The Advanced Management Program (AMP) is a month-long senior executive program designed for a diverse group of experienced leaders seeking transformative learning among global peers. AMP participants will engage in custom learning components led by MIT’s world-renowned faculty, including interactive classroom sessions, management simulations, case studies, 1:1 leadership coaching, and individualized feedback assessments. Participants will also explore the many companies, labs and centers that make MIT and surrounding Kendall Square the epicenter of innovation worldwide.

AMP 2021 application deadlines will be published shortly. Qualified candidates are admitted on a rolling, space-available basis, and space is limited. Early application is encouraged and will increase your chances of being accepted. Applicants in later rounds have a higher likelihood of being deferred or waitlisted.

Are you an experienced executive at an inflection point in your career? Perhaps you’re preparing to move into a C-suite role, or thinking of embarking on an entrepreneurial venture. Are you looking to broaden your global perspective by exchanging success stories (and failures) with peer executives and entrepreneurs from around the world? Are you a progressive leader who is ready to be challenged and to challenge others? Are you ready to grow your network and forge deep, lasting relationships you never thought possible in five short weeks? Then the MIT Sloan Advanced Management Program may be right for you.

MIT Sloan welcomes a select group of experienced executives to an intense, transformative learning experience on campus and in the heart of what is often referred to as “the most innovative square mile on the planet.” Designed to fit the time constraints of seasoned, mid-career executives, AMP runs for 5 consecutive weeks. Limited to a maximum of 35 participants, the program is intentionally diverse, representative of global points of view. Executives in the program may or may not have an advanced degree but all have rich work experience, including P&L responsibility and significant international experience. In line with the MIT Sloan mission, all participants have the ambition and desire to advance management practice and make a broader impact in their organizations and the world.

AMP is delivered as an integrated combination of:

• Lectures
• Case studies
• Business simulations
• Executive panels
• 360° feedback and 1-on-1 leadership coaching
• Team-building experiences
• Personal assessments
• Action learning projects

During the five weeks, participants benefit from:

• Exposure to MIT Sloan’s world-class faculty and their latest research
• Access to the extraordinary innovation ecosystem within and around MIT, including company visits, and tours of labs and centers
• Ongoing challenges to their thinking, leadership style, biases, and expectations of themselves and others
• Time and resources to focus on personal projects and initiatives
• Opportunities to form profound connections with participants and program alumni

AMP participants arrive with sky-high expectations for world-class learning and leading-edge research on a wide range of topics. But the reality is, they leave with much more. AMP alumni take away actionable plans for managing complex, multi-dimensional organizations in volatile, uncertain markets. They return home with renewed energy, a toolbox of new skills and frameworks, a new leadership vision, and a readiness to make a difference in their companies and in the world. And they take with them a global network of unparalleled leaders and the lifelong friendships that they forged here at MIT.

Recent research indicates that most families that achieve financial success—typically through a family company—lose their success within three generations. Why do some family enterprises derail while others prosper? This new program for multigenerational families will help you understand and implement the important driving factors of long-term, enduring, family enterprise success. The course also examines where family enterprises are going and what will drive their success in the future economy.

The Future Family Enterprise program leads multigenerational families through a stimulating week-long conversation that produces clarity on the path ahead for each participating family and its enterprise. Your family will learn practical concepts and tested practices—organized around examples of multigenerational success and failure—to aid your thinking, improve your long-term planning and alignment, and shape the roadmap of your family enterprise system.

In this six-day program (Sunday afternoon to Friday at noon), faculty explore the opportunities, challenges, and future trends for owning, governing, and managing a family company and a broader family enterprise organization over multiple generations. Conversations and class sessions focus on the distinct issues faced by multigenerational families that have survived beyond the founder-stage. The program views the family enterprise through the lens of ownership, helping you to understand the important decisions that are yours to make as well as how to govern and plan for the longevity of your family’s enterprise activities.

In addition to interactive classroom work and exchanges among families from around the world, your family will have daily, private, facilitated discussions with an experienced family enterprise advisor to focus on your interests and agenda. Families should attend in teams spanning two or more generations. Each family team will leave the program with a tailored action plan built together over the course.

Important questions addressed include:

• How is technology shaping industries and companies, and how must family-owned businesses adapt?
• What are the emerging strategies for capitalizing, owning, and controlling family companies?
• What are the trends in governance of multigenerational companies, family offices, ownership groups, families, and foundations?
• How are families themselves modernizing and remaining united in this mobile, globalized world?
• With Generation X assuming leadership roles, and the emergence of the Millennial Generation, how are succession planning and next generation talent development more complex today? How do families prepare for generational transitions in this fast-changing environment?
• What are the latest strategies for steering and sustaining a complex, multigenerational family enterprise, with a growing number of family owners, for another generation or more?

The combined experience of faculty and participants produces deep understandings and even profound transformations for participating families. Your family will have conversations you never anticipated and will leave the program feeling closer and more aligned about your future as a result.

The Future Family Enterprise program is led by MIT Sloan Senior Lecturer John Davis, a pioneer in the family enterprise field and a globally recognized authority on family enterprise, family wealth, and the family office. Davis joined MIT Sloan after leading the family enterprise area at Harvard Business School for more than 20 years. He is an award-winning teacher and researcher and is the creator of some of the field’s most impactful conceptual frameworks. Davis is also Chairman of Cambridge Family Enterprise Group, a global advisory and research organization.

THE MIT EDGE
Working at the intersection of management and technology, MIT Sloan is uniquely positioned to support family enterprises by:

• helping shape the present by applying cutting edge ownership, governance and management practices to the specific context of multigenerational family enterprises
• helping seize the future of family enterprise that is being shaped by technological disruption, innovation, and societal changes

The program is specifically designed for family businesses that have moved beyond the founder stage to the second or third generation of ownership control, or later. It offers a rare opportunity to learn and exchange views with peers from around the globe who understand the complexities of family enterprise systems in later generations and share similar challenges and goals.

True to MIT’s Mens et Manus (mind and hand) learning philosophy, we use a variety of teaching methods to apply the learnings to real work in real time. Through interactive classroom modules, case discussions, exercises, small group work across families and facilitated private family coaching sessions, families are provided opportunities for transformative conversations, problem solving, roadmap building, and aligning on your key goals.

Participation in this program provides a connection to a dynamic and vibrant MIT community. The MIT campus and surrounding Kendall Square is one of the densest startup and innovation clusters in the world, providing the opportunity to experience an unparalleled entrepreneurial ecosystem.

This joint program with IMD helps business leaders successfully manage innovation from concept to commercialization. Drawing on a dynamic and integrative value chain framework created at MIT, participants learn how to build organizational relationships that facilitate knowledge transfer, both within the firm and across the value chain.

How do the most successful innovators generate more than their fair share of smart ideas? How do they unleash the creative talent of their people? How do they move ideas through their organizations and supply chains that are not only creative but fast to market? The answers to these key questions form the core of this program for business leaders and entrepreneurs who are determined to position their companies for future growth.

Offered jointly with IMD, this program will combine marketing, product development, technology assessment, value-chain design, project execution, and talent management in an end-to-end roadmap for achieving breakthrough performance. Using a dynamic and integrative value-chain framework created at MIT, participants will gain the capability to position their organizations for future growth.

The Founder to Family program helps founders, or first generation families-in-business, build a bridge to the next generation. Founders and their family members learn to position their companies and families for ongoing success amid a fast-changing business landscape and increasing family complexity. Structure the planning of your transition to the second generation—no matter how distant or close that transition may be. Keep your family business on a path that builds upon the founder’s groundwork and grows value for another generation or more. Accelerate crucial conversations among the founder and his/her family members to resolve issues and set plans for sustaining family and business success.

Family-owned companies, on average, outperform non-family companies, and those at the founder stage are the best performing among them. There are many competitive advantages and good qualities of first generation family companies that should be continued. At the same time, most founder-stage family companies unfortunately don’t succeed into the second generation. But a family can beat these odds, regenerate their success over generations, and flourish. Companies and families need to evolve to stay relevant and guard against vulnerabilities that can be crippling.

To propel a successful first generation company into the next generation, founders and their families need to develop and successfully blend the next generation into the governance, ownership, management, wealth-building, succession planning, and other important activities of the family. They must foster talent in the management and ownership groups, build good governance of the company, owners and family, and grow assets for future activities.

This 5-day program helps your family learn how to revitalize your success in business and how to integrate the second generation into the plan. It explores the critical elements of managing and owning a high-performance family business, and preparing for the family’s first generational transition—no matter how distant that transition may be. Daily classes with experts explore the complexities of family businesses and the disruptive forces acting on businesses today; family ownership and how to structure and pass it effectively; how to keep the family united and contributing to its enterprise; and how the founder and next generation can partner effectively. Classes stimulate new thinking and promote engaging discussions about the issues family companies at the founder stage face. In addition, every day each family has a private discussion led by an experienced coach to address the topics on their particular agenda which help a family become clear about its goals, capabilities, challenges, and options. By the end of the program each family leaves with an action plan that they can implement going forward.

TRANSITIONAL CHALLENGES
Successful founder-stage businesses are enviable powerhouses in many ways—innovation, growth, and returns on assets to name a few. Much of the company’s success—at least for a while—is due to the strengths of the founder and the organization of the company around him or her. But overreliance on the founder makes growing beyond the founder and transitioning the company to the next generation of the family very challenging. Extending success beyond the founder stage typically requires:

• Building upon the special insights and capabilities of the founder while flexing the company into new products, services, technologies and markets as required.
• Developing an organization and board that utilize strong talent, usually requiring more distributed authority.
• Bringing qualified family members of the next generation into the company or onto the board of the company, developing loyal and supportive owners, and building unity and high standards in the next generation.
• Addressing sibling relationship issues, or other family relationship challenges, that paralyze decision-making or threaten family unity.
• Fairly compensating and rewarding family and non-family contributors to business success.
• Encouraging a timely taking charge of responsibilities by the next generation and the transfer of responsibilities by the founder so the company and family maintain strong momentum.
• Partnering between generations in a mutually advantageous manner.

Added to these traditional requirements are factors that now dramatically affect the success of first-to-second generation transitions: new and often disruptive forces acting on industries and businesses; new generational attitudes about careers and lifestyles; advancements in human longevity; new sources of investment capital; and more plentiful buyers for a family’s successful business. These present both challenges and opportunities for future family and business success.

Much needs to eventually change in generational transitions: the leadership team in the company and how decisions are made, the governance system, eventually the ownership group of the business, even family relationships tend to change some as the next generation assumes responsibilities and authority. Understandably, with roles and relationships shifting, these first-to-second generation transitions are often complicated and emotionally sensitive experiences.
Needless to say, to beat the odds against survival and continued success requires a disciplined game plan.

PROGRAM EXPERIENCE:
Founder to Family: Sustaining Family Business Success provides a supportive and empowering educational and family workshop experience to address the most important interests and issues that families have at the founder stage. Critical topics covered in the program include:

• Deciding the mission and values of the family’s activities that the family wants to perpetuate
• Planning for the growth, evolution, and diversification of the business and the family’s other assets
• Building management talent and management and governance systems to professionalize (increase the capabilities, methods and standards of) the business and family office
• Choosing the right ownership model and building a united and capable ownership group
• Developing a reinvestment and dividend approach that meets company and owner goals
• Developing a united next generation team
• Preparing the next generation to capably assume key roles in and out of the business
• Preparing for an effective generational transition—no matter how distant that transition may be—respecting the interests of both generations and the family company.

The Founder to Family program is led by MIT Sloan Senior Lecturer John Davis, a pioneer in the family enterprise field and a globally recognized authority on family enterprise, family wealth, and the family office. Davis joined MIT Sloan after leading the family enterprise area at Harvard Business School for more than 20 years. He is an award-winning teacher and researcher and is the creator of some of the field’s most impactful conceptual frameworks. Davis is also Chairman of Cambridge Family Enterprise Group, a global advisory and research organization.

COACHING:
The Founder to Family program also provides daily expert coaching of private family discussions that culminate in an action plan for a family’s important next steps. In these facilitated sessions you will be guided in how to:

• Focus on the big objectives facing the family and family business and work for collective interests
• Address natural family tensions, such as competition and different interests, to build a strong family and second-generation team that works well together
• Structure and manage important family conversations that address important topics in a respectful and sympathetic manner.

The combined experience of faculty and participants produces deep understandings and profound transformations for participating families. Your family will have conversations you need to have and will leave the program feeling closer and more aligned about your future as a result.

This two week program blends the perspectives of marketing, design, and engineering into a systematic approach to delivering innovation, and presents methods that can be put into immediate practice. The goal of this program is to help participants become systematic about innovation in order to create value for their businesses and their customers in the globally connected market.

Design and development projects today face a complex landscape of interrelated challenges, including technological feasibility, customer desirability, business viability, and environmental sustainability. This program explores the process of systematic innovation in product development, business processes, and service design, with a special focus on the end-to-end design and development process, beginning with creation and ending with commercialization and ongoing product/service lead­ership.

The program introduces a structured approach to design and customer analysis processes that draws on important trends that have become essential to successful innovation in today’s businesses: the digitization of all business processes; the blending of product and service into integrated solutions; considerations around environmental sustainability; and the use of globally-distributed teams.

Participants will learn how to lead these innovation processes in a fluid world where the best-made assumptions can, and often do, change midstream. Participants will also have an opportunity to discuss these frameworks and apply them to their own personal responsibilities and experiences.

Learn more about the live online experience.
 

Drawing from the vast culture of innovation and entrepreneurship at MIT, this unique course introduces participants to MIT’s entrepreneurial education programs, technology transfer system, and global entrepreneurial network. It covers the entire venture creation process, from generating ideas to building viable global businesses, with a special emphasis on the nurturing roles of corporations, universities, governments, and foundations.

This program leverages MIT's culture of high-tech entrepreneurship to help entrepreneurs, corporate venturing executives, startup companies, and others involved in entrepreneurial environments learn what they need to develop ideas into successful businesses, and how to increase entrepreneurial opportunities in their corporations, institutions, and regions.

Through lectures by senior MIT faculty, visits to local startup companies, and live case studies with successful entrepreneurs, participants will be exposed to the content, context, and contacts that enable entrepreneurs to design and launch successful new ventures based on innovative technologies. Specially designed team projects give participants hands-on training and practical experience developing a business plan, while networking events bring participants together with members of MIT’s entrepreneurial community.

The Executive Program in General Management (EPGM) is a multi-modular general management and leadership program that introduces mid-career managers and leaders to the latest in MIT thought leadership on innovation, strategy, decision-making, and leadership.

EPGM is designed for executives in emerging markets who are looking to reinforce their strengths, learn new skills, connect to other high-achieving managers from around the world, and prepare for the next phase of their career.

The Executive Program in General Management (EPGM) introduces mid-career managers and leaders to the latest in MIT thought leadership on innovation, strategy, decision-making, and leadership. The program exposes participants to the MIT ecosystem, leading MIT faculty, and frameworks. Over the course of the 25 program days, participants learn the skills they need to move to the next level in their companies and the next phase in their careers. This unique multi-modular program is designed around MIT Sloan Executive Education’s three Executive Certificate tracks:
• Management and Leadership
• Strategy and Innovation
• Technology, Operations, and Value Chain Management

The program follows the MIT motto of Mens et Manus — Mind and Hand — the belief that academic development of new knowledge must be paired with the practical application of that knowledge. Classwork is balanced with the application of theoretical concepts to real-world problems through practical projects. Participants are asked to work together to create, staff, and execute projects that they develop over the course of the program, giving them the chance to apply the classroom knowledge to real-world problems. EPGM is designed for executives in emerging markets who are looking to reinforce their strengths, learn new skills, connect to other high-achieving managers from around the world, and prepare for the next phase of their career.

The Learning Experience:
EPGM participants learn in multiple ways in the classroom and beyond:

• Lectures and case studies
• Business simulations
• Leadership coaching
• Project work
• Team-building experiences
• Access to extraordinary Innovation Ecosystem within and around MIT

Embracing “Mens et Manus”
The world knows MIT for its pioneering research and its innovative graduates. But from the very beginning, MIT has also offered a distinctive form of education, deeply informed by science and technology and founded on hands-on research, real-world problem solving, and a commitment to “learning by doing.”
MIT's motto is "Mens et Manus," which translates from the Latin to "Mind and Hand." This motto reflects the educational ideals of MIT's founders who were promoting, above all, education for practical application. Group Projects/ Action Learning is a centerpiece of the MIT Sloan EPGM experience which is designed to:

• Deliver education for practical application
• Promote cross-cultural collaborations
• Create positive social impact
• Prepare participants to succeed in the global economy

Hear what participants have to say about the program. Watch the short videos now.

This program is a transformative learning experience designed to fit the time and language constraints of experienced executives from a wide variety of industries and countries. A new frontier in executive education, it extends MIT content to the non-English speaking world through a multilingual experience. Program topics include: general management, leadership, strategy, innovation, negotiation, analytics management, finance, and productivity.

GEA is an eight-day management and leadership program for experienced executives across the globe. The program is taught in English and materials are translated into multiple languages, with UN-style simultaneous interpretation offered for executives who prefer to participate in their native language.

For 2020, the program will be offered in English with translated materials and simultaneous interpretation offered in Portuguese and Spanish. Additional languages will be considered up until May 8, 2020, provided there is a minimum threshold of need.

Participants who successfully complete the entire program earn an Executive Certificate in Management and Leadership.

For questions, contact execacademy@mit.edu.

Recent MIT research shows that having board members with digital savvy is the new financial performance differentiator. This new course combines a two-day live online program with self-paced online learning components to help individuals and small teams—leaders and board members of large enterprises—increase their digital savviness and have more productive discussions around the opportunities and threats of the digital economy.

Digital transformation involves rethinking how technology can be used to improve business models, value proposition, customer experience, operational efficiency, and more. This means innovating to deliver enhanced products, services, and customer engagement, but it also means having a board of directors that is digitally conversant.

Findings from recent MIT research show that board members who understand the impact of emerging technologies on business success are helping companies outperform competitors. Digitally savvy boards help their companies move forward at a sufficient pace, advocating for change by supporting and sometimes nudging their CEOs.

On the other hand, when a board lacks digital savviness, it can’t get a handle on important elements of strategy and oversight— from cybersecurity breaches and privacy issues to business model disruptions and missed competitive opportunities—and thus can’t play its critical role of helping guide the company to a successful future.