Senior Executive Leadership Program—China
- Dates: To Be Confirmed
- Format: In-Person Learning takes place on the HBS campus or a designated location.
- Locations: China, HBS Campus
- Fee: 550,000 RMB

"All the case studies have been very practical, revealing interesting strategies."
Harvard Center Shanghai
Email: vji@hbs.edu
Telephone: +86.21.3852.3888
Harvard Center Shanghai
Email: vji@hbs.edu
Telephone: +86.21.3852.3888

"I learned to reset my mindset and treat each creative work as part of a holistic business strategy."
Harvard Center Shanghai
Email: vji@hbs.edu
Telephone: +86.21.3852.3888
Harvard Center Shanghai
Email: vji@hbs.edu
Telephone: +86.21.3852.3888

"As far as I am concerned, it is never too late to learn a new skill or gain a new perspective."
Harvard Center Shanghai
Email: vji@hbs.edu
Telephone: +86.21.3852.3888
Harvard Center Shanghai
Email: vji@hbs.edu
Telephone: +86.21.3852.3888
Harvard Center Shanghai
Email: vji@hbs.edu
Telephone: +86.21.3852.3888
Harvard Center Shanghai
Email: vji@hbs.edu
Telephone: +86.21.3852.3888
Summary
Today's global business environment offers many exciting prospects for talented executives and ambitious organizations. To take full advantage of emerging opportunities in China and beyond, businesses need exceptional leaders—forward-thinking executives who are skilled at strategy and ready to tackle challenges in the Chinese market, such as copycat competitors, labor costs, and other factors that can slow growth.
Taught in a series of modules offered in Boston and Shanghai, this China senior executive leadership program helps you become a stronger leader who can deliver value in a global context, drive new levels of innovation, and build accountable, high-performance organizations.
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Summary
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Today's global business environment offers many exciting prospects for talented executives and ambitious organizations. To take full advantage of emerging opportunities in China and beyond, businesses need exceptional leaders—forward-thinking executives who are skilled at strategy and ready to tackle challenges in the Chinese market, such as copycat competitors, labor costs, and other factors that can slow growth.
Taught in a series of modules offered in Boston and Shanghai, this China senior executive leadership program helps you become a stronger leader who can deliver value in a global context, drive new levels of innovation, and build accountable, high-performance organizations.
Key Benefits
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Gain new ability to think strategically, seize growth opportunities, and compete successfully both within the region and globally -
Foster the innovations that will improve your organization's ability to deliver value to customers and build brand equity -
Measure, monitor, and communicate corporate performance while driving critical change -
Lead authentically and ethically at all levels and nurture a culture of accountability -
Build confidence in yourself as a leader, decision-maker, and negotiator -
Develop enduring bonds with accomplished peers who span functions, industries, and countries -
Take advantage of resources for lifelong learning as a member of the global HBS alumni community
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Gain new ability to think strategically, seize growth opportunities, and compete successfully both within the region and globally -
Foster the innovations that will improve your organization's ability to deliver value to customers and build brand equity -
Measure, monitor, and communicate corporate performance while driving critical change -
Lead authentically and ethically at all levels and nurture a culture of accountability -
Build confidence in yourself as a leader, decision-maker, and negotiator -
Develop enduring bonds with accomplished peers who span functions, industries, and countries -
Take advantage of resources for lifelong learning as a member of the global HBS alumni community
Who Should Attend
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Large, established companies, either private or state-owned -
Entrepreneurial ventures—either new companies or new ventures within established companies -
Growing family businesses -
Multinational firms with an increased presence in China -
Others whose business interests include success within the region or with a partner in the region -
Nonprofit organizations -
Government agencies, especially those working closely with the private sector
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Large, established companies, either private or state-owned -
Entrepreneurial ventures—either new companies or new ventures within established companies -
Growing family businesses -
Multinational firms with an increased presence in China -
Others whose business interests include success within the region or with a partner in the region -
Nonprofit organizations -
Government agencies, especially those working closely with the private sector
An Exceptional Learning Experience
Alumni Status and Lifelong Learning
Upon completing the Senior Executive Leadership Program—China, you will become a lifetime member of the HBS alumni community—gaining exclusive access to our vast global alumni network and an array of resources that facilitate lifelong learning, growth, and success. Learn more.
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Alumni Status and Lifelong Learning
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Upon completing the Senior Executive Leadership Program—China, you will become a lifetime member of the HBS alumni community—gaining exclusive access to our vast global alumni network and an array of resources that facilitate lifelong learning, growth, and success. Learn more.
Admissions Criteria and Process
The Application Process
Answering Your Questions
Application Submission
Language
Learning Commitment
Application Review
Fee, Payment, and Cancellations
The Application Process
Answering Your Questions
Application Submission
Language
Learning Commitment
Application Review
Fee, Payment, and Cancellations
What You Will Learn
The innovative and comprehensive curriculum of the Senior Executive Leadership Program—China focuses on the challenges of greatest concern to corporate leaders today—across China and the globe. Requiring just seven weeks away from the office over the course of seven months, the unique format maximizes learning and the development of a global perspective, while minimizing consecutive days away from home and work.
Multiple intensive learning modules—in Boston and in Shanghai—include faculty presentations, case discussions, guest speakers, professional coaching, skill-building exercises, and field-based learning. You will examine the practices of successful business leaders around the world and assess your own leadership approach. Between modules, you will work on an individual strategy project and sharpen your leadership skills. As you try out new approaches in your workplace, you will reflect on your experience, receive feedback from your boss and colleagues, and bring new insights back to the classroom.
Participants should expect to spend approximately 25 hours on self-paced case preparation prior to attending Module 1 of the program. Case materials will be made available approximately two weeks prior to program start.
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What You Will Learn
-
The innovative and comprehensive curriculum of the Senior Executive Leadership Program—China focuses on the challenges of greatest concern to corporate leaders today—across China and the globe. Requiring just seven weeks away from the office over the course of seven months, the unique format maximizes learning and the development of a global perspective, while minimizing consecutive days away from home and work.
Multiple intensive learning modules—in Boston and in Shanghai—include faculty presentations, case discussions, guest speakers, professional coaching, skill-building exercises, and field-based learning. You will examine the practices of successful business leaders around the world and assess your own leadership approach. Between modules, you will work on an individual strategy project and sharpen your leadership skills. As you try out new approaches in your workplace, you will reflect on your experience, receive feedback from your boss and colleagues, and bring new insights back to the classroom.
Participants should expect to spend approximately 25 hours on self-paced case preparation prior to attending Module 1 of the program. Case materials will be made available approximately two weeks prior to program start.
Key TopicsExpand AllCollapse All
Positioning your company for successPositioning your company for success
Expand your ability to consider your company as a whole in the context of the local, regional, and global business environments. Diving quickly into the case method of learning, you will gain new insights into leading organizational change.
- Assessing the competition and boosting your firm's competitive edge
- Creating differentiation through innovative products and brands
- Transitioning from labor-cost advantage to premium products
- Succeeding in a slower-growth environment by streamlining your organization and optimizing your supply chain
- Recognizing and selecting the best opportunities in both developed and emerging markets
- Evaluating your leadership style with guidance from faculty, peers, and your professional coach
Creating a high-performance culture in your organizationCreating a high-performance culture in your organization
You will explore proven ways to create an innovation-driven, high-performance culture. This experience will help you lead and manage your teams effectively to ensure alignment between business goals and company direction.
- Mastering the essentials of finance for senior executives, including global investing, capital markets, and risk management
- Creating corporate value by strengthening financial management
- Managing the tensions among profit, growth, and control
- Translating mission and strategy into a comprehensive set of performance targets and measures
- Choosing organizational structures and management systems that promote high-performance cultures
- Understanding the roles of the board of directors, capital market institutions, investors, and independent auditors
- Creating and leading an innovative organization and taking advantage of disruptive technologies and open innovation
Creating customer value and strategic advantageCreating customer value and strategic advantage
You will explore the nature of market strategy and examine how companies build competitive advantage by focusing on specific markets and delivering what customers truly value. You also will work on a Value Mapping strategy project while continuing to work with your professional coach.
- Rethinking brand strategy in light of changing markets and consumer behavior
- Recognizing the new opportunities and challenges created by digital technology
- Determining whether to operate locally, regionally, or globally—and how large your organization must be to thrive
- Executing successful mergers and acquisitions and building effective partnerships
- Formulating strategic objectives and implementing strategies to create competitive advantage and stakeholder value
- Fostering a culture of customer centricity to optimize the customer experience
- Identifying actionable market segments, implementing segment-specific strategies, and assessing customer lifetime value
- Developing and leveraging advantage through service excellence and operational capabilities
Becoming a transformational leaderBecoming a transformational leader
You will explore how to improve your personal performance as a leader and how to manage yourself, your team, and your larger organization. Focusing on a key executive skill—negotiation—you will engage in hands-on exercises that improve your ability to drive optimal outcomes. As you pull program themes together, you will emerge better prepared to build an agile company that can sustain success.
- Launching and managing products, product portfolios, and brands
- Investing in talent and leading and managing teams
- Examining how digital technologies and big data affect business models in all industries, enabling new value creation and value capture approaches
- Closing deals and resolving disputes in a manner that creates value for all parties
- Managing situations in which much of the real action takes place away from the negotiating table
- Understanding and driving the changes that align your organization to achieve its strategic goals
- Shaping innovation, learning, and change by cultivating your leadership style and behavior
- Building ambidextrous organizations that can both innovate and execute strategy
Positioning your company for success
Expand your ability to consider your company as a whole in the context of the local, regional, and global business environments. Diving quickly into the case method of learning, you will gain new insights into leading organizational change.
- Assessing the competition and boosting your firm's competitive edge
- Creating differentiation through innovative products and brands
- Transitioning from labor-cost advantage to premium products
- Succeeding in a slower-growth environment by streamlining your organization and optimizing your supply chain
- Recognizing and selecting the best opportunities in both developed and emerging markets
- Evaluating your leadership style with guidance from faculty, peers, and your professional coach
Creating a high-performance culture in your organization
You will explore proven ways to create an innovation-driven, high-performance culture. This experience will help you lead and manage your teams effectively to ensure alignment between business goals and company direction.
- Mastering the essentials of finance for senior executives, including global investing, capital markets, and risk management
- Creating corporate value by strengthening financial management
- Managing the tensions among profit, growth, and control
- Translating mission and strategy into a comprehensive set of performance targets and measures
- Choosing organizational structures and management systems that promote high-performance cultures
- Understanding the roles of the board of directors, capital market institutions, investors, and independent auditors
- Creating and leading an innovative organization and taking advantage of disruptive technologies and open innovation
Creating customer value and strategic advantage
You will explore the nature of market strategy and examine how companies build competitive advantage by focusing on specific markets and delivering what customers truly value. You also will work on a Value Mapping strategy project while continuing to work with your professional coach.
- Rethinking brand strategy in light of changing markets and consumer behavior
- Recognizing the new opportunities and challenges created by digital technology
- Determining whether to operate locally, regionally, or globally—and how large your organization must be to thrive
- Executing successful mergers and acquisitions and building effective partnerships
- Formulating strategic objectives and implementing strategies to create competitive advantage and stakeholder value
- Fostering a culture of customer centricity to optimize the customer experience
- Identifying actionable market segments, implementing segment-specific strategies, and assessing customer lifetime value
- Developing and leveraging advantage through service excellence and operational capabilities
Becoming a transformational leader
You will explore how to improve your personal performance as a leader and how to manage yourself, your team, and your larger organization. Focusing on a key executive skill—negotiation—you will engage in hands-on exercises that improve your ability to drive optimal outcomes. As you pull program themes together, you will emerge better prepared to build an agile company that can sustain success.
- Launching and managing products, product portfolios, and brands
- Investing in talent and leading and managing teams
- Examining how digital technologies and big data affect business models in all industries, enabling new value creation and value capture approaches
- Closing deals and resolving disputes in a manner that creates value for all parties
- Managing situations in which much of the real action takes place away from the negotiating table
- Understanding and driving the changes that align your organization to achieve its strategic goals
- Shaping innovation, learning, and change by cultivating your leadership style and behavior
- Building ambidextrous organizations that can both innovate and execute strategy
Special Program FeaturesExpand AllCollapse All
Living/learning group workLiving/learning group work
A multi-module program creates the opportunity to build close, trusting relationships with a small, diverse group of peer executives who can understand your challenges—but are not part of your organization. Throughout the program, you will work with a small group of peers who will stimulate your learning as you:
- Absorb global insights by working with executives from different countries, cultures, and professional backgrounds
- Share diverse perspectives as you discuss cases and assignments
- Complete small-group exercises and projects as a team
- Give and receive feedback and advice—personal and professional—in a safe environment
While on the HBS campus in Boston, you will share living quarters with your learning group, forging relationships that serve as a valuable source of peer feedback, support, and advice.
Professional coachingProfessional coaching
Each living group works with a professional coach to optimize group dynamics and maximize the value of the group learning experience. In addition, your coach will work with you one-on-one to help you develop a personal leadership style that works for you.
Value mapping strategy projectValue mapping strategy project
Throughout the program, you will work on an individual project that addresses a strategic challenge facing your organization. In the process, you will:
- Utilize a powerful framework for analyzing the value of your offering or business line, considering value from the customer's perspective
- Compare your own offering with those of competitors
- Refine your competitive strategy and develop a short presentation based on feedback from faculty, peers, and your professional coach
- Share your Value Mapping strategy with your organization and team, and develop an action plan for driving the changes that will improve value and sustain success
Living/learning group work
A multi-module program creates the opportunity to build close, trusting relationships with a small, diverse group of peer executives who can understand your challenges—but are not part of your organization. Throughout the program, you will work with a small group of peers who will stimulate your learning as you:
- Absorb global insights by working with executives from different countries, cultures, and professional backgrounds
- Share diverse perspectives as you discuss cases and assignments
- Complete small-group exercises and projects as a team
- Give and receive feedback and advice—personal and professional—in a safe environment
While on the HBS campus in Boston, you will share living quarters with your learning group, forging relationships that serve as a valuable source of peer feedback, support, and advice.
Professional coaching
Each living group works with a professional coach to optimize group dynamics and maximize the value of the group learning experience. In addition, your coach will work with you one-on-one to help you develop a personal leadership style that works for you.
Value mapping strategy project
Throughout the program, you will work on an individual project that addresses a strategic challenge facing your organization. In the process, you will:
- Utilize a powerful framework for analyzing the value of your offering or business line, considering value from the customer's perspective
- Compare your own offering with those of competitors
- Refine your competitive strategy and develop a short presentation based on feedback from faculty, peers, and your professional coach
- Share your Value Mapping strategy with your organization and team, and develop an action plan for driving the changes that will improve value and sustain success
The HBS Advantage
The Senior Executive Leadership Program—China is developed and taught by HBS faculty who are widely recognized as skilled educators, groundbreaking researchers, and award-winning authors. Through their board memberships, consulting, and field-based research, they address the complex challenges facing business leaders across the globe.
Andreas Andresen Professor of Business Administration
Herbert F. Johnson Professor of International Management
John Shad Professor of Business Ethics
C. D. Spangler Professor of Business Administration
Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Business Administration
Mizuho Financial Group Professor of Finance
Thomas Henry Carroll/Ford Foundation Professor of Business Administration
UPS Foundation Professor of Service Management
Senior Lecturer of Business Administration
MBA Class of 1961 Professor of Management Practice of Business Administration
Tandon Family Professor of Business Administration
Senior Lecturer of Business Administration
Dorothy and Michael Hintze Professor of Business Administration
James Dinan and Elizabeth Miller Professor of Business Administration
Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration
Ross Graham Walker Professor of Business Administration
F. Warren McFarlan Associate Professor of Business Administration
Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration
Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Management Practice in Business Administration
Baker Foundation Professor, Charles M. Williams Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus
Philip J. Stomberg Professor of Business Administration
William Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration
Senior Lecturer of Business Administration
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The HBS Advantage
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The Senior Executive Leadership Program—China is developed and taught by HBS faculty who are widely recognized as skilled educators, groundbreaking researchers, and award-winning authors. Through their board memberships, consulting, and field-based research, they address the complex challenges facing business leaders across the globe.
Faculty ChairAndreas Andresen Professor of Business Administration
HBS Unit:StrategyFacultyHerbert F. Johnson Professor of International Management
HBS Unit:Business, Government and the International EconomyJohn Shad Professor of Business Ethics
HBS Units:General ManagementStrategyC. D. Spangler Professor of Business Administration
HBS Unit:Technology and Operations ManagementBruce V. Rauner Professor of Business Administration
HBS Unit:General ManagementMizuho Financial Group Professor of Finance
HBS Units:FinanceEntrepreneurial ManagementThomas Henry Carroll/Ford Foundation Professor of Business Administration
HBS Unit:Business, Government and the International EconomyUPS Foundation Professor of Service Management
HBS Unit:Technology and Operations ManagementSenior Lecturer of Business Administration
HBS Unit:Organizational BehaviorMBA Class of 1961 Professor of Management Practice of Business Administration
HBS Unit:Entrepreneurial ManagementTandon Family Professor of Business Administration
HBS Unit:Negotiation, Organizations & MarketsSenior Lecturer of Business Administration
HBS Unit:Technology and Operations ManagementDorothy and Michael Hintze Professor of Business Administration
HBS Unit:Technology and Operations ManagementJames Dinan and Elizabeth Miller Professor of Business Administration
HBS Unit:Organizational BehaviorEdsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration
HBS Unit:MarketingRoss Graham Walker Professor of Business Administration
HBS Units:Accounting and ManagementGeneral ManagementF. Warren McFarlan Associate Professor of Business Administration
HBS Unit:Business, Government and the International EconomyCharles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration
HBS Unit:StrategyRobert and Jane Cizik Professor of Management Practice in Business Administration
HBS Unit:Technology and Operations ManagementBaker Foundation Professor, Charles M. Williams Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus
HBS Unit:Accounting and ManagementPhilip J. Stomberg Professor of Business Administration
HBS Unit:Accounting and ManagementWilliam Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration
HBS Unit:Technology and Operations ManagementSenior Lecturer of Business Administration
HBS Unit:Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
Your Peers Expand Your Learning
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Your Peers Expand Your Learning
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Global PerspectiveExperience the world in your classroom.