Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) Program

Inspire transformational change

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Course Dates

STARTS ON

September 25, 2024

Course Duration

DURATION

9 to 12 Months
Online + On Campus

Course Fee

PROGRAM FEE

US$22,000

US$300 application fee

Lead organizational change

Faced with today’s uncertain business landscape, HR leaders now play a pivotal role in the paradigm shift occurring in the industry. Organizations are increasingly recognizing talent as a top priority and the importance of the HR executive, whose role has never been more integral or critical to the bottom line.

If you want to discover powerful ways to drive change in your organization, then the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) Program is for you. This comprehensive, 9- to 12-month program will help take you beyond your current role into one that transforms the future of the company. It is an opportunity for you to leverage organizational change and accelerate your impact.

75%

of leaders say the evolving role of HR is important for them.

Source: Deloitte Insights

75%

of HR professionals say that HR's accountability will undergo expansion.

Source: Deloitte Insights

84%

of professionals say they need to rethink their workforce experience to improve productivity.

Source: Deloitte Insights

Customized design for your success

The CHRO Program is designed with the needs of busy executives in mind. You will learn through online sessions, including fireside chats and guest lectures from leading researchers and global industry leaders. The flexible format of the CHRO Program allows you to customize your learning journey for maximum career and business impact.

Flexible

The self-paced modules provide the flexibility to accommodate learning between your busy work schedule. The program can be completed in 9 to 12 months as your schedule and program selections demand.

Interactive

A community learning experience with a limited cohort size facilitates weekly interactive discussions with peers, program coaches, faculty, industry speakers, and career advisors — allowing you to implement program learnings to real-world scenarios.

Transformative

The multimodular learning journey experience, including the capstone project, allows you to learn and grow as an executive while enabling you to develop impactful HR strategies to improve your personal and organizational goals.

“Rapid changes in the field of human resources have placed greater expectations on the shoulders of HR leaders. Senior professionals are now expected to be involved in strategizing and developing unique ways to aid the organization’s innovation goals, create a high-performing work environment, and even provide guidance to the executive leadership team. We are delighted to offer this comprehensive program to help HR leaders sharpen their people management skills and create impactful outcomes in their organizations.”

— Matthew Bidwell
Academic Director for the CHRO Program, Wharton Executive Education; Professor of Management, The Wharton School

What you will learn in the CHRO Program

The multimodular program will enable you to:

  • Investigate the application of human resources strategies to organizational approaches
  • Survey an organization’s human and social capital for competitive advantage
  • Relate talent approaches to succession planning and strategic workforce management with internal development and external hiring
  • Explore approaches for career development, hiring processes, and diversity
  • Consider effective principles and practices of leadership
  • Examine aspects of change management

Program highlights

Customize your learning journey with a choice of electives in topics aligned with your career goals.

Learn at your own pace with a weekly commitment of three to five hours of sessions and activities.

Glean insights from renowned faculty and industry experts who are at the cutting edge of innovation.

Network with accomplished peers from around the globe and gain new approaches to leadership.

Engage with your success coach to craft your learning journey through regular check-in sessions.

Benefit from experiential sessions combining theory with real-world case studies and apply learnings.

Meet multiple cohort peers, industry experts, and faculty during two days of on-campus networking.

Following successful completion of the program and subsequent open-enrollment programs, subject to further qualification criteria and additional tuition, you have a pathway to apply for Wharton alumni status.

Curriculum

The CHRO Program will enable forward-thinking executives like you to learn from a cutting-edge curriculum that reflects current industry trends. The program is organized into two components — 18 weeks of core modules followed by three online electives of six weeks each.

  • Elevating the CHRO Role

    • The Opportunity and the Trap
    • Strategy Assessment
    • Human Resource Systems and Strategy
    • Strategy Creation
    • Strategy Implementation
    • Solving Challenges with Human Resources

    Human Capital and Talent Strategy

    • Talent Strategy
    • What Do Your Employees Want? A Career Perspective
    • Managing the Talent Pipeline
    • Performance Management
    • Diversity
    • Analytics and New Technologies in Talent Management

    Leading Culture and Organizational Change

    • What Kind of Leader Are You?
    • Generating a Compelling Vision: The Science Behind Creativity and Cascading
    • Making Your Vision a Reality: The Science Behind Culture and Communication
    • The Rider: Creating Change by Shaping the Way People Think
    • The Elephant: Creating Change through Emotion
    • The Path: Creating Change by Molding the Situation

    Note: Session topics are subject to change.

    • Executive Presence and Influence: Persuasive Leadership Development: Gain the skill set needed to have an impactful executive presence through strategic persuasion and craft your unique leadership style.
    • Corporate Governance: Maximize Your Effectiveness in the Boardroom: Gain a deeper understanding of corporate governance and increase your impact on board-level decisions by understanding the role, structure, and responsibilities of corporate governance.
    • Mastering Talent Management: Hiring, Engaging, and Rewarding A+ Talent: Gain the knowledge you need to hire and nurture top talent. Understand tried-and-true strategies you can use to stay ahead of the curve.
    • Future of Work: Leading Modern Workplaces: Learn to create a reliable framework to successfully navigate changes in modern workplaces.
    • HR Management and Analytics: Unlock the Value of Human Capital: Combine theory with practical application to get a holistic view of strategic HR management that also includes an overview of people analytics.
    • M&A and Corporate Development Strategies: Gain the skills to tackle the entire life cycle of a deal-making process, including corporate development strategy, M&A decisions, due diligence, divestitures, and negotiation strategies.

    *Electives are subject to change.

  • Meet your cohort peers and faculty in person on the Wharton campus in Philadelphia at a two-day networking and recognition ceremony. This event takes place once every four cohorts, enabling you to network with not just your peers but also professionals from other cohorts and create a lifelong community of global executives.

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Capstone project

The capstone project provides a deeper dive into all that you have learned during the program. While leveraging concepts studied throughout the journey, it provides additional engagement with faculty and peers as well as an opportunity for further reflection on the challenges and opportunities you face. As part of the capstone project, you will apply program insights to an HR initiative and prepare an action plan for implementation while being guided by a learning facilitator.

Pathway to Wharton alumni status

For more than 135 years, Wharton has been the place where visionaries, inventors, and trailblazers get their start. After completing the CHRO Program and subsequent open-enrollment programs, subject to further qualification criteria and additional tuition, you have a pathway to apply for Wharton alumni status.

Executives who successfully complete the CHRO Program have the option of applying to the General Management Program (GMP). The GMP provides further opportunity to enhance your leadership skills and business acumen with a flexible curriculum. The CHRO Program provides one credit towards the six required to complete the GMP and earn alumni status. More details on the GMP is available at Wharton Executive Education.

Upon qualifying for Wharton alumni status, you will be eligible to receive:

  • Full access to become a member of 77+ Wharton alumni clubs
  • Invitation to attend future Wharton global alumni forums
  • A Wharton email address

Meet the faculty

Profile picture of professor Matthew Bidwell, PhD

Matthew Bidwell, PhD

Academic Director for the CHRO Program, Wharton Executive Education; Professor of Management, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor John Paul MacDuffie, PhD

John Paul MacDuffie, PhD

Professor of Management, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Andrew Carton, PhD

Andrew Carton, PhD

Associate Professor of Management, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Nicolaj Siggelkow, PhD

Nicolaj Siggelkow, PhD

Professor of Management, Co-Director of the Mack Institute for Innovation Management, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Matthew Bidwell, PhD

Matthew Bidwell, PhD

Academic Director for the CHRO Program, Wharton Executive Education; Professor of Management, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor John Paul MacDuffie, PhD

John Paul MacDuffie, PhD

Professor of Management, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Andrew Carton, PhD

Andrew Carton, PhD

Associate Professor of Management, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Nicolaj Siggelkow, PhD

Nicolaj Siggelkow, PhD

Professor of Management, Co-Director of the Mack Institute for Innovation Management, The Wharton School

Past speakers

Peter Fasolo, Ph.D.

Chief Human Resources Officer at Johnson and Johnson

Faculty Member LINDSAY-RAE McINTIRE

LINDSAY-RAE McINTIRE

Chief Diversity Officer, Microsoft

ROSEANN LYNCH

Chief People Officer, Ralph Lauren

Profile picture of past speaker Suzy Walther

SUZY WALTHER

Former Global Head of Talent at Bloomberg LP

Profile picture of past speaker Libby Sartain

LIBBY SARTAIN

Former CHRO, Yahoo! Inc and Southwest Airlines

Meet your success coaches

Allison Wright is an expert in talent management and organizational design and development. She is an experienced International Coaching Federation-certified coach. Over 20 years in designing and developing businesses and talent in major corporate brands, she has held a variety of HR, organizational effectiveness, and talent management roles in Fortune 50 companies and startups in the financial services, consumer products, technology, and telecommunications sectors. Wright helps transform organizations and people by strategically inspiring future directions in a world that is constantly evolving. She influences leaders to achieve intended strategic outcomes through precise people management.

— Allison Wright, Success Coach

Fabianna Tassini has served in the success coach role for several cohorts of the Wharton Executive Education CHRO Program. Tassini began her early career more than 20 years ago in the mental health and social services sectors, supporting underprivileged youth and unhoused families. She then spent the bulk of her career leading HR talent and performance management for various global fashion luxury and media and entertainment organizations. Her diverse career trajectory in executive HR led to her extensive experience in the people development space. Her expertise spans areas such as leadership and performance coaching, learning and development, onboarding and acclimation, career development, communications, succession planning, culture, and people experience — all through the lens of DEI.

— Fabianna Tassini, Success Coach

Mark Schumann helps business leaders around the world strengthen how they inspire people to create organizational cultures that can make a difference within and beyond the places they work. The result? Leading cultures that can change the world. As a certified executive coach, Schumann creates one-on-one and small group experiences for leaders at organizations such as IBM, Delta Airlines, Sabre, and CenterPoint Energy. In recent years, he has also worked with leaders at organizations like ExxonMobil, BP, Kimberly-Clark, DIRECTV, Halliburton, American Express, and Total.

— Mark Schumann, Success Coach

Certificate

Example image of certificate that will be awarded after successful completion of this program

Certificate

Earn a Wharton Executive Education digital certificate upon successful completion of the program. Alumni of the program get exclusive access to a wide range of professionals, events, and networking opportunities. Furthermore, you can also benefit from additional tuition assistance upon enrolling in further online programs from Wharton Executive Education.

Note: After successful completion of the 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.

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Please also note that participation in the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) Program (a) will not result in a degree from, alumni status with, or earned credit at the University of Pennsylvania or the Wharton School (or, to Wharton’s knowledge, any other institution), (b) will not be recorded on a University of Pennsylvania or Wharton transcript, and (c) does not guarantee or suggest that a participant will be admitted to the University of Pennsylvania, the Wharton School, or to any other university or institution.

Who is it for?

The CHRO Program is ideal for:

  • Chief HR officers or chief people officers who offer counsel to senior leadership or the board of directors
  • Senior HR leaders across talent, people management, compensation, employee engagement, performance, and operations who are steeped in the complexities of the HR functions

Program eligibility criteria include:

  • A minimum of 10 years of work experience
  • International exposure (preferred)
  • Fluency in written and spoken English

Hear from our participants

Stephanie Pittman, CHRO at Excelitas Technologies Corp

What I really liked is that it has a very tangible and clear curriculum. You can explore things in bite-sized pieces and build on them and see the whole picture as the weeks unfold. It's definitely the best program that I researched.

Lori Almeida, Global Chief Talent Officer at Siegel+Gale

The electives were really what drove me to want to do this, because I wanted to grow into a bigger role, but I didn’t know how to do that. The program has clearly shown me where I need to hone my skills. Every day I go to work, this program is making me feel like I'm learning how to perform better at my job.

Profile picture of Todd Connelly

Todd Connelly, Head of HR at Valley Presbyterian Hospital

If you want to become the head of HR, the CHRO Program gives you practical insights and the tools to be able to function more effectively. The curriculum is spot on for the work that we do as HR professionals. I highly recommend the CHRO Program.

Matt Wilson, Vice President of Human Resources at BIOLASE

The curriculum is a great blend of the business and the HR functional aspects of the CHRO role. Having an expanded network of colleagues that span the globe with whom I can discuss ideas and from whom I can gain insights has been one of the biggest benefits of the program.

Profile picture of Rabah Bu Hamdan

Rabah Bu Hamdan, Group CHRO at National Aviation Services (NAS)

Professor Matthew Bidwell has a unique and simple method of delivering messages and explaining topics. The richness of the information I’ve gathered is such that I have already begun to implement it in my work.

Magdalena Milne, Senior Director, Training Operations and Deployment, KPMG

The CHRO Program is a great opportunity for HR executives who want to advance to a CHRO role and people like me who may be on the business side but do a lot of HR work. You’ll learn tactical tools, why data is important, and how to harness the best data rather than relying on intuition.

Andrew Blair, Vice President, Human Resources, Electra Meccanica

The CHRO Program provides an excellent opportunity to those looking to expand their knowledge of strategic human resources and leadership. It gave me access to industry leaders and Wharton professors. What stood out for me was their approach to traditional HR topics and examples that change your approach to everyday situations.

Julia Pylypenko, HR Director at Raiffeisen Bank

You are not born with a growth mindset; you need to develop it. The CHRO Program is a great way to train your brain and develop your growth mindset. The elective Future of Work gave me a perspective on how to prioritize short- and long-term challenges to be efficient during a war. It also showed me how to balance a communication agenda, operational activity, people management, and regular business.

FAQs

  • The CHRO Program has been designed with your busy schedule in mind. You will be required to commit not more than three to five hours per week, enabling you to benefit from this transformative program while fulfilling your day-to-day work responsibilities. The impactful program offers a blend of self-paced modules and live interaction.

  • The 9- to 12-month learning journey includes live online and video online sessions with renowned faculty, industry experts, and global peers. You can take advantage of weekly live sessions and the Slack channel to ask questions and discuss ideas with your success coach and cohort participants. Real-world examples and a debrief of the program learnings are delivered through a combination of recorded video and live online lectures. The program concludes with a two-day on-campus graduation and networking event on the Wharton Executive Education campus in Philadelphia.

  • While the program does not grant alumni status, it opens up a unique pathway to apply for the prestigious Wharton alumni status upon further qualification criteria and additional tuition. As an alum of this transformative program, you get exclusive access to a wide range of professionals, events, and networking opportunities. You can also benefit from additional tuition assistance upon enrolling in further online electives from Wharton Executive Education.

  • The program fee covers teaching fees, all academic material, and access to online coursework. The fee does not include accommodations for the two-day on-campus networking and graduation event, travel expenses (domestic, international, visa fee, and more), and other expenses not specifically mentioned in the fees.

  • You can pay the full program fee upfront or pay in easy installments. If you apply well in advance of the program start date, you can receive a tuition fee benefit. If you would like to approach your company with a sponsorship request for this program, here is a customizable template that you can use.

  • Unfortunately, it is not possible to take any more electives than the specified number. The electives are designed to help you gain specialized skills in areas that are aligned with your career so that you can dedicate focused time for learning and honing those skills.

  • Yes. We provide closed-captioning and transcripts for all pre-recorded videos as well as closed-captioning for recordings of live sessions.

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