Tag: Executive education



A group of students attends a lecture.

WashU Olin and WashU at Brookings Executive Education offer many courses to heighten the education and careers of its participants. The St. Louis campus as well as at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, offer more than 50 courses. Virtual courses are also available.

Olin alumni now are eligible for special pricing if they decide to take other courses in either location.

The special pricing is available in tiers to various groups of alumni. The largest discount goes to alumni of Olin’s undergraduate and graduate programs, taking 50% off the standard course prices. Those who have completed any of Olin’s certificate programs—from Women’s Leadership to Advanced Management—are eligible for 25% off.

“We are pleased to welcome alumni back to the classroom to explore new topics, expand their expertise and grow professionally,” said Holly Holland, client relations manager at Olin Executive Education. “Our courses provide you the opportunity to sharpen your skills while reconnecting with Olin.”

To register and receive special pricing, send an email to execed@wustl.edu specifying which course they’d like to complete. From there, the Olin Executive Education team will assist in securing special pricing. Consult this course list for more details about the program.

Please note that each course session offers a limited number of discounted seats. Visit Olin Executive Education’s course catalog to view a complete list of available courses.




Many executive education programs focus on building tools for effective management and leadership. Owners of closely held businesses, however, have a different set of concerns—specifically, how to be a strategic and purposeful owner.

For the first time, Olin Executive Education is offering the course “Building Strategic Ownership” via the Koch Center for Family Business. Registration for the January 11-12 course is open now.

“Strategic ownership over a longtime horizon is difficult.” said Peter Boumgarden, Koch Professor of Practice for Family Enterprise and director of the Koch Center.

Peter Boumgarden
Boumgarden

“In a world of quarterly returns, thinking with time horizons of decades or more requires a different set of skills. While many owners have refined their ability through experience over time, having the opportunity to learn from others on this same path and simultaneously be informed by what we know from the research on best practices can be incredibly powerful.”

The course will work with owners to build competence and capability. It will focus on bringing together owners from different sectors and sizes, and then helping them work to define their unique purpose of ownership. With this purpose in mind, the group with work together and with faculty to build ownership competence specific to this goal, and to then think about how they might work to craft a portfolio aligned with this objective with an extended time horizon.

In Boumgarden’s view, the best way to approach the course would be to come as a team, mixing family owners with senior leaders and members of the board.

“It takes a village to do this work well,” he said. “Most of the organizations who would benefit from this course have a bundle of individuals—family and nonfamily, owners and employees—who must coordinate how they approach building an organization for sustainability. The value is crafting owner competence as a collective.”

The organizers encourage teams of two to three from the same business to register, and those teams will receive tuition discounts on the $2,200 course. The course is designed for single owners or senior leaders of a closely held business and leadership teams. A team could consist of two family members and a board member, for example, or a senior nonfamily leader.

“By the end of the program, you’ll be better positioned to create long-term value for the firm in the position you are capable of­—that of a strategic business owner,” Boumgarden said.

Click here to watch a short video about the course.




Katie Voss works in the traditionally male-dominated industry of engineering. Specifically, she works for Boeing and has risen to director of engineering for Boeing Global Services.

One of Olin’s certificate programs helped her get there, the Women’s Leadership Forum.

The program is designed to sharpen the skills women need to succeed in the C-suite or in other positions that require enterprise-wide management. Participants learn how to make decisions confidently, exert power and influence wisely, negotiate strategically and manage change effectively.

Voss enrolled to learn about strategies to help in her career, and the outcome impressed her. The program “provided me with the skills and foundation to give me the confidence to speak up, ask, negotiate and believe in myself.” Since she completed the program in May 2018, Voss has taken on three new roles, two of which were promotions.

‘You want people to see you as a leader’

In some cases, the program taught her some seemingly small but important lessons. “Always take a seat at the table,” she said as an example. Don’t sit to the side of it, along a wall. And please don’t volunteer to cut and serve a cake. “There were so many things I was doing that I didn’t realize how they could be perceived in my career,” Voss said. “You want people to see you as a leader.”

She also learned to negotiate—and to apply to new jobs. “Women often think they are underqualified for new roles when in reality they may be more qualified than others applying for the same role.”

With other like-minded leaders, women in the program expand their readiness for higher-level positions via leadership topics relating to their own career progression. They also develop the necessary skills to lead large teams.

The Women’s Leadership Forum is comprised of six modules held in the live-virtual classroom environment and supported by Olin’s Center for Digital Education. Registration is now open for this cohort-based program that runs January 12 through June 9, 2022. All sessions are held virtually from 8:30–11:30 a.m. CT. Once completed, the certificate counts as six units toward the Advanced Management Certificate.

Sessions will include a mix of lectures, case studies, break-out discussions, role-play exercises and guest speakers. In addition, class material is augmented by independent activities such as assessments, executive coaching and videos, all designed to enhance students’ integration and mastery of key learning points and skills application. Participants finish the program with a clear understanding of the unique value they add to an organization and a career strategy rooted in personal strengths and priorities.

These are the main topics: 

Power, Politics and Informal Leadership: Learn the unwritten rules of the organization by exploring three critical skills of informal leadership: Navigating politics, understanding power and exercising influence.

Cultivating Executive Presence: Learn and apply specific strategies to better use your personal attributes and values to cultivate a strong, authentic executive presence.

Effective Negotiation Strategies: Gain a better understanding of the basic theories of negotiation and improve your ability to maximize total value when negotiating.

Critical Conversations: Learn the underlying structure of critical conversations and hone your capacity to turn disagreement into productive discourse.

Advancing Your Career Path: Evaluate your past and future choices through a strategic framework that accounts for your unique values, priorities, goals and available opportunities. 

Leveraging your Strengths: Assess your personal strengths so you can create a plan to focus on these strengths and use them more often.

Pictured: Katie Voss is director of engineering for Boeing Global Services.