Executive Education Courses Forge New Ground in Innovation, Ethics

Two new short courses offered by the Center for Executive Education in February will focus on two important issues in today's ideas-driven economy: innovation and ethics.

The new Executive Program in Innovation and the Leading with Ethics and Compliance course are among several new CEE offerings that have been developed as Berkeley-Haas has refined its mission to training path-bending leaders who redefine how we do business.

"Leaders today must be completely comfortable operating in places where there is no playbook," says Assistant Dean of Executive Education Whitney Hischier, MBA 01, who has steered CEE from being a $2 million organization with an annual loss to one with more than $13 million in revenue and significant profits. "Our goal is to offer edgy, experiential programs that are a catalyst for personal and business transformation."

Jerome Engel, founding executive director of the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship, is creating the new innovation course, which will run from Feb. 13 to Feb. 17. It will examine the roles of the enterprise, the individual, and culture in the innovation process.

"This course blends the culture of innovation with the process of innovation," Engel says. "You cannot depend on rule-based systems to drive innovation—culture-driven organizations win."

The ethics and compliance (E&C) course, which will run from Feb. 13 to Feb. 15, has been developed by Mark Meaney, director of ethics and compliance at the University of California Office of the Regents. Meaney says his course is the first of its kind: part of the "third wave" of the ethics and compliance movement, which began with rules and regulations then expanded to company culture. Now, ethics and compliance (E&C) officers are playing key strategic planning roles—and increasingly taking leadership positions.

"When I approached Dean Rich Lyons about offering an ethics and compliance program, I had a ready audience because this is a very important notion for him," Meaney says. "More than ever, E&C officers must understand not only the regulatory environment but also how to get from point A to point B strategically."

E&C officers from companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Catholic Healthcare West will teach alongside Berkeley-Haas faculty.

Learn more about each class at executive.berkeley.edu.

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