Owner/President Management Program

Addressing the Unique Needs of Owners and Entrepreneurs

As an owner/entrepreneur, your relationship to your business is very different from that of other executive leaders. Managing equity stakes, transition planning, strategic and professional growth—these all require special consideration on your part. The Owner/President Management program is specifically crafted for your needs, an opportunity to step back from the day-to-day to acquire the skills, insights, and vision you need for tomorrow.

What You Can Expect
Designed to fit your schedule, this executive education program is taught in three-week sessions over three years. You learn how to assess your company's position, develop long-term strategies for effective change, and create practical action plans. In classes, events, and informal activities, you'll leverage the extensive HBS network for advice and peer support.

Who Is Right for the Program
We welcome the senior executive who is a major equity stakeholder in a company with annual sales of $5 million and more. You will join other successful entrepreneurs for a transformative experience that can renew your company and career.

Investment in the Future
You become a better business leader, generating long-term ROI for your company. This unique leadership development experience encourages both business and personal renewal supported by fresh insight, new tools, and proven techniques.

Your Course of Study
You'll explore crucial business challenges from finance, marketing, and business control to more forward-looking topics such as leadership, strategy, and global markets—all from the unique perspective of owners balancing personal and professional issues.

Dates and Fees
May 16–June 4, 2010
Fee:$31,000

FOR MORE INFORMATION, please contact Ms. Jacqueline Baugher, Portfolio Director at +1-617-495-6555

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

You have reached your current position by making the most of your personal resources. But there comes a time in the career of any successful business owner—or any entrepreneur or leader—when the next step forward demands something more: a broader, more global perspective; a greater capacity for identifying opportunities; more sophisticated approaches to innovation, marketing, and strategic growth; and a larger, more diversified network of like-minded peers.

In essence, the Owner/President Management (OPM) program is a bridge from where you are now to where you would like to be—an in-depth program of personal and professional transformation. It's an opportunity to realize even greater potential, to become a more effective leader, and to deliver superior value to your stakeholders.

Presented in a three-week session each year over three years, OPM provides the skills, tools, and network you need to achieve fresh, long-term goals. Designed to balance your work and lifestyle requirements with the demands of an intensive education, OPM is structured to maximize the value of your learning experience while minimizing your time away from home and office.

Your participation in OPM will:

After completing each year's session, you will leave with fresh insights, proven techniques, and tools to help you chart and navigate the future course for your company's ongoing success.

The OPM Approach

The program's three-year structure is highly adaptable to changes in the global business arena and to the needs and demands of executives. By focusing on a key aspect of running a successful business, each OPM unit serves as a building block that prepares you for subsequent units—and ultimately for greater personal and professional success.

Unit I: Laying the Foundation
Unit II: Driving Performance
Unit III: Building the Future

"OPM was a career changer for me. I never thought that I would be building a $3 billion company, but I am launching a new firm in another country. Since the program, I have talked with five OPM alumni about bringing their businesses here to launch joint ventures, providing the service businesses we need to support our new venture."
Sutton Turner [Executive Director], Sorouh Real Estate, PJSC, United Arab Emirates

Your Course of Study

Designed to build your knowledge base over a three-year period, OPM's comprehensive curriculum delves into essential business topics as well as special areas of interest to business owners. While immersed in the case method pioneered by HBS, in thought-provoking lectures, and in enlightening small group discussions, you will explore topics such as:

Leadership across the Lifecycle

As a business owner, you play an essential role in setting the firm's strategy by creating a competitive business position that is unique, defensible, and sustainable. Providing the concepts and frameworks for analyzing your strategy, this leadership development program offers enduring logic for executing that strategy over time.

Executing Advanced Strategies

As a business owner, you play an essential role in setting the firm's strategy by creating a competitive business position that is unique, defensible, and sustainable. Providing the concepts and frameworks for analyzing your strategy, OPM offers enduring logic for executing that strategy over time.

Strategic Marketing for Leaders

Attracting and retaining customers, especially the most profitable ones, are vital to business success. Through OPM, you will gain an understanding of customer profitability and lifetime value, discover how to leverage this knowledge to design and price products, and learn how to develop and evaluate promotions as well as other marketing and sales tools.

Applying Effective Controls

Control provides information that enables you to understand how your company creates value and consumes resources. OPM delivers tools and analytics required for effective performance measurement and decision making.

Sophisticated Financial Management

Strategic financial management helps ensure your business has the financial resources required to realize its full potential. OPM provides the insight and knowledge critical to making more sophisticated financing decisions.

Understanding Global Markets

Today, businesses of all sizes compete in the global marketplace. OPM takes a macroeconomic view of the international business environment, providing strategic insights that help you lead your organization in a time of increasing convergence and conflict.

Managing Innovation

Disruptive change has become a fact of life in the business world. Executives in established firms tend to frame this disruption as a threat and take action to protect their existing businesses. Innovators, on the other hand, view disruptions quite differently: they know that game-changing opportunities arise when something happens to disrupt the status quo. OPM helps you to identify and exploit opportunities for jump-starting innovation in your business and industry.

Negotiation for Executives

Exceptional negotiation skills are critical for executives at every stage of their careers. To that end, OPM addresses the inevitable tensions in negotiation between self-interest and mutual interest and between competing and cooperating.

Special Sessions for Business Owners

In conjunction with the modules discussed above, OPM also offers modules and electives that address the unique issues faced by business owners today. Relevant topics include "Family Business" and "Personal Investing."

Between OPM's three sessions, you will apply lessons from the curriculum and put your newly acquired skills and insights to the test. Additionally, a program that matches participants with Harvard MBA field-study students is available to help you implement your classroom learning within your company.

"The overall experience of meeting people in positions similar to mine from around the world really set the program apart. More than a year later, I am amazed at how we continue to network and reach out to one another. Along with the learning and networking, the program gave me the confidence to run and grow my company."
Anne Eiting Klamar [President and CEO], Midmark Corporation, U.S.

Who Is Right for the Program

We look for successful, ambitious business owners willing to demand more of themselves and capable of contributing to vibrant group activities. Candidates must hold a significant equity stake in their firm and be actively involved in running the business. The ideal candidate is a chief executive officer, president, chief operating officer, managing director, or the equivalent at a company with annual sales of at least $5 million.

Representing a broad range of organizations, participants hail from countries around the world. This global diversity not only empowers you to negotiate, compete, and conduct business across borders, but also enables you to expand your professional network with successful business leaders worldwide.

Visit the admissions section for details about our application process.

Past Participants Represented:

Industries Nationalities
4% Chem/Pharm/Bio 4% Africa
3% Communications 11% Asia
11% Consumer Products 5% Australia/NZ
7% Financial 11% Europe
4% High Technology 9% Latin America
15% Manufacturing 2% Middle East
4% Nonprofit 52% North America
2% Other 6% Other
10% Other Services
12% Professional Services
3% Raw Materials/Energy
14% Real Estate/ Construction
10% Retail Services
1% Utilities/Telecommunications

"OPM was an outstanding experience. The interaction with fellow attendees on a personal level created deep, lifelong friendships, while at the same time facilitating powerful interlearning. The group interaction in the case studies coupled with the class discussions challenged my business mindset and helped me develop new and creative business models."
Padraig O'Ceidigh [Chairman], Aer Arann, Ireland

"One of the most energizing parts of the program is the amazing group of people that I have become friends with from all over the world. Since I graduated from OPM, our globe has become much smaller. I can call on any one of my fellow graduates in over 20 countries, and they will be there for me—as I would be for them."
Julie Levi [President], Progressive Promotions, Inc., U.S.

Meet the Program Faculty

Like all Harvard Business School Executive Education programs, OPM 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.

Lynda M. Applegate, Martin Marshall Professor of Business Administration. Head of the Entrepreneurial Management Unit, member of the General Management Unit; faculty chair of the "Owner/President Management program," "Building Businesses in Turbulent Times," "Building Ventures in Established Companies," and "Launching New Ventures: Jump-Starting Innovation for Entrepreneurs and Business Owners."

John A. Davis, Senior Lecturer of Business Administration. Member of the Entrepreneurial Management Unit; and faculty chair of "Families in Business: From Generation to Generation."

Rohit Deshpandé, Sebastian S. Kresge Professor of Marketing and Henry B. Arthur Fellow for Business Ethics. Member of the Marketing Unit.

Josh Lerner, Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking. Member of the Finance and the Entrepreneurial Management Units; faculty chair of "Private Equity and Venture Capital" and faculty cochair of "Private Equity and Venture Capital – Asia."

Deepak Malhotra, Associate Professor of Business Administration. Member of the Negotiation, Organizations, and Markets Unit.

Cynthia A. Montgomery, Timken Professor of Business Administration. Member of the Strategy Unit.

V.G. Narayanan, Thomas D. Casserly, Jr. Professor of Business Administration. Member of the Accounting and Management Unit; and faculty chair of "Compensation Committees: New Challenges, New Solutions."

Forest L. Reinhardt, John D. Black Professor of Business Administration. Chair of the European Research Initiative; and member of the Business, Government and the International Economy Unit.

The OPM Experience

The time you invest in OPM is an investment in your company's future and one that will deliver long-term return-on-investment for both you and your company. This life-changing experience provides more than just information—it transforms you. Not only will you interact with Harvard Business School professors, renowned thought leaders who have redefined modern management practices, but you also will share in dynamic case discussions with other business owners from around the world. All this and more ensure OPM's reputation as one of the world's top executive education experiences.

Time to Learn – Learning takes time, and time is a valuable resource for business owners who often forego opportunities to experience the benefits of executive education. OPM offers a realistic solution by limiting participation to only three weeks a year. The program's length and intensity enable business leaders like you to step back from the daily demands of your business, reassess your role within the company, and evaluate your company's performance over time. In other words, OPM allows you to develop a broader, more objective, and more accurate perspective on your business without requiring an extended absence.

Shared Experiences – Small learning teams comprising a range of experiences and talents provide a unique context for personal feedback and professional development. Within these teams, you and your peers will act as mentors, coaches, and advisers—teaching as well as learning, giving and receiving constructive and honest feedback.

Immersion – Residency on campus is required, and active involvement in all program activities is expected. Classes are held six days a week, and you typically will remain fully engaged 14 hours a day. During your stay at HBS, you must remain free of outside responsibilities. Furthermore, due to the intensive curriculum, we strongly recommend that your family not accompany you to Boston.

Relationships for Life – You and your peers will learn and work together, creating a unique sense of community that can last a lifetime. Many OPM alumni keep in close contact with one another by attending OPM reunions and other alumni events, embarking on joint business ventures, and developing a lifelong network of global colleagues.

Within this challenging setting, you are free to focus on yourself—your company's biggest business asset.

"Simply put, the OPM experience changed how I envision both my business and my personal life. I was able to step back, look at my business from 30,000 feet, and plan comprehensively. By broadening my perspective, the program has helped me to ask better questions-and expect better answers. OPM is a must for all."
Kevin Bohm [President], Alarcon Bohm Corporation, U.S.

How OPM Works

A Transformative Experience – OPM is not so much a kind of "continuing education" as it is an all-consuming adventure. Rooted in Harvard Business School's world-renowned case study method, OPM courses immerse you in real-life situations in which you assume the role of decision-maker. Your active participation among peers—tackling complex issues that challenge your skills, assumptions, and talents—offers a life-changing experience that provides more than just information: it facilitates your transformation into a more flexible, more effective leader.

Three Years in Exchange for a Lifetime of Lessons – The time you put into OPM is an investment in your future that will deliver long-term returns for both you and your company. By limiting participation to only three weeks a year, OPM offers a realistic model for meeting your educational, personal, and professional demands. The program's length and intensity enable business leaders like you to gain perspective, reassess your role within the company, and evaluate your company's performance over time.

Individual Growth through Teamwork – Your OPM experience will be directed by a distinguished faculty respected for their contributions to innovative business practices and famed for their love of teaching. But you'll learn from your peers as well. Every facet of the program—from participant selection…to amphitheater classroom seating…to discussion group design…to social activities—is structured purposefully to promote dynamic interchange and shared learning among accomplished peers from diverse companies, industries, and countries. Within these teams, you and your peers will act as mentors, coaches, and advisers—teaching as well as learning, giving and receiving constructive and honest feedback. To reinforce the School's extraordinary sense of community, OPM 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.

In-Depth Immersion – To achieve its ambitious goals, OPM requires on-campus residency and expects active involvement in all program activities. Classes are held six days a week, and you typically will remain fully engaged 14 hours a day. During your stay at HBS, you must remain free of outside responsibilities. Furthermore, due to the intensive curriculum, we strongly recommend that your family not accompany you to Boston. Within this challenging setting, you are free to focus on yourself—your company's biggest business asset.

Relationships for Life – You and your peers will learn and work together, creating a unique sense of community that can last a lifetime. Many OPM alumni keep in close contact with one another by attending OPM reunions and other alumni events, embarking on joint business ventures, and developing a lifelong network of global colleagues.

"OPM is a rich learning experience. The case method and peer interaction enhanced my analytical thinking and deepened my understanding of the groups I lead. Stepping out of my daily routine allowed me to contemplate next steps for myself, my family, and my business."
Raúl X. Ascarrunz [President of New Ventures], GEDESA, Bolivia

An Alumni Network that Sustains Your Growth

Ongoing Connections, Learning, and Networking

Reflecting the School's commitment to foster lifelong learning and to strengthen individual leadership capabilities, HBS will continue to provide OPM graduates with relevant educational resources and opportunities long after the program ends. After completing the program, you will become part of the Harvard Business School alumni network with exclusive access to:

"The opportunity to learn with a diverse group of talented and influential peers is an incredible gift that has changed my perspective on both learning and business. I've formed lifelong friendships with my OPM classmates that will be invaluable throughout my career."
Dennis P. Murphy [President], Hayden Homes, U.S.