Focus on: Careers

Are you on a career ladder or a career plateau? The world of work is changing in fundamental ways. Are you ready? In this issue, we examine new career paths for top executives, review career lessons from an executive who followed her passion for traffic safety into state government leadership, and consider how a focus on competencies is changing the way organizations and individuals approach career development.

Wharton Executive Education is dedicated to advancing your career and your organization. What can we do to take your career to the next level?

Sincerely,

Michael McTigue
Director, Marketing Communications

PS: Write to us with your career questions, and we will address some of them in future issues of Wharton@Work.

It's the old story. I was in the middle of a successful acting career when I was bitten by the accounting bug.

© The New Yorker Collection 1992 Leo Cullum from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.

Career Knowledge
New Career Paths to the Top

The path to the C suite is changing. A study of top leaders of Fortune 100 companies by Wharton Professor Peter Cappelli and Monika Hamori identified some of the key changes in the backgrounds and experience of senior executives. More

Career Track
Pam Fischer: Following a Passion for Traffic Safety

Pam Fischer's career has moved from public relations to the top office of highway safety in New Jersey. The common thread: a passion for traffic safety. She discusses the importance of passion and other lessons learned from her career experiences. More

Career Development
Competencies: The New Compass for Organizations and Individual Careers

What does your organization need to succeed? What do you need to succeed in your own career? A focus on competencies is shaping the discussion of education and professional development. More

Wharton School Publishing
Selling Blue Elephants: Knowing More About What Customers Need Than They Do Themselves

Products from the iPod to chunky tomato sauce were not created in response to focus groups or customer demands. Instead, they were based on deep market insights and engagement with customers in developing the next product. In a new book, Howard Moskowitz and Alex Gofman set out to track these "blue elephants" and understand how companies can identify needs, even when customers cannot articulate them. More

Developing Your Career
Upcoming Programs Build New Skills and Insights

How can you propel your own career forward? The following upcoming Wharton Executive Education programs can offer you new skills and perspectives to make the next step in your career. For a personal consultation about how Wharton's programs can contribute to your career development, contact a program consultant.

JULY

• Executive Negotiation Workshop: Bargaining for Advantage^®
  Jul. 22–27, 2007
  
  
• Creating Value Through Financial Management
  Jul. 23–27, 2007
  
  
• Finance and Accounting for the Non-Financial Manager
  Jul. 30–Aug. 3, 2007

AUGUST 2007

• The Wharton Program for Gaming Executives
  Aug. 5–10, 2007
  
  
• Private Wealth Management
  Aug. 12–17, 2007

Any comments or suggestions? Please send us your thoughts at execed@wharton.upenn.edu. We want to make every effort to respect your confidence, so please let us know if you don't want us to share them in future issues of Wharton@Work.

I'm going to give it all up to follow St. Francis.

© The New Yorker Collection 1993 Eldon Dedini from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.

Biographies and more information on Wharton faculty members can be found at: www.wharton.upenn.edu/faculty.html.

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We collect the e-mail addresses of those who communicate with us via e-mail and information volunteered by visitors to our website on pages that request an e-mail address. The information we collect is used by us alone to contact our audience for marketing purposes. E-mail addresses are not shared with outside organizations. If you do not wish to receive e-mails from us in the future, please let us know by sending an e-mail to us at execed@wharton.upenn.edu, calling us at +1.215.898.1776, or writing to us at 255 S. 38th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104.6359, USA, and telling us that you do not wish to receive marketing e-mail from our organization. You will need to tell us the e-mail addresses at which you do not wish to receive our electronic correspondence. Please note that if you opt-out of receiving e-mail from Wharton Executive Education, you may continue to receive e-mail from other divisions in Wharton or from the University of Pennsylvania.

Wharton Executive Education is committed to developing and providing executive education that works, and we welcome your suggestions for new programs or any other ideas.

© 2007 The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Career Poll
What has been the most significant factor in your own career success?
We'll report the results in our next issue.
Take the poll.

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Of Special Interest

• Wharton's 11th Annual Leadership Conference
  June 7, 2007, on the topic of Developing Leadership Talent: How Organizations Prepare Their Present and Future Leadership. For more information or to register, go to the conference website.

• Investment Management Consulting
  Wharton offers several programs with the Investment Management Consultants Association (IMCA).
  
  
  
• 125 Years of Defining Management Education
  This year, the Wharton School celebrates 125 years of innovation and leadership with several major events.
  
  
• Help Spread Knowledge
  We're happy to add interested parties to our e-mail distribution. Please feel free to forward this e-mail to a colleague or friend — or better yet, have them contact us, and we'll add them to our list for future mailings.
  
  
• Wharton MBA Program for Executives
  High standards, top faculty, rigorous curriculum.
  
  
• Recruiting at Wharton
  Discover ways your company can recruit Wharton MBAs.
  
  
• Wharton Corporate and Foundation Relations
  Learn how corporations can become involved with Wharton.
  
  
• Executive Master's in Technology Management (EMTM), jointly sponsored by Wharton and Penn Engineering, is for experienced technology professionals who want to develop their management skills.
  
  
• Download the pdf of our catalog (92 pages, 1 MB). If you would like to receive a catalog in the mail, send us an e-mail.
  
  
  

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