2012 Leadership Conference

After 25 years in an executive search practice, Claudio Fernández- Aráoz is convinced that nothing is more important to success in management than making great people decisions—because everything you achieve depends on the people you’ve chosen. After circling the world at least 10 times a year as a consultant and speaker, meeting thousands of CEOs, senior executives, middle managers, and young professionals, he has realized two things: (1) The most successful leaders are incredibly focused on people decisions, and (2) most leaders find these decisions brutally hard, in part because they didn’t study how to master them. In this keynote session, Fernández-Aráoz will explain why great people decisions matter so much, why they are so hard, and how you can master them. He will also discuss how important it is for business schools to properly educate their students in these crucial leadership skills.
Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, Senior Adviser, Egon Zehnder International

Bio: Claudio Fernández-Aráoz is an expert on hiring and promotion decisions whom BusinessWeek has repeatedly named as one of the world’s most influential search consultants. A senior adviser to the executive search firm Egon Zehnder International, he has been a member of its global executive committee for more than 10 years and has led the firm’s management appraisal practice, its professional development,and the development of its intellectual capital. A frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review, he wrote Great People Decisions, which has been adopted by major organizations and incorporated into the curriculum of leading business schools. He consults with the CEOs of large companies in the Americas, Asia, and Europe as well as with civil services and governments around the world.

You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet: Surviving and Thriving as a New Program Director or Dean This session is intended to be a forum for discussing some of the major themes in MBA program leadership, including student relations, faculty coordination, and program management. While the focus will be on “fundamentals,” the goal is to create dialog and sharing between those who are relatively new to MBA program direction and those who are more seasoned. All are welcome—new and seasoned.

Dave Bussière, Assistant Provost, Admissions and former Director of Graduate Programs for the Odette Business School, University of Windsor
Joe Fox, Associate Dean, MBA Programs, Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis
Gary Fraser, Dean of Students and Associate Dean of MBA Student Affairs, Stern School of Business, New York University
Sarah Fisher Gardial, MBA Roundtable President and Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

A Study of the IMBA Value Proposition
Is your program faced with increased competition from local and global programs? Are you finding it harder to understand and defend your unique value proposition when describing your program to potential candidates and employers? This session will focus on the process that faculty and staff at the Darla Moore School of Business,University of South Carolina went through to understand their IMBA’s unique value proposition and the process they are currently undergoing to redesign and implement changes in their curriculum. Primary research conducted among alumni, corporate partners, recruiters, and current and prospective students helped answer key questions such as: “Why pursue an MBA?” “What makes competing programs different and more or less attractive?” and “Why invest in an IMBA at Moore?” Learn from Moore’s experience and see how it can benefit you in establishing your own unique value proposition.
Martin S. Roth, Professor and Department Chair, Sonoco International Business Department, Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina

Countdown to the Next Generation GMAT® Exam
We are just months away from the launch of the Next Generation GMAT exam, which will feature the new 30-minute section on Integrated Reasoning (IR). IR is designed to measure a test taker’s ability to evaluate information presented in new formats and from multiple sources—skills faculty have identified as critical for success in the classroom and beyond. This session is for you if you have not been a part of previous GMAC presentations on the Next Generation GMAT exam or if you have questions about the test, what it will measure, and how you might use it for your program.
Wayne Patience, Assistant Vice President, Test Development, ACT Ashok Sarathy, Vice President, GMAT Program, Graduate Management Admission Council Sabrina White, Client Services Senior Manager-Americas, Graduate Management Admission Council

Great People Decisions
Building on his keynote speech, Claudio Fernández-Aráoz will lead an interactive workshop which explores:

• A proven process for how to decide when you need to make a people change; how to make better appointments; what to look for in the best candidates and where and how to find them; how to assess, attract, and motivate; and how to properly integrate candidates into a new job.
• Why it’s important for business schools to help students develop these skills and the best approach for incorporating the topic into your curriculum.
• Why business schools must make better people decisions during the admissions process and how to strengthen admissions

Outcomes Measurement in Experiential Learning Initiatives
To ensure that MBA students put into practice what they learn in the classroom, MBA programs worldwide employ a wide variety of action based learning initiatives. Internships, faculty-led consulting projects, and other activities have the added advantage of helping direct-entry students or career switchers gain practical experience in their desired post-MBA professions. How do you articulate learning outcomes and measure the success of these initiatives? Is it possible to create a systematic feedback loop to identify and remedy gaps in the overall curriculum? Panelists will share their own advances in measuring experiential learning results and set the stage for an open discussion about what you should monitor, when, and in what ways.
Amy McHale, Director of Experiential Learning, Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University
Philip Miller, Professional Director, Carlson Consulting Enterprise, Carlson School of Business, University of Minnesota
Moderator: Carleen Kerttula, Executive Director, MBA Roundtable

A Study of the IMBA Value Proposition
Is your program faced with increased competition from local and global programs? Are you finding it harder to understand and defend your unique value proposition when describing your program to potential candidates and employers? This session will focus on the process that faculty and staff at the Darla Moore School of Business,University of South Carolina went through to understand their IMBA’s unique value proposition and the process they are currently undergoing to redesign and implement changes in their curriculum. Primary research conducted among alumni, corporate partners, recruiters, and current and prospective students helped answer key questions such as: “Why pursue an MBA?” “What makes competing programs different and more or less attractive?” and “Why invest in an IMBA at Moore?” Learn from Moore’s experience and see how it can benefit you in establishing your own unique value proposition.
Martin S. Roth, Professor and Department Chair, Sonoco International Business Department, Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina

Countdown to the Next Generation GMAT® Exam
We are just months away from the launch of the Next Generation GMAT exam, which will feature the new 30-minute section on Integrated Reasoning (IR). IR is designed to measure a test taker’s ability to evaluate information presented in new formats and from multiple sources—skills faculty have identified as critical for success in the classroom and beyond. This session is for you if you have not been a part of previous GMAC presentations on the Next Generation GMAT exam or if you have questions about the test, what it will measure, and how you might use it for your program.
Wayne Patience, Assistant Vice President, Test Development, ACT Ashok Sarathy, Vice President, GMAT Program, Graduate Management Admission Council Sabrina White, Client Services Senior Manager-Americas, Graduate Management Admission Council

Great People Decisions
Building on his keynote speech, Claudio Fernández-Aráoz will lead an interactive workshop which explores:

• A proven process for how to decide when you need to make a people change; how to make better appointments; what to look for in the best candidates and where and how to find them; how to assess, attract, and motivate; and how to properly integrate candidates into a new job.
• Why it’s important for business schools to help students develop these skills and the best approach for incorporating the topic into your curriculum.
• Why business schools must make better people decisions during the admissions process and how to strengthen admissions

Outcomes Measurement in Experiential Learning Initiatives
To ensure that MBA students put into practice what they learn in the classroom, MBA programs worldwide employ a wide variety of action based learning initiatives. Internships, faculty-led consulting projects, and other activities have the added advantage of helping direct-entry students or career switchers gain practical experience in their desired post-MBA professions. How do you articulate learning outcomes and measure the success of these initiatives? Is it possible to create a systematic feedback loop to identify and remedy gaps in the overall curriculum? Panelists will share their own advances in measuring experiential learning results and set the stage for an open discussion about what you should monitor, when, and in what ways.
Amy McHale, Director of Experiential Learning, Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University
Philip Miller, Professional Director, Carlson Consulting Enterprise, Carlson School of Business, University of Minnesota
Moderator: Carleen Kerttula, Executive Director, MBA Roundtable

Leading Change in Complex Environments
In today’s uncertain business environment, business schools worldwide are struggling with increased competition, savvier and harder-to-convince candidates, placement challenges, and decreasing endowments, to name just a few common issues. This interactive workshop will provide you with practical management tools to lead
change in your own complex environment. The session will introduce you to change frameworks, strategies that shift the discussion from focusing on problems to evaluating possibilities, and tools to create purposeful dialogue within your business school. Problems, challenges, and opportunities will always spring up; shifting your
own expectations and encouraging internal dialogue about building dynamic processes is the key to today’s leadership survival.
Terri Egan, Director, Master of Science in Organizational Development Program, George L. Graziadio School of Business and Management, Pepperdine University
Gary Mangiofico, Associate Dean for Fully Employed Programs and Executive Programs, and a Practitioner Faculty of Organizational Theory and Management, George L. Graziadio School of Business and Management, Pepperdine University

Social Perceptions: Diversity, Inclusion, and the Unconscious Mind
Breakthroughs in the cognitive sciences and a new understanding of the unconscious mind invite a new level of engagement in valuing differences. Unconscious perceptions govern many of the most important decisions you, as an educator, make. These perceptions have a profound effect on the way you react to situations, including
admission decisions, faculty issues, and student dilemmas. This session provides a comprehensive overview of the impact of unconscious bias on personal beliefs and professional behavior and exposes the hidden beliefs and concealed attitudes everyone has toward others. Key takeaways include a deep examination of how unconscious bias develops, how it affects people and diversity efforts, and its impact on organizational outcomes.
Howard Ross, Chief Learning Officer and Founder, Cook Ross, Inc.

Standing Ovation: Reaching Multiple Audiences Effectively
One of your most difficult communication challenges is no doubt shaping key messages for your many different audiences. As a business school leader, these multiple audiences may include students, faculty, administrative units across the school, senior school and campus leaders, and even external constituencies. This hands-on
workshop will provide techniques to help you better shape and deliver your most crucial messages in presentations and communications for your many core audiences. You will learn about the variation in how
audiences listen, what they listen for, and why you need to craft subtly different strategies for effective communications.
Todd Salovey, Associate Artistic Director, San Diego Repertory Theatre, and Faculty, Rady School of Management, University of California, San Diego

Cultivating an Entrepreneurial Mindset
To succeed in today’s fast-paced, rapidly changing, global business environment, MBAs need to employ the same thought processes that are second nature to successful entrepreneurs—a high propensity for risk, innovation, and achievement. What are business schools doing to develop their students’ entrepreneurial spirit? Join a panel of your colleagues from schools with a strong focus in this area to learn about innovative curricular initiatives and techniques for cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset.
Beth Bristol, Senior Associate Director, Graduate Programs, F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business, Babson College
Joe LiPuma, Professor and Director, IMBA, EMLYON Business School
Rhett Weiss, Executive Director of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Institute, Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University
Moderator: Lydia Price, Associate Dean and MBA Director, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)

How to Create Sustainable Business Leaders
(Repeats at 2:30 pm Thursday)
Graduate management education can play a role in preparing the next generation to implement decisions that make both good business and good-for-the-planet sense. In addition to being the right thing to do, providing sustainability concepts and tools can become a source of competitive advantage for your school as candidates worldwide are choosing programs based on their sustainability curriculum. This session will introduce you to what sustainability really means and provide an in-depth benchmark for best practices, concepts, and processes from business schools worldwide. Imagine the impact a new generation of managers and leaders can have if you arm them with the knowledge and tools to implement sustainability in their business practices, whatever and wherever they are.
Giselle Weybrecht, Independent Consultant and Author of The Sustainable MBA: The Manager’s Guide to Green Business

Managing Your Elective Portfolio
As MBA programs revamp their core curricula to offer more flexibility, providing a balanced portfolio of elective offerings becomes increasingly important. How do you best build and manage a suite of elective offerings? What approaches are schools using to meet faculty, student, and market demands while simultaneously driving innovation and prudently managing resources? Session leaders will share relevant benchmarking survey data and present their approaches to portfolio management. Then each will facilitate an interactive session among attendees, who will be grouped by the size of their elective portfolios.
Sean Ferguson, Assistant Dean of Degree Programs, Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University
Gareth Howells, Deputy Associate Dean, London Business School
Toby McChesney, Assistant Dean of Graduate Recruiting and Student Services, J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University

Research + Press = New Program Success
(Repeats at 2:30 pm Thursday)
This session focuses on two keys to success with new MBA program offerings: (1) pre-design research that helps you distinguish a truly viable program from one that responds to a passing trend and (2) media coverage that helps you spread the word during the program launch and beyond. Among the questions you’ll explore: How do you decide whether to conduct research in house or outsource it? Why do some program offerings succeed while others fail? When a well-researched program is ready to launch, what are reasonable expectations for success? How can a thoughtfully executed media relations campaign help fill seats and drive institutional buy-in? And
what can national or local press coverage of the program realistically do for your faculty, students, alumni, and donors?
Kent Holland, Partner, Plesser Holland Associates
Brian Mahoney, Managing Partner, Percept Research

Be Prepared: Risk Prevention and Crisis Management for Student Travel Programs
Tsunamis... riots... bus crashes... medical emergencies. Is your school prepared if your faculty, staff, and students encounter any of these while they’re abroad on a school-sponsored trip? Do you have communication channels and decision-making processes in place to handle a major crisis? Are you prepared with good in-country contacts and people you trust to call upon? Do you have financial resources set aside to divert and redirect the program if needed? Using their three very different experiences following the Japanese tsunami as a case
study, a panel of school professionals will discuss what they learned from the crisis and how they would answer those questions. Led by an expert travel planner, they will share with you the changes they’ve made to be better prepared for future travel-related disasters.
Diane Badame, Assistant Dean and Academic Director, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California
Bertrand Guillotin, Director, International Programs Office, The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University
Rick Rosenfeld, Director of Client Services and Risk Management, WorldStrides Capstone Programs
Sherilyn Scully, Director, Student and Academic Services, School of Management, Yale University

Critical Thinking@Olin: 2011 MBA Roundtable Innovator Award Winner
Critical Thinking@Olin is a programmatic initiative that fundamentally changes the way business students formulate challenges so that they solve the right problem the first time. This novel approach to teaching
critical thinking was launched in 2007 at Washington University in St. Louis. Integrated across the curriculum, the initiative includes two new courses as well as peer and self-assessments; faculty and staff training on the tools and techniques; and ways to incorporate expectations of critical thinking into all courses throughout the
curriculum. In addition to describing the initiative’s key components and its success, this session will provide you with tools that can immediately improve your own formulation capabilities.
Jackson Nickerson, Frahm Family Professor of Organization and Strategy, Olin School of Business, Washington University in St. Louis; and Associate Dean and Director of the Brookings Executive Education Program

How to Create Sustainable Business Leaders
(Repeats at 2:30 pm Thursday)
Graduate management education can play a role in preparing the next generation to implement decisions that make both good business and good-for-the-planet sense. In addition to being the right thing to do, providing sustainability concepts and tools can become a source of competitive advantage for your school as candidates worldwide are choosing programs based on their sustainability curriculum. This session will introduce you to what sustainability really means and provide an in-depth benchmark for best practices, concepts, and processes from business schools worldwide. Imagine the impact a new generation of managers and leaders can have if you arm them with the knowledge and tools to implement sustainability in their business practices, whatever and wherever they are.
Giselle Weybrecht, Independent Consultant and Author of The Sustainable MBA: The Manager’s Guide to Green Business

Research + Press = New Program Success
(Repeats at 2:30 pm Thursday)
This session focuses on two keys to success with new MBA program offerings: (1) pre-design research that helps you distinguish a truly viable program from one that responds to a passing trend and (2) media coverage that helps you spread the word during the program launch and beyond. Among the questions you’ll explore: How do you decide whether to conduct research in house or outsource it? Why do some program offerings succeed while others fail? When a well-researched program is ready to launch, what are reasonable expectations for success? How can a thoughtfully executed media relations campaign help fill seats and drive institutional buy-in? And
what can national or local press coverage of the program realistically do for your faculty, students, alumni, and donors?
Kent Holland, Partner, Plesser Holland Associates
Brian Mahoney, Managing Partner, Percept Research

The Curious Elusiveness of People-Management Skills: A Critical Challenge for MBA Educators
Most corporate recruiters of MBA talent concede that students come to them with sufficient, if not terrific, analytic and functional expertise. However, the verdict is still out on managerial competence (sometimes referred to as “people skills” or “emotional intelligence”). Indeed, the business press is full of accounts of MBA graduates who lack the people management acumen that firms most seek. In this session, Professor Timothy Baldwin will highlight the results of a recent large-scale study that revealed an arrestingly low level of people-management acumen in MBA students and practicing managers alike. He will then use those results—and illustrations from the assessment measure itself—as grist for a discussion of how MBA education might best respond.
Timothy Baldwin, Eveleigh Professor of Business, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University

Engaging Your Alumni Community
Alumni engagement should be about more than just fundraising; it should also be about “friend-raising.” This session will help you reposition your conversations with alumni to better leverage their involvement and ensure that you engage them in every aspect of your school, from admissions to program to career services. Applying
concepts from the worlds of affinity group management and community involvement, a panel of school professionals will describe their efforts to break down their alumni body into smaller, more
manageable, and better-engaged communities.
Nicole Hall, Executive Director, Alumni and Career Services, George L. Graziadio School of Business and Management, Pepperdine University
Tetsuya O’Hara, Director of Advanced Research and Development, Patagonia
Michael Woodfolk, Vice President, Alumni Relations, Darden School of Business, University of Virginia
Bill Woodson, Assistant Dean, Opus College of Business, University of St. Thomas (UST ), Minnesota

Learning and Education Technologies
Because technology is constantly evolving, it’s hard to stay ahead of the trends. Too often, by the time you get your staff, faculty, and students to use a particular technology, a new one has come along. In this highly interactive session, the panelists will help you gauge what you should know about now. They’ll discuss the educational technologies their schools use and how these technologies help them to address new challenges, make faculty more efficient, and meet student expectations. Panelists will also identify trends on the horizon
and engage with you about technologies that may emerge in the next two to five years.
Don Huesman, Managing Director, Wharton Innovation Group, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Michael Scheuermann, Associate Vice President, Instructional Technology Support, Office of Information Resources & Technology, Drexel University
Jean Talbot, Director, Learning and Teaching Innovation Center, HEC Montréal

A Sneak Preview of the GMAC Soft Skills Assessment
Now more than ever, employers are expecting business programs to deliver graduates who have not only mastered management concepts but also possess key interpersonal, communication, and leadership skills. To help you help students develop these soft skills, GMAC has been using conversations with schools as critical guideposts for exploring possible assessments. Based on the collective information provided by schools, corporations, and experts in the field, GMAC has started to develop a soft skills solution in concert with Hogan
Assessments. By attending this interactive session, you can learn more about the assessment and the competencies it measures as you help GMAC finalize the essential features for this platform.
Eric Chambers, Director, Key Initiatives, Graduate Management Admission Council
Andrew Martelli, Vice President, Product Development, Graduate Management Admission Council

At the beginning of this conference, we challenged you to rethink … everything. As the conference ends, closing keynote speaker David Bach will explore with you the principal drivers of change shaping the global business environment and invite you to contemplate the implications for graduate management education.

What if we have to change … everything? Pulling from lessons learned throughout the conference and his own experience as an educator and program dean, David’s session may raise as many questions as it answers, but it’s sure to leave you refreshed. Join him for a finale that’s unique, fun, and indispensable as we rethink business as usual in 2012 and beyond.

SPEAKER:
David Bach, Professor of Strategy and Economic Environment, IE Business School