The Corporate Leader How Corporate Managers Contribute Value

What You Can Expect

Focusing on the unique challenges that today's financial situation present, The Corporate Leader is designed to provide you with an in-depth understanding of your role as a driver of corporate performance—from supporting individual business units and building strong teams to crafting effective compensation and incentive programs to facilitating effective corporate-division relationships. You will leave the program with valuable tools and proven concepts that ensure that your actions contribute directly to corporate and business unit success.

As an executive working at the corporate level, you are presented with a wide range of competing priorities as you strive to help your multidivisional or multinational company achieve its potential. Recognizing that many of the issues addressed at the corporate level are fundamentally different from those facing business unit leaders, the Harvard Business School Executive Education program The Corporate Leader provides a thorough grounding in the role of corporate executive.

By completing this program, you will be better able to:

  • Cultivate a leadership approach that meets the needs of a multibusiness company
  • Manage the competing demands on leaders of a multibusiness company—from capital markets, product markets, and diverse constituencies within the company
  • Think critically about all potential sources of value and strategic advantage—including innovation within existing businesses, as well as acquisitions, strategic partnerships, restructuring, or spin-offs
  • Develop maximally productive relationships with colleagues in the corporate office, with business unit leaders, and—by disseminating corporate vision—with every employee who contributes to your company's success
  • Understand how corporations go astray, and how corporate leaders can prevent common problems

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.

"Every now and then, it is good to be confronted with—and immersed in—one's role within the company. Otherwise, one tends to become completely absorbed by the daily pressures. The program gave me the opportunity to step back and examine not only my corporate role, but also my company's role within the community and the business environment."
Matthias Seidl [Chief Operating Officer of Brand Volkswagen], Volkswagen of America, Inc., U.S.