Business Essentials for Executives

Business Essentials for Executives was life-changing for me. Wharton addressed my knowledge deficits as a CEO in practical ways. The program helped me strike a balance between my aspiration to stay innovative and relevant, and my tendency to be blindsided by striving for perfection. I can now quantify and speak effectively to people about the economic value of what I’m bringing to the market, and I can communicate better with my CFO. I have a stronger grasp of economics and can delve confidently into terms and concepts. For example, I realized that my business was a demand economies-of-scale company that was about to experience a network effect. I’ve put that on a vision board for my company. As someone who works with marginalized communities, it’s critical for me to be able to articulate the financial worth of my business to those who are not from marginalized groups.

Recently I was chosen to be a state speaker for ACT and incorporated principles I learned at Wharton into my speech. We were selected for Cohort IV of the University of Southern California’s Ed Tech Incubator, founded by Doug Lynch and Mark DeGennaro, and my company is now in a seed round for up to $30 million. Before Wharton, I wouldn’t have had the courage or knowledge to stay in a pitch round like that.

Professor Gad Allon was an amazing teacher, and you could tell that all the faculty members love what they do. I highly encourage anyone interested in taking their business to the next level to apply for this program."

Valencia Belle Founder and CEO, VB Ideas

I loved Business Essentials for Executives and I highly recommend the program. To learn from the professors in various areas such as operations and marketing was extremely valuable for me. The program bridged the gap from the population that I work with, to the funders and PhDs who write the research papers, by helping me become a better communicator. During the program I thought, wow, here’s a framework for exactly what my mind is trying to express to my external evaluators that they just don’t get. And now I have the vocabulary.

Taking this program is also going to help me scale my business. I learned about the operating structure, the framework, and the modeling language. I have a meeting scheduled with someone I’ve hired to help me with the model, and we’ll create a SOP document so my organization can expand into a new market in Florida.

I really liked the faculty. Professor Gad Allon was fantastic. I enjoyed his teaching style and all of the Wharton research that he shared to show how real-world corporations operate. I also benefited from the other participants. Hearing about the experiences of the for-profit sector — including large national corporations — made me realize that they face some of the same challenges as my regional nonprofit. I highly recommend the program. It’s how education should be.”

Lynne Kunins Founder, President, CEO, FLIPANY (Florida Introduces Physical Activity & Nutrition to Youth)

Business Essentials for Executives was exactly what I was looking for in a well-rounded curriculum that hit all the key pieces of business from finance to strategy to operations. I’ve had a pretty amazing opportunity to work in all different positions in a fourth-generation family business and move up to more responsible roles. I was excited to get back into the classroom and brush up on my skills.

One thing that is challenging in my day-to-day job is balancing our strategic positioning in the market. We came up as a niche provider with a focus on high-end premium organics, but as you grow and those things move closer and closer to commodity, it’s an interesting balance determining what the right approach is, especially since our customers want more from us and it pushes us into areas we didn’t used to play in. The Creating and Sustaining Competitive Advantage session with Professor Nicolaj Siggelkow provided a really structured approach to determining what our customers most value and what our key differentiators are, with a way for us to map that out and see where we fit in the market compared to the competition. After I completed the class, my company had Professor Siggelkow do a session with our executive team. We mapped out our strategy, which was immediately translated into decisions on how we approached certain accounts and determined our pricing and sales strategy.

Finally, I can’t stress enough how great our group in the class was. We just bonded so well and so quickly — it was amazing, considering it was only a six-day program. Sharing and learning from my peers in the class really added a lot to the experience.”

Jason Dabrow Chief Operating Officer,, Chelten House Products Inc, a food manufacturer of private-label dressings and sauces

Business Essentials for Executives was a great program to take because it goes through all the business disciplines, whether it be marketing, business acumen, or leadership. It was great to have so many different professors come in from all backgrounds and hear their experiences and how it relates to your career. I was one of the more vocal people in the class breakouts when we were asked what we would do in a real scenario. It increased my confidence because every time we came back and discussed what really happened, it aligned with my thinking."

Eric Sabato Western Regional Sales Manager, Carber Holdings Inc.

The program covers the five main components of business [marketing, finance, strategy, negotiations, and leadership]. It’s incredibly valuable to get this breadth of understanding. There were at least two key learnings from each discipline that I was able to apply immediately."

Max Baumann CEO, Just Chill