Global Strategic Leadership

I’ve worked in the power sector my entire career. When I joined Cuestamoras in 2014, it was to establish an energy company and grow the business regionally in Central America and Mexico. I’m now faced with putting together a leadership team that will be able to rethink how we are going to compete over the next five to 10 years. We’ve doubled in size in the last 12 months and will double in size again in the next 12 months. We are bringing in a lot of new people across multiple countries in Latin America. We need to provide a clear vision of where we’re going and provide opportunities to empower people.

Key takeaways from Wharton Global Strategic Leadership were the discussions around emotional intelligence and persuasion and influencing. As a senior manager and a team leader, my work is much more that of facilitator and motivator than somebody doing all the number crunching. The emotional intelligence and influencing teachings were helpful because of the cross-cultural and international dynamics I deal with on my team. For me, focusing on how to get people in each country to come together and stay focused and motivated even though we often don’t have face-to-face contact is a challenge.

Executives who would be ideal for this program include people at higher management levels who manage multiple locations, or established executives in large companies where their incumbent status is not making them compete effectively. There are some major leadership challenges in trying to refocus management teams to give the organization more vitality and vigilance, so they can compete better.”

Alden Kitson Managing Director, Cuestamoras Energía, Guatemala

As a senior officer at the National Academy of Medicine, I help develop, launch and oversee programs out of the president’s office and ensure resources of the Academy are there to support new programmatic efforts. I took Global Strategic Leadership to get a handle on how to run a global initiative — which at the time was a $3.5 million, three-year project that looked at how nine different countries were investing in young children.

I got much more from Wharton than insights to help me in this one program. I was surrounded by really smart leaders from many different types of organizations who inspired me to embrace a whole different level of thinking at the organizational level. Six months after returning from Wharton, the Academy launched our Innovation to Incubation program. The idea for this program came from my time at Wharton. Our organization puts out consensus reports with authoritative recommendations, but once the science is out there, the consensus committees disband, and the staff moves on to the next project. I thought that there was so much more we could do. As an independent, neutral convening body, I realized that the Academy could ‘incubate’ the recommendations — that is, work with key stakeholders on the ground to pull in new voices who could take the recommendations forward.

The incubation idea was integral from my experience at Wharton. If I was just at the Academy doing my [day-to-day] roles, I wouldn’t have had the time, the space, or the intellectual energy to think outside my own box.”

Kimber Bogard Senior Vice President of Strategy and Programs, The New York Academy of Medicine

Wharton’s Global Strategic Leadership program helped me think through some of the dynamics of leading both emerging and established countries. It was very relevant to my job since I’m responsible for both Canada and Latin America countries for Zoetis. Wharton shared a great example of what global automaker Ford went through when it produced the Ford Focus for the India market. I learned the importance of staying with your core but adapting to a global culture.”

Joyce Lee Executive Vice President, Area President, Zoetis, Inc., world's largest producer of medicine and vaccinations for pets and livestock