Program Overview II Who Should Attend II Format II Download Brochure
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Drawing Senior Leaders from Around the World

Technology companies today face a unique set of challenges. Continually driving innovation, managing offshore manufacturing, engaging with global competitors, adapting to new legislation, and revamping employee compensation structures are just a few of the hurdles this sector is tackling.

How does one go about training executives in this field for success? The Stanford Executive Institute has a proven track record of teaching tools and approaches to prepare the technology industry’s senior leadership to overcome these hurdles. The program also provides executive development professionals with the support they need to design plans that enable their leaders to meet these challenges.

The experience at the Stanford Executive Institute has been likened to an MBA-style format directly targeted to the leading firms in the technology industry. The Stanford Executive Institute’s live-in atmosphere fosters accelerated learning, innovative thinking, and the sharing of varied perspectives. Participants from diverse technology backgrounds exchange viewpoints and ideas in lively discussions during class, study groups, New Venture Lab sessions and over meals. Participants gain rewarding and lasting professional relationships built with experienced executives from around the world.

The New Venture Lab is unique to this program. Working in small teams, attendees will identify a realistic, technology-related business opportunity, conceptualize a new product, and present the resulting business plan to professional venture capitalists. This dynamic entrepreneurial challenge developed exclusively for the Stanford Executive Institute instills winning practices for leading the innovation process.

Attendance is reserved for technology company executives who are engaged in general management decisions and have a minimum of ten years of business experience. In smaller to mid-size companies, participants are typically corporate executive officers. In larger firms, senior managers of divisions or major business units are also eligible to apply.

“Outstanding overview of the key issues to lead world-class high performing technology companies.”
- Niall Wall, Vice President & General Manager Norton Cloud Data Services, Symantec Corporation

Program Overview

Pack a lifetime of business experience into 11 intensive days.

Business Benefits

• Learn business strategies relevant to the high-tech industry through use of pertinent case studies and discussions with high-tech executives
• Learn technology relevant business strategies for long-term profitability
• Gain perspectives from nationally recognized faculty and industry leaders, aligning business principles with real-life experience<
• Identify practical solutions to business challenges facing today’s tech executives
• Practice entrepreneurship and bring innovative ideas back to your organization
• Explore entrepreneurial tech opportunities and new product potential
• Identify management techniques for rapid growth, competition and innovation

The Opportunity of Your Career

• Learn business management principles that determine success in the tech industry
• Test your business perspectives and innovative thinking
• Gain business knowledge from distinguished faculty with high-tech experience
• Create new professional relationships with highly qualified peers and build life-long business contacts
• Become a part of an exclusive network of 3500+ executives

The Stanford Experience

The Stanford Executive Institute takes place at Stanford University, located in the heart of the Silicon Valley.

• Reside at Stanford’s newly opened Munger Graduate Residence
• Socialize with colleagues while exploring Stanford’s superb facilities
• Engage in lively discussions with faculty and guest speakers in an intimate classroom setting

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Who Should Attend

To ensure a robust program, all applicants must have senior management responsibility or currently hold a position at the top level of a functional field (e.g. Vice President of Manufacturing) and take part in general management decisions. Participants need to have a minimum of 10 years of business experience in high-tech.

• In smaller companies, participants are usually corporate officers
• In larger firms, senior managers in divisions or similar major business units are eligible

Each applicant’s credentials are reviewed by the Stanford Executive Institute Admissions Committee to ensure that all participants are qualified to gain from, and contribute to, the program. Final selection from qualified applicants is made to balance the class functionally, geographically, and by company product and size. In an over enrollment situation, priority is given to TechAmerica member-company executives.

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Format

Enrollment is limited to 65 – a number large enough to assure a broad mix of viewpoints in discussions, yet small enough to permit each participant to benefit fully from personal interactions with the faculty and fellow students.

The program is intensive. Because of the need for full attention to the program, participants must be relieved of outside business responsibilities and live on the campus during the 11 days.

The program includes daily classes, individual study, small group discussions, venture lab team planning and evening study and planning sessions. Among the variety of instructional methods will be in-depth discussions of case studies drawn from high-technology companies.

A typical day includes three 70-minute morning lecture sessions starting at 8:00 a.m. and some late afternoon and evening sessions which complement the daytime classroom work and involve informal group discussions and exercises as well as several lab sessions with the new venture lab team.

Certain “refresher” material (readings and exercises), mailed to registrants prior to the start of the Stanford Executive Institute, will help assure that all participants have the background necessary in the various functional areas to contribute to, and benefit from, the intensive classroom activity.

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Distinguished Faculty

The Stanford Executive Institute is tailored to create maximum relevance to the high-tech industry, providing a powerful forum for discussions among academic educators andb qualified technology executives from around the world.

Course Directors

Faculty and the business topics they cover include:

Strategic Management

Finance and Accounting

Organizations

Marketing

Operations

Negotiation

Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Faculty Bios

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Past Guest Speakers

Each year, we invite prominent guest speakers to share their perspectives about the challenges and problems characteristic of managing a competitive technology company. Past speakers include:

• Craig Barrett, Intel
• Bruce Chizen, Adobe Systems
• Michael Dell, Dell Inc.
• Aart de Geus, Synopsys, Inc.
• Mark Horowitz, Stanford University
• Tarken Maner, Wyse Technology
• Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems
• Eric Benhamou, 3Com

Tuition & Registration

TechAmerica members: $15,000

Non-members: $18,500

Click here to apply now.

Tuition includes program instruction, room, meals, books and all course materials.

Applications are reviewed and confirmation emails are sent within one week.

Upon receipt of your completed application, you will receive written confirmation with additional information about the timing of the next steps in the process.

If you are not a corporate officer, you will need to include a letter from the chief executive officer of your firm or the general manager of your business unit, endorsing your application. This should include reference to your qualifications and your involvement in general management decisions that affect your company or business unit.

Priority is given to TechAmerica member-company applications.

The non-member supplement may be applied to a portion of your TechAmerica membership if your company joins TechAmerica by the end of the Stanford Executive Institute.

Payment

Tuition is due upon acceptance into the program. We accept checks made payable to “TechAmerica,” wire transfers and credit cards. To pay by VISA, MasterCard, or American Express, please contact TechAmerica’s Program Director at 202.682.4437 or by e-mail at executiveeducation@techamerica.org. Prices are subject to change without notice. You can expect to receive specific information and materials regarding preparation and logistics beginning approximately two months before the program start date.

Cancellation Policy

There is a substantial cancellation fee for late withdrawal. Upon acceptance into the program, each applicant will be subject to the following provisions:

• Cancellations received prior to May 31, 2012, will receive a 50% refund.
• After May 31, 2012, no refunds will be made.
• A transfer fee of up to $5,000 will be applied to transfer an enrollment from 2012 to the 2013 Stanford Executive Institute.

Substitutions

Registered participants may send a substitute from the same company if the substitute’s qualifications are approved by the Stanford Executive Institute Admissions Committee. Substitutions are not encouraged but when necessary need to be made as soon as possible to ensure the high quality of this program. No substitutions will be accepted after June 30th.

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Alumni Testimonials

“When you asked me, ‘Has attending the Stanford Executive Institute really changed the way I do my job?’  The answer became obvious a few days later when I participated in an analysis of two different business opportunities with key members of our executive staff.  Attending the Stanford Executive Institute had improved my financial and market analysis skills, enabling me to lead the discussion and help us come to clear decisions about where to invest the company’s time and money.  Kinda fun to say the least.”
-Kevin Mather, Dir., International Sales, Pasco Scientific

“I will certainly think differently about business decisions. My weakest areas were in finance, those classes were a great help to me. The ideas and techniques discussed will help me to be a more effective leader.”
-David Upham, Director of Integrated Systems Business, Applied Signal Technology

“The biggest impact has been to remove me from the day to day operations of my job and remind me of thinking bigger and more strategically – reconnected me to my MBA training, which I honestly lost over the years. The Stanford Executive Institute offered me the best connecting with real smart people outside my company and my industry. I will apply many of the tools and I’ll uplevel my thinking – you made me refire some synapses – I can’t go back now.”
-Claire Dean, Director of Marketing, Adobe Systems, Inc.

“The Institute has helped me start the transition and provided some skills to think broadly and strategically. I have been a focused, tactical operations manager and this gave me the foundation to make the shift to GM. I plan to apply several key items throughout the operational area I manage. The primary thing I plan to do differently is spend more time in my day thinking and acting strategically vs. tactically. You helped start filling in the top-part of the ‘T’.”
-Kirk Flittie, Director, AeroVironment

“The Stanford Executive Institute provided very valuable insights into general management and leadership early in my management career. These insights gave me an important foundation that I continue to utilize, even today. By focusing on the high technology industry, the Institute provided me with very relevant and immediately useful information.”
-Ned Barnholt, Chairman Emeritus, Agilent Technologies

“We send senior leaders to the Stanford Executive Institute each year because it provides a unique multinational, multi-business and cross-functional environment in which the learning is enhanced and enriched by the environment itself. All Boeing’s senior leaders complete an internal Boeing leadership development program which is great, but while we bring in outstanding faculty to teach it, its completely homogeneous and insular, meaning everyone who attends talks only about Boeing for two weeks. The Stanford Executive Institute provides our leaders with a vital cross industry perspective on how to play and advance in competitive international technology markets.”
-Daniel Watt, Director of Operations, Boeing

“The evening programs help maintain the right amount of structure and pressure.”
-Harold Shattuck, Vice President of Engineering, Fujitsu

“A must for high tech executives. Tremendous interaction with world-class professors and fellow executives.”
-David Hall, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Endwave Corporation

“The single most important executive education experience I have had!”
-Cal Huntzinger, Manager Marketing and Engineering, Varian Medical Systems

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Contact Information

Kristy Khachigian
Director, Executive Education
TechAmerica

P:  202.682.4437
F:  202.682.9111

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