New Name, New Energy for Social Sector Leadership at Haas

The new name and accompanying logo signify the center’s broader mission of defining the social sector for the next century. The center will groom a new generation of business leaders to foster social impact across sectors, through research, a fellows program, and experiential courses that allow students to complete consulting projects.

“The biggest challenges we face as a society cannot be addressed by only government, only the private sector, or only nonprofits,” says Ben Mangan, executive director of the Center for Social Sector Leadership. “The future requires collaboration between these sectors, and Berkeley-Haas is arguably the best place to define how this next generation of problem solving works.”

The center, which ranked #3 among nonprofit management programs in this year’s U.S. News & World Report’s graduate business school rankings, is training MBA students to become multi-sector leaders with the skills to move effectively between the worlds of corporate leaders, public advisors, as well as nonprofit and social enterprise boards.

Along with the name change, the center is adding several new initiatives to its flagship Berkeley Board Fellows Program and Social Sector Solutions applied innovation course.

Faculty Director Nora Silver says Haas is the first business school to study and identify the specific skills that make an effective multi-sector leader. Working with Haas Adjunct Professor Paul Jansen, a director emeritus at McKinsey & Co., and graduate students, Silver plans to release the study in late 2015. She and Jansen then plan to roll what the team has learned during its research into a new course at Haas that will teach these specific multi-sector leadership skills.

Additionally, this fall, Mangan will for the first time co-teach the Social Lean LaunchPad course with Haas Lecturer Jorge Calderon. The course applies the Lean LaunchPad methods and tools used to start a company to the social sector.

In March 2016, the Center for Social Sector Leadership will roll out a new educational program for families and individuals interested in increasing their impact through philanthropy and impact investing. Open to the public, the two-day educational event will be held off campus, followed by six weeks of online work and ongoing events and educational opportunities.

The center will continue to be part of the Haas School’s Institute for Business and Social Impact, led by Professor Laura Tyson.

 

 

 

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