The Accelerated Development Program

The Accelerated Development Program offers a powerful solution: maximum exposure to key business concepts and strategies in an intensive, multimodular format consisting of three academic modules on Chicago Booth campuses in Hong Kong, London, and Chicago; one field immersion module in New Delhi; and four online modules. ADP’s modular format mean you can apply new knowledge to the workplace in real time as the program progresses.

As an executive ready to lead your organization in these challenging times and take that next step in your career, you need access to the latest thinking and tools to competitively position yourself and your business—for today and for the future. You need to continue your focus on daily operations and ensure the viability of your organization but enhance your social capital as well as future growth prospects. You will learn advanced management concepts and tools from world-renowned faculty at one of the world's most prestigious and highly acclaimed business schools.

By attending this program, you will:

• Develop a comprehensive understanding and gain insight into the critical functional areas within a company.
• Learn how to manage across functional areas and lead cross-functional teams.
• Strengthen strategic decision-making skills and enhance strategic thinking.
• Build and learn to shape organizational culture and structures that create value.
• Network and establish long-term relationships with key executives from other organizations.
• Learn strategic tools and techniques to manage future growth.
• Position yourself to take on more strategic, general management roles.
• Gain greater self-awareness and understanding of how you work with others.
• Develop a persuasive leadership plan with the help of a professional coach.

Program outline

Sample schedule:

*Module 1 (Off-Campus) *

Core Foundational Module - Financial Accounting (Online)

This Financial Accounting module is an introduction to the fundamental concepts of financial accounting in a management context. The module teaches participants how accounting systems are used to record the day-to-day economic activities of a business. Participants learn fundamental accounting concepts and then apply those concepts in a detailed examination of the financial statements used to describe the business. Throughout the module, participants are presented with real-world challenges that require them to interpret the financial data to find answers.

Financial Accounting (Live Online)

Accounting is often referred to as the ‘language of business.’ Learn how to use financial statements and accounting choices to evaluate a firm.

• Financial statement analysis, forecasting, and working capital management
• Revenue recognition, accounting choices, accruals, and cash flows
• Drivers of Industry capital structures and estimating capital requirements
• Financial analysis for decision making and performance evaluation

Core Foundational Module - Corporate Finance (Online)

This module provides a fundamental understanding of the principles, analytical tools, and knowledge needed to make good investment and financing decisions. The module introduces participants to finance ratios, forecasting methods, capital structure theory, and risk-return analysis and then asks them to apply these concepts in several different approaches to valuing a business.

Live Faculty Interactions

Multiple live interaction sessions are scheduled at regular intervals to discuss the latest thinking, case study, research or a topic of contextual importance. Such topics could include:

• Leadership Action Journal (Leadership check-in)
• Platform Strategy

*Module 2 (On-Campus: Chicago) *

Competitive Strategy

Learn how to make the best competitive decisions for your company based on concepts from microeconomics and game theory

• Industry economics and profitability, game theory, and competitor analysis
• Factors affecting firm efficiency, competitiveness, and profitability
• Dynamics of price competition and how to shape it to your advantage
• Strategic decisions around market entry and competitive resources

Strategy Formulation and Implementation

A stimulating strategy drives business. Therefore, the ability to formulate strategy is probably the most important skill any executive can possess. This module will improve the participant’s intuition about strategy and the confidence to predict future performance to maximize growth. This session is much more than a review of theories. Participants will generate real ideas that are immediately applicable to their particular situation.

• Understanding the vital difference between goals, strategy, and management: Which are easy and which are difficult?
• Separating business success into strategy, leadership, and luck: How to understand your role in each
• The role of top management in setting strategy: What is the real challenge great strategists see?
• Collecting data to build your strategy: How to decide which data are useful among the many sources
• Thinking like a strategist: How is it that great strategists develop their ideas?
• Great business success stories: How to understand the way executives influence outcomes with strategy
• Focus as a growth strategy: Why financial markets value this approach
• Understanding the limits of strategy: What to do when strategy is not able to help
• What you can do to improve your “strategy sense”, How to see strategy ideas all around you
• Expert decision making: creating and evaluating alternative solutions

Strategic Marketing and Data-Driven Decisions

Data and analytics have climbed to the top of the corporate agenda. And as data-driven strategies take hold, they will become an increasingly important point of competitive differentiation. This workshop will focus on:

• Strategic marketing
• Business model canvas
• Data led decisions and use of data analytics

Innovation Mindset

Innovation can potentially benefit any firm in any industry. For some firms, innovation is a critical determinant of success. Learn how creativity and business innovation can be taught, practiced, and refined like other business processes.

*Module 3 (Off-Campus) *

Live Faculty Interaction

Continuing live interaction sessions are scheduled at regular intervals to discuss the latest thinking, case study, research or a topic of contextual importance:

• Management of Organization
• Social Capital
• Coaching and Mentorship (Leadership check-in)

Managerial Finance

Develop a financial approach to managerial decision making, set within the context of a firm's strategic objectives.

• Investment and financial decisions—tying finance to the strategy of the firm
• Capital markets and the corporate manager
• Exploring capital structures, cost of capital, diversification, risk, capital budgeting, and acceptable ROI
• Diverse financial approaches, including methods of valuation

Entrepreneurial Leader

Entrepreneurship has become core Management learning and most managers are also expected to be entrepreneurial leaders. It is imperative to understand how you can enhance your skills and think and act in a manner that enhances your own equity as well as that of the firm. It is also important to understand the venture capital and private equity landscape should you chose to become an entrepreneur or work for a fast-growing organization that has raised capital or even if you want to pursue M&A of such organizations. Participants can leverage new knowledge and techniques to assess the desirability and value of investment projects, corporate assets, and acquisitions.

• Introduction to Venture Capital: A Toolkit for Analyzing and Financing Startups
• Commercializing Innovation: Tools to Research and Analyze Private Enterprises
• Entrepreneurial Finance and Private Equity
• M&A

High-Performance Leadership

This module will teach you the theories and tools needed to create a high-performance work environment that drives financial results and innovation.

• Learn what drives high performance in uncertain economic times
• Explore how good leaders manage change
• Learn how to optimize thinking during change
• Take the CliftonStrengths profile to discover your strength

*Module 5 (Off-Campus) *

Live Faculty Interaction

Continuing live interaction sessions are scheduled at regular intervals to discuss the latest thinking, case study, research or a topic of contextual importance

• Behavioral Economics

Module 6 (On-Campus: New Delhi)

Our partner, Northwest Education, shall deliver this workshop based module on contextual topics and skillset that add an important dimension in your continued growth as a senior executive.

India Immersion

The immersion is designed to expose participants to the culture and ethos of Indian industry and includes exposure to large corporates as well as fast-growing startups that are serving both local and global markets. Several of these would be led by Chicago Booth Alumni which promises to also expand the network for participants and bring them closer to the very tight-knit community across the globe.

Competitive Advantage through Operations

This workshop will cover the following key topics through case studies and hands-on simulations:

• Creating competitive advantage through operations
• Operations simulation
• Problem solving methods and frameworks

Managing and Driving Corporate Performance

This workshop on driving corporate performance will focus on tools and techniques to measure and improve corporate performance and cover the following topics:

• Measuring and driving corporate performance – The Balanced Scorecard approach
• Balanced Scorecard simulation
• Managing performance in portfolio companies for Corporate Groups and Private Equity investors

Module 7 (Off-Campus)

Core Foundational Module - Management Communications (Online)

This module provides participants with the skills and guided practice necessary to master important concepts in business communication. A special emphasis is placed on planning, writing, and presenting as students learn how to lead more effectively through well-organized and successfully-executed business communication strategies.

Live Faculty Interaction

Continuing live interaction sessions are scheduled at regular intervals to discuss the latest thinking, case study, research or a topic of contextual importance:

• Authentic leadership (Leadership check-in)

*Module 8 (On-Campus: Chicago) *

Strategic Risk Management and Financial Fragility

• Analyze the sources of financial fragility
• Learn the components of effective risk management

Negotiation and Decision-Making Strategies

Drawing on the latest research in the psychology of judgment and Decision Making Processes, you will learn how to negotiate hard with integrity, using the basic influence techniques used by professional negotiators. You will learn to recognize flaws in your negotiation and decision-making processes, develop frameworks for making sound decisions, and create a system to monitor, improve, and implement your skills. You will also learn techniques that will enhance your influence within your company and with your clients and vendors.

• Develop insights on how to make intuitive decisions
• Learn strategies for analysis and preparing for negotiations
• Learn techniques for Creating Value
• Know what information is needed to negotiate effective outcomes
• Develop methods of achieving Goals in a Multiple‐issue Negotiation
• Assess decision-making skills and develop plans to improve performance

Persuasive Leadership

Businesses don’t lead unless individuals lead. Leadership operates at many levels, including country, industry, business, product, and personal levels. In this session, participants will look at a number of tools and skills to grow their existing business or lead a new venture off the ground. They will explore the knowledge, skill, and discipline that build leadership abilities and will learn to tell compelling stories that allow people to follow the direction they set.

• Recognize the leadership phases through which all companies progress and anticipate the hurdles that cause us to stumble
• Develop the entrepreneurial mindset in taking your business to the next level
• Begin incorporating the characteristics of entrepreneurial leadership into your own leadership identity
• Identify and fortify your personal combination of knowledge, skill, and discipline to enhance your leadership abilities and potential
• Learn to build your social capital by building your network
• Improve your ability to lead conversations and run high impact meetings
• Practice and apply three story tools that will hone your skill and discipline in telling the right stories at the right time for the right reasons
• Develop an action plan to continue to lead more effectively and to grow your personal leadership capabilities for the business