leading Professional Service Firms," and "Making Corporate Boards More Effective."
Ashish Nanda, Robert Braucher Professor of Practice. Faculty director of Executive Education; and Research Director at the Program on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School.
Das Narayandas, James J. Hill Professor of Business Administration. Member of the Marketing Unit; and faculty chair of the "Program for Leadership Development" and faculty cochair of "Building Client Management Capabilities in Professional Service Firms."
"The program helped me better understand what professional service firms need to succeed in a changing world. Taking a firm to the next stage is a very complex process, particularly in the case of a big firm with a range of talents and different perspectives. The program highlighted the importance of getting people to think collectively for the betterment of the firm, the need to give people a voice in order to create buy-in, and the types of procedures necessary to move successfully from point A to point B as an organization."
Michael B. Barry [Esq.], Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C., U.S.