Chief Strategy Officer

In September, I started a new course at the Wharton School of Business Executive Education program. It’s a Chief Strategy Officer certificate program. 

I’m now about half way through the course and I am really enjoying it. Here are four things I have learned so far. I will probably elaborate more on each of them in future posts.

1. New ways to quantify and use equations to express concepts. Sometimes it is just making an insight sound science-y instead of intuition-based. But sometimes it helps to put a framework on a jumble of ideas in order to weigh them more accurately and to look for what is missing in a data set.

2. The early part of the course was an opportunity to analyze the strategy work I have done before. It gave me a chance to reflect on my last job and to understand more clearly why some things worked and some things were harder.

3. How to apply the concepts across different industries, some I know a little about, like health care and finance and construction, and some I knew very little about, like entertainment and business aviation. It is really helpful to be in a course with other experienced professionals and to consult with each other about how the tools we are learning can work in new contexts.

4. I enjoy this kind of thinking and the people who also want to have these conversations. I like asking “What if?” and “Why not?” And I am enjoying getting to know my classmates, mostly online, but also the one in-person event we organized. 

I am really glad I started the course. It was a big investment for me, and the first academic credential I have pursued in a long time. But I can see that it will be helpful for me in my future career goals. If you have any questions about it, please ask! I'd love to talk about it.