Business Acumen for Rising Executives

Develop your playbook of essential management principles to enhance your cross-functional impact.

Download Brochure

Get Your Brochure

Course Dates
LAST DAY TO ENROLL

Course Duration

DURATION

6 weeks, online
4–6 hours per week

Course Fee

PROGRAM FEE

US$2,600 or get US$260 off with a referral

Course Information Flexible payment available
Course Fee

For Your Team

Enroll your team and learn with your peers

Learn More

Build your cross-functional business acumen to improve your strategic impact

The era of siloed departments and divisions has been replaced by a new age of communication and collaboration that’s essential for businesses to maintain a competitive edge. It is vital for managers to understand how other functions operate — and how to work cross-functionally with them. The Business Acumen for Rising Executives program will engage you in six key areas of business to develop your strategic management expertise. As a participant, this program will enable you to influence and interact more effectively across your organization and make better cross-functional decisions that drive growth.

93%

of IT and business executives have a talent gap that is preventing business transformation.

SOURCE: Cisco

42%

of IT and business executives rank business acumen as their top skill gap, and no other skill gap comes close.

SOURCE: Cisco

40%

of businesses responding to a recent study said managers and executives lacking business acumen had a high impact on their business.

SOURCE: Society for Human Resources Management

Key Takeaways

Your management playbook serves as a personal guide to your continuous development as a leader. Throughout the program, you’ll use your playbook to complete activities within each module and reflect on your learning. At the end of the program, your playbook can act as a reference on the primary functions of a business and how they intersect by learning how to:

  • Apply strategic management principles to improve organizational success
  • Use financial reports and financial tools to make informed decisions for your organization
  • Develop strategies for attracting, hiring, retaining, and developing talent
  • Analyze the customer experience to develop marketing strategies
  • Utilize data analytics and AI to make informed decisions

Who Is This Program For?

This program is designed to equip aspiring and experienced managers with the skills needed to collaborate more effectively with cross-functional leaders and customers. It is ideal for:

  • Experienced senior managers with functional expertise who are seeking to develop wider general management and business leadership skills
  • Aspiring managers looking to learn foundational business management essentials to advance their careers or upskill with a reputable online certificate
  • Entrepreneurs who want to extend their core business knowledge and drive growth

Program Modules

Module 1:

Business and Strategy

What makes some organizations more successful than others, and how do organizations create competitive advantage? Explore the common elements that drive successful business and competitive strategies.

Faculty: Claudine Gartenberg
Assistant Professor of Management

Module 2:

Finance and Accounting

Get an introduction to finance and accounting for managers — from learning to evaluate financial statements to understanding how organizations make investment decisions — and the link between strategic decision making and finance.

Faculty: Richard Lambert
Miller-Sherrerd Professor; Professor of Accounting
and
Michael Roberts
William H. Lawrence Professor; Professor of Finance

Module 3:

Developing and Engaging Talent

Recognize the importance of building a strategy and aligning management around it to attract, develop, and retain top talent, with a constant eye on maintaining diversity in your organization.

Faculty: Matthew Bidwell
Xingmei Zhang and Yongge Dai Professor; Professor of Management

Module 4:

Marketing — Understanding the Customer

Gain a deeper understanding of customers and the consumer decision-making processes, as well as how the consumer experience and customer journey are managed.

Faculty: Raghu Iyengar
Miers-Busch, W’1885 Professor; Professor of Marketing; Faculty Director, Wharton Customer Analytics

Module 5:

Data Analytics and Decision Making

Discover what is possible with big data, analytics, machine learning, and AI, and learn how descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics approaches can inform business decisions and automate processes in organizations.

Faculty: Raghu Iyengar
Miers-Busch, W’1885 Professor; Professor of Marketing; Faculty Director, Wharton Customer Analytics

Module 6:

Personal Leadership

Understand yourself as a leader, identify your unique leadership style, and develop personal leadership skills essential to growth, such as negotiation and influence, effective communication, team building, creating and leveraging networks, and building executive presence.

Faculty: Andrew Carton
Associate Professor of Management

Module 1:

Business and Strategy

What makes some organizations more successful than others, and how do organizations create competitive advantage? Explore the common elements that drive successful business and competitive strategies.

Faculty: Claudine Gartenberg
Assistant Professor of Management

Module 4:

Marketing — Understanding the Customer

Gain a deeper understanding of customers and the consumer decision-making processes, as well as how the consumer experience and customer journey are managed.

Faculty: Raghu Iyengar
Miers-Busch, W’1885 Professor; Professor of Marketing; Faculty Director, Wharton Customer Analytics

Module 2:

Finance and Accounting

Get an introduction to finance and accounting for managers — from learning to evaluate financial statements to understanding how organizations make investment decisions — and the link between strategic decision making and finance.

Faculty: Richard Lambert
Miller-Sherrerd Professor; Professor of Accounting
and
Michael Roberts
William H. Lawrence Professor; Professor of Finance

Module 5:

Data Analytics and Decision Making

Discover what is possible with big data, analytics, machine learning, and AI, and learn how descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics approaches can inform business decisions and automate processes in organizations.

Faculty: Raghu Iyengar
Miers-Busch, W’1885 Professor; Professor of Marketing; Faculty Director, Wharton Customer Analytics

Module 3:

Developing and Engaging Talent

Recognize the importance of building a strategy and aligning management around it to attract, develop, and retain top talent, with a constant eye on maintaining diversity in your organization.

Faculty: Matthew Bidwell
Xingmei Zhang and Yongge Dai Professor; Professor of Management

Module 6:

Personal Leadership

Understand yourself as a leader, identify your unique leadership style, and develop personal leadership skills essential to growth, such as negotiation and influence, effective communication, team building, creating and leveraging networks, and building executive presence.

Faculty: Andrew Carton
Associate Professor of Management

Download Brochure

Program Experience

Decorative image relating to text that follows

Discussion Boards

Decorative image relating to text that follows

Industry Examples

Decorative image relating to text that follows

Try-It Activities

Decorative image relating to text that follows

Live Office Hours

Decorative image relating to text that follows

Live Session with Faculty

Faculty

Profile image of the programme faculty, Claudine Gartenberg

Claudine Gartenberg

Assistant Professor of Management

Claudine Gartenberg is an assistant professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on corporate purpose and pay inequality and the implications of both for business strategy and competitiveness... More info

Profile image of the programme faculty, Richard Lambert

Richard Lambert

Miller-Sherrerd Professor; Professor of Accounting

Professor Lambert’s research examines topics in financial and managerial accounting. In particular, he explores how information is related to the cost of capital in organizations and how they use information for performance evaluation... More info

Faculty Member Michael Roberts

Michael Roberts

William H. Lawrence Professor; Professor of Finance

Michael R. Roberts is the William H. Lawrence Professor and a professor of finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and an affiliate of the Institute for Law and Economics and the Wharton Financial Institutions Center at the University of Pennsylvania... More info

Faculty Member Matthew Bidwell

Matthew Bidwell

Xingmei Zhang and Yongge Dai Professor; Professor of Management

Professor Bidwell’s research examines new patterns in careers and employment, focusing on causes and effects of more short-term, market-oriented employment relationships. He is particularly interested in the different kinds of career paths that people take in the modern labor market... More info

Faculty Member Raghu Iyengar

Raghu Iyengar

Miers-Busch, W’1885 Professor, Professor of Marketing, Faculty Director, Wharton Customer Analytics

Methodologically, he has developed novel consumer-demand models that capture the effect of multi-part pricing tariffs in a theoretically meaningful way. In the area of social networks, he has investigated how and why such influence may be at work... More info

Faculty Member Andrew Carton

Andrew Carton

Associate Professor of Management

Professor Andrew Carton studies how leaders manage conflict and empower their employees by establishing a common purpose. He pays special attention to psycholinguistics—the properties of language that people find especially meaningful, impactful, and memorable... More info

Certificate

Example image of certificate that will be awarded once you successfully complete the course

Certificate

Upon successful completion of the program, you will earn a digital certificate of completion from the Wharton School.

Download Brochure

Note: After successful completion of the online program, your verified digital certificate will be emailed to you in the name you used when registering for the program. All certificate images are for illustrative purposes only and may be subject to change at the discretion of the Wharton School.

This online certificate program does not grant academic credit or a degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Didn't find what you were looking for?
Write to us at learner.success@emeritus.org
or Schedule a call with one of our Academic Advisors
or call us at +1 680 205 5118 (US) / +44 185 845 9995 (UK) / +65 3135 1422 (SG)  
Apply Now

Early registrations are encouraged. Seats fill up quickly!

Flexible payment options available. Learn more.