The UC Berkeley Center for Executive Education (CEE), based at the Haas School, is seeking UC Regents approval to restructure as a nonprofit organization in order to become more flexible, grow faster, and meet financial goals.
The UC Regents will vote at its November meeting next week on the Haas School's proposal to create a separate 501c3 nonprofit organization that will operate CEE. Under the new structure, the unit’s revenue will continue to flow to the Haas School.
Revenue from CEE supports academic areas and operations of the Haas School, including playing a key role in recruiting and retention of faculty members.
"CEE has become a significant source of revenue for the school, one that needs to be rapidly expanded if the school is to meet its future budget targets," says Dean Rich Lyons. "Restructuring CEE is a logical next step to enable it to grow faster and better serve our executive education clients in an increasingly competitive landscape."
Operating as a nonprofit would give CEE more flexibility to achieve its revenue goals, which currently call for reaching $50 million annually within seven years. That would generate $7.5 million to $10 million a year for Haas and $3.5 million for the UC Berkeley campus.
The new structure will lead to more nimble and incentive-based operations, with much greater flexibility in everything from program delivery to back-office processes.
CEE, which is now a self-supporting unit and receives no state funding, currently serves the worldwide executive education market. It provides Haas with opportunities to teach its distinctive curricular offerings to leading businesses and develop strong ties between its faculty and business practitioners.
Other business schools including University of Virginia, University of North Carolina, Indiana University and Duke, have taken a similar path in running their executive education operations as nonprofit entities.