Jacob Mathew

Jacob Mathew Executive Leadership

In his course outline, Prof. Mathew states, “This should be a ‘class you will remember’, for what you learn; for being creative, for being dynamic.

A real learning laboratory, for all of us. Think of us all as members of the management team.”

Remember, indeed!  This is one of the courses that has given Rutgers EMBA its global Business Week ranking of # 5.  Prof. Jacob Mathew relates his 20+ years of experience at Procter and Gamble where he was Director of Global Strategy, and his more recent consulting experience—he is President and Founder of The Strategy Company—to deliver a truly memorable course.

How do leaders develop strategy, execute strategy, and develop people?  How do leaders set the purpose and values of their organization and influence culture? What is the crucial difference between leading and managing?  How do good leaders lead when the going gets tough?  After all, leadership is much more challenging in tough times….These are some of the topics discussed in the context of (i) case analyses (Dell, Intel, GE, Procter and Gamble, to name a few), (ii) Prof. Jacob Mathews’s real-world experience, and (iii) synergies inherent in a Rutgers EMBA class where the students have, on average, about 14 years of business experience.

Prof. Mathew teaches integrative thinking….there are no marketing or finance or supply chain decisions, only business decisions. To further drive the point home, he brings CEOs such as Jim Craigie of Church & Dwight and Allan Loren of D&B into the classroom to discuss how they lead their organizations.

Prof. Mathew strongly encourages class participation and group discussion.  Given the diversity of a typical Rutgers EMBA class—engineers, scientists, accountants, business executives, IT titans, physicians, attorneys—the range and depth of analysis is fascinating.  The common thread, points out Prof. Mathew, is “each of you is in the Rutgers EMBA program because you aspire to be a leader.”   His capstone course helps to make this aspiration a reality.

Student view of Prof. Mathew:

“Prof. Mathew did not just stick with the HBR (Harvard Business review) cases, but he integrated his own real-life examples and he managed to bring our collective experiences into the case discussions too.  It was remarkable.  Many of my colleagues have done “Leadership” in other major EMBA programs—but the Mathew course ran circles round the others.  In addition to traditional “leadership” we discussed issues such as Business Ethics and Corporate Governance, Motivating Others, Operational Leadership, the Art of Implementing Strategy, and Integrative Thinking.   So when I read that we were ranked # 5 in Strategy in the World by BusinessWeek, I was not a bit surprised.”