UC Berkeley campus
EO members have an insatiable thirst for learning and are constantly looking for the next great innovative idea that will propel their business further. During the Executive Education Sampler, members can participate virtually in engaging learning to analyze and develop groundbreaking strategies and skills that will help their businesses grow. Check out the virtual workshops session descriptions below!
Dr. Sara Beckman
- Speaker Biography
Sara Beckman has spent her years as a boundary spanner at UC Berkeley, where she has held faculty appointments in both the Haas School of Business and the Department of Mechanical Engineering. She served as Chief Learning Officer for the newly formed Jacobs Institute of Design Innovation and facilitated the creation of a multi-disciplinary Certificate in Design Innovation. She teaches courses such as Collaborative Innovation which integrates Art Practice, Theater and Dance Performance Studies, and Business perspectives on both collaboration and innovation.
Beckman’s research focuses on the pedagogy of teaching design and on the role of diversity on design and innovation teams for which she developed a Teaming with Diversity curriculum that is being used in classes in engineering, biological sciences, humanities, and business courses at UC Berkeley as well as at a local high school. She has published case studies on design for sustainability, design road mapping, and leveraging design approaches in sales processes.
Beckman directs the Product Management Program for the Berkeley Center for Executive Education, serving over 350 product managers from around the world each year and works with a wide variety of companies teaching and helping them implement design and innovation practices. In her time at UC Berkeley, she has received three Distinguished Teaching Awards at Haas, the campus-wide Distinguished Teaching Award, and in 2018 the Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Senior Faculty.
Before joining UC Berkeley, Beckman worked in the Operations Management Services group at Booz, Allen & Hamilton and ran the Change Management Team at Hewlett-Packard. She received BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees in Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management and an MS in Statistics from Stanford University.
Sara also co-creates impactful custom programs for our corporate, government, and university partners.
- Speaker Session
UC Berkeley Virtual Workshop – The Innovation Cycle with Dr. Sara Beckman
Session Abstract:
The innovation cycle is an iterative four-step process that focuses on the Why and How of problem framing and solving. By first observing and noticing a customer’s experience, we start to find interesting patterns that get underneath the hood and form the framing of a problem. These data points become necessary components for how we come up with ideas to solve our customers’ pain points through brainstorming (diverge) and consolidation (converge), making and experimenting to create informed solutions to customers’ pain points.
John Mullins
- Speaker Biography
An award-winning teacher and scholar and one of the world’s foremost thought leaders in entrepreneurship, John brings to his teaching and research 20 years of executive experience in high-growth retailing firms, including two ventures he founded and one he took public.
Since becoming an entrepreneurship professor in 1992, John has published five books, dozens of cases, and more than 50 articles in a variety of outlets, including Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, and The Wall Street Journal. His research has won national and international awards from the Marketing Science Institute, the American Marketing Association, and the Richard D Irwin Foundation. He is a frequent and sought-after speaker and educator for audiences in entrepreneurship and venture capital.
John’s first and recently updated trade book, The New Business Road Test: What Entrepreneurs and Investors Should Do Before Launching a Lean Start-up (1e 2003; now 5e, London: FT Publishing 2017), has become the definitive work on the assessment and shaping of entrepreneurial opportunities and is widely used by investors and entrepreneurs and in university courses worldwide.
His second book, the critically acclaimed Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model (Boston: Harvard Business Press 2009), co-authored with Randy Komisar, a partner at the esteemed venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, was named to “Best Books of 2009” lists by BusinessWeek and INC Magazine.
John’s newest book, The Customer-Funded Business: Start, Finance or Grow Your Business with Your Customers’ Cash, (Jersey City, Wiley 2014), was named one of five “not-to-be-missed books” for 2014 by Fortune magazine. It challenges the widely held assumption that among an entrepreneur’s first and most important tasks is that of raising investment capital. Its materials provide the foundation for his MOOC on Coursera.org, How to Finance and Grow Your Startup – Without VC.
John has done executive education on five continents for a variety of organizations both large and small, including the Young Presidents’ Organization, Endeavor, the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, Kenya Airways, Merck-Serono, 3M, the European and African Venture Capital Associations, and the IFC, among many others. He has served on the boards of fast-growing entrepreneurial companies in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia.
- Speaker Session
London Business School Virtual Workshop – What makes entrepreneurs ‘entrepreneurial’? with Professor John Mullins
Session Abstract:
Getting any new venture started is no easy feat. But, as every entrepreneur knows, the new venture failure statistics are daunting. Thus, an even more difficult challenge every founding entrepreneur faces once the business gets underway is how to plot a pathway that will lead to survival and ultimately to success. This session provides an opportunity to examine such a setting and, in doing so, examine some of the characteristics that make entrepreneurs ‘entrepreneurial’.
Spencer Harrison
- Speaker Biography
Spencer Harrison is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at INSEAD. His award-winning research has been published in top scientific journals in addition to Harvard Business Review and mentioned in Fast Company, Money, and INC magazines, among others. He is a TED speaker, a founder of The Creative Collaboratorium (the world’s largest working group of creativity researchers), and founder of Curiosity at work, INC. He helps organizations map and revitalize their culture, develop practices that enhance creativity and innovation, and manage and measure transformational change. He has worked with Google, Salesforce, Danfoss, Atos, Cargill, Schneider Electric along with other top organizations.
- Speaker Session
INSEAD – The Curiosity Edge with Professor Spencer Harrison
Session Abstract:
Curiosity is one of the most human skills. We can think of it as an element. Like carbon or oxygen, curiosity is the building block of other human skills. In fact, curiosity is a part of viral discoveries in popular psychology from the last few years including grit, growth mindset, and psychological safety.
In this talk, you will learn:
- how curiosity is a core element of successful organizations,
- how it enhances your organizational strategy, and
- how it can sustain your leadership.