Rutgers EMBA curriculum upgrades
Welcome to the Powerhouse
Rutgers EMBA program has a well-deserved reputation of adapting quickly to changes in the business world. To ensure the applicability of our EMBA curriculum, we regularly invite seasoned veterans from industry to teach specialized courses. Our faculty also design stand-alone modules and lectures that meet the needs of business leaders right now.
1.Portfolio Management Strategy- Investment Analysis
This is a modern finance course with the objective of providing executives a firm grounding in the major concepts of investment theory and portfolio management. The course is designed to be comprehensive in covering the economic space available to investors and the many investment strategies and vehicles designed to provide the exposure. The contemporary and practical class content covers major asset classes, markets, themes and trends and the popular investment products representing them (money market securities, stocks, ETFs, bonds, and derivatives). Students will learn how to analyze investments and understand the impact of the investment decisions on the risk and return of their portfolios. The passive/active investment style debate is woven into the material during much of the course to help students gain insight into the real challenges of managing portfolio risk and return (in the short and long term.) A required ongoing semester project involves working with an assigned portfolio simulator making trading/investment decisions using listed stocks and ETFs. The class project includes working on teams to practice the application of concepts, tools and material learned in class. Students are required to demonstrate increased learning by presenting their team’s decisions and performance periodically in class, and with a final presentation at the end of the semester.
2. Business Strategy in the Artificial Intelligence Age
Prof. Kim will be teaching two courses: Innovation Strategy (two modules) in Semester 1, and then Business Strategy (10 sessions, 3 credits) in Semester 3.
Prof. Langdana, Director, Rutgers EMBA: "Most Strategy courses in EMBA programs are mainstream Strategy courses with a token gesture to IT developments like Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. Others are mainly IT courses that attempt to incorporate Corporate Strategy, almost as an aside. This Strategy course taught by Harvard PhD., Prof. Jerry Kim, is unique in one major respect: Jerry thoroughly integrates hard-core Corporate Strategy with really serious IT such as Big Data, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence. Both the areas are "baked-in" and incorporated consistently, and not just inserted as some afterthought. This course, taught by this professor, in this program, makes for a truly unique combination."
Prof. Kim's courses develop a general management approach to strategic management. Integrating ideas and concepts from all across the EMBA program, the course has two broad goals.
- To understand how managers can devise a set of actions (“the strategy”) and design processes that allow their company to obtain a financial advantage over competitors.
- To gain a broader understanding of how new technologies and business models are changing the competitive dynamics of markets, and how firms’ strategies must evolve to sustain competitive advantage in the new (digital) environment. To ground the concepts and analytic tools in real-world settings, we will study the decisions and strategies of companies in many different industries, including media (e.g., Disney), shipping (e.g., Maersk), manufacturing (e.g., Rivian), life-sciences (e.g., Gilead Sciences), toy (e.g., LEGO), technology (e.g., Tinder), and financial services firms (e.g., MasterCard). To further hone the communication and persuasion skills critical to strategy-making leadership positions, the class will rely on intense, real-time debate and role-playing.
Topics include, but are not limited to:
- What are the key factors that differentiate financially successful firms and others that fail to sustain profits?
- How should an incumbent firm respond to “disruptive” innovations from new entrants?
- When does it make sense to acquire, partner with, or compete against other industry players?
- How do new technologies re-organize existing markets (i.e., network externalities), and what are the different capabilities necessary to execute business models (e.g., multi-sided platforms) that are suited for these markets?
- How will Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning alter competitive positioning and the strategic decision-making process? Can strategy formulation be digitized, and what does this mean for future leaders?
UPDATE: From Fall 2024, Prof. Kim will be continuing his unique approach described above, of incorporating AI along with in-class AI exercises not as a stand-alone "silo" approach deployed by other EMBA programs that view AI as merely updated technology, but with AI deeply integrated into the formulation and execution of strategy at the corporate and global level. In particular, he will be exploring how AI companies such as StitchFix and HubSpot build new strategies around AI, and how established firms such as MasterCard infuse AI into every aspect of the company’s strategy and operations.
3. Digital Marketing Analytics (Formerly Web Analytics)
To survive and excel in today’s economy, executives need to focus on deploying their marketing and advertising dollars more effectively by validating the return of investment (ROI) of this spending. Digital marketing has proven to be a necessary and effective channel to showcase brands, reach customers, and build loyalty. Executives need to navigate today’s complex and fragmented digital marketing concepts and regulations to ensure that their organizations upgrade and adapt to the age of digitalization. This course highlights how it is imperative that digital marketing be integrated with powerful digital marketing analytics, which through data acquisition, exploration, testing, and application, produce insights to drive continuous improvements in digital marketing programs and maximize returns.
This course provides a comprehensive look at various aspects of digital marketing. Starting with foundational concepts across all aspects of digital marketing, including owned, paid and earned media channels, participants then do deep dives into measurement strategy, metrics, framework, concepts, issues, tools, testing and best practices. This highly applied course regularly adapts to reflect current marketing industry changes, trends and updates. A key focus of the course is to ensure that executives can learn digital marketing analytics through real-world practice by using industry-leading digital marketing analytics tools.
Topics covered include:
- How to link business objectives with digital marketing objectives and to develop a measurement strategy?
- How should executives manage vendor selection?
- What are the key digital marketing metrics and key performance indicators for different types of organizations?
- What are the owned, paid and earned media channels, and how to navigate through the complexity and measure marketing success?
- What are the latest privacy and technology changes on audience and data, and how to ensure that your organization is adopting these changes?
- How to utilize quantitative, qualitative and competitive tools to drive actionable insights?
- How to optimize digital channels by incorporating testing and experimentation?
- How to create and manage an analytics culture for your organization?
4. Executive Leadership
What is "Leadership" in the context of today's highly global and highly digital/virtual workplace? What is Change Management and how can you leverage Change in a rapidly evolving technological landscape? How do you motivate your team? Your company? Yourself? How do you assign accountability to high-powered teams that are in, say, four different time zones with four highly diverse business cultures? Do you know how to effectively plan for a negotiation, and how to make sure that your ideas get heard?
A recently added component on Innovation Management is designed to help students understand the importance of innovation to the performance, and indeed, the survival of their companies. Is there an Innovation Ecosystem? Or is Innovation endogenous? Or should Innovation be outsourced if it is not a Comparative Advantage for your company? Or does it pay to not be an Innovator---maybe it is best to focus on a standardized product? If Innovation is to be cultivated at work, then how do executives optimally manage an ongoing innovation system?
This course is taught by a team of veteran professors, with each one being a well-recognized subject matter expert in a particular aspect of Executive Leadership. The course deploys class discussions, role playing, case analyses, simulations and projects to give participants hands-on skills to be deployed at work right away. Many of the topics also synergize strongly with the Powerhouse Advantage courses in Presentation Skills since the REMBA program really emphasizes ultra-strong proficiency in verbal and written communication skills.
The following are brief synopses of the modules conducted by individual professors:
Ralph Gilgliotti: Crisis Leadership and Change Management
Change Management Strategy in the Post-Covid World
This session will introduce key concepts and considerations for effective change management in a post-COVID context. Students will have an opportunity to discuss various change management frameworks and apply strategies through an interactive business simulation.
Strategic Communication Skills for Virtual and In-Person Leadership
This session will introduce central concepts and strategies for engaging in strategic leadership communication. Students will have an opportunity to reflect on one’s communication practices, expectations, and goals for engaging in leadership in an increasingly digital environment.
Jerry Kim: Innovation Strategy for Senior Executives
Session 1 – DESIGN THINKING: Organizing Creativity and Avoiding Strategic Inertia
Fostering creativity throughout the organization is one of the most critically important jobs of an organizational leader. While our culture and society celebrate the heroic genius of the individual inventor (e.g., Steve Jobs, Elon Musk), research suggests that having the right organizational structures and processes has a far bigger impact on innovative outcomes. In this session, we will examine the team and organizational-level conditions that enable leaders to maximize organizational innovation and creativity. In particular, we will focus on “design thinking” as a methodology that can foster creativity and innovation. A deeper understanding of the core principles behind “design thinking” will further help us understand why organizations and leaders often fail to change despite disruptive threats and environmental changes, and provide a framework for how leaders can overcome strategic inertia.
Session 2 – Building Resilient and Innovative Organizations in Times of Crisis
In times of crisis, innovation may seem like a luxury for many organizations. Yet, crisis situations are exactly when the capability to generate new approaches and solutions are most valuable. Building on the notion that “crisis management is innovation on steroids”, the session will examine what leaders must do to navigate novel threats and highly uncertain environments by leveraging innovation within and across organizations. Using a case study on the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, we will explore the common mistakes leaders make in high-stakes crisis situations, and discuss how leaders can build organizational cultures that prevent large scale errors, and exhibit resilience in the face of challenges.
Terri Kurtzberg: Executive-Level Negotiations, and Managing Virtual Interaction
Associate Professor of Management and Global Business Terri R. Kurtzberg focuses on three areas of Executive Leadership in REMBA: (i) Executive Negotiations, (ii) Virtual Interactions, and (iii) Navigating Leadership Blind spots (this with Prof. Ameri described in the following blurb). In Executive Negotiations, Prof. Kurtzberg offers a glimpse into the methods of master negotiators, including the following: What must you do before you even walk into the room? What tactics and strategies will work for you, and how do you deflect those of others? How do you handle disputes? Can you effectively influence others?
The Virtual Interaction module aims to uncover blind spots in communicating with others to become more effective in both day-to-day and big-picture interactions, whether across the hall or around the globe. In this module, Prof. Kurtzberg will focus on helping each EMBA student become more effective at leading and participating in virtual team interactions. Both common virtual team problems and realistic solutions will be discussed. Topics will range from early team interactions and building trust, to coordination difficulties and leadership challenges over global supply chains. Problems created by electronic communication will also be addressed.
Terri Kurtzberg/Mason Ameri: Navigating Leadership Blindspots
How does an organization communicate with its employees? How do you, as a leader, signal to your direct subordinates? When something goes awry, can you identify the causes and address them at different levels? Each of these issues stems from the culture of an organization. The saying “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” by management expert Peter Drucker describes the idea that a leader needs analytical skills to realize the organization’s vision and strategic goals, as well as an understanding of the psychology of the workplace to create and enact a prosperous culture. Disconnecting the two may put an organization’s success at risk. The goal of this session, conducted by Professors Kurtzberg and Mason Ameri, is to help you understand how an organization’s culture can be a source of competitive advantage and can influence outcomes at the individual, group, and organizational levels (e.g., employee attitudes, innovation, market share, and more).
Farrokh Langdana: The Cycle of One. Unconventional Leadership for a Conventional World
The Rutgers Executive MBA program abides by a philosophy called the "Cycle of One," originally developed by Prof. Langdana. It is embedded into your learning experiences here. More than ensuring that you acquire the necessary business and management tools, we are committed to growing you as “unconventional” leaders so that you can apply what you've learned in the classroom to the decisions you make in the boardroom.
What is the Cycle of One?
Managers often begin their careers as lonely interns and then power through their mid-career by mostly working in teams. But at the end, when they make it to the corner office at the C-level, they often have to make hard decisions alone—it is indeed “lonely at the top”. This progression—the lonely intern, then the team player and then finally the CEO making difficult and poignant decisions alone—is our “Cycle of One.”
How it works
Rutgers Executive MBAs are trained to think on their feet—to think fast and to be bold enough to make rapid-fire decisions alone, if and when they have to. Often these decisions involve leaning towards more humanistic and compassionate (and unconventional) choices, and to “throwing away the rule book”.
To foster this, throughout the program, students participate in short Cycle of One exercises where an urgent situation demanding a quick decision, is presented to the participants. Many of these situations are embedded in historical context; there is a huge emphasis on Leadership in History in this program.You play the part of the CEO, and are given moments to quickly respond. There is no team discussion, no coach, no mentor, no “break out” session, no internet—this critical decision must be yours and yours alone, and must be made expeditiously.
Welcome to the Cycle of One, a concept that will be continuously developed by multiple professors right through your four-semester EMBA experience.
Jessica Methot: Leveraging Organizational Networks
While managing human capital is a critical competency for leaders, it is no longer effective to simply manage individual employees.Leaders operating in dynamic and boundary-less environments must manage webs of connected assets in order to find, utilize, and coordinate employees’ knowledge, skills, and expertise.This “networked” approach has implications for the way individuals share knowledge, generate ideas, and collaborate.In this session, Prof. Methot will focus on an array of topics related to how leaders can best leverage organizational network analysis (ONA) tools to achieve strategic outcomes. Topics will include:
(i) identifying critical relationships that should exist to ease workflow and support strategic objectives, (ii) pinpointing central players and key opinion leaders to alleviate collaborative overload and effectively distribute resources, (iii) coordinating employee expertise and bridging silos, and (iv) building agile and resilient organizational networks.
Jim Smith, Jr.: Ultra-Powerful Presentation Skills
Dr. Jim Smith, Jr., CSP, a highly sought-after presentations skills specialist, speaker, author, and coach, comes on board to ensure that Rutgers EMBAs learn the art of making exceptional, high impact business presentations. Professor Farrokh Langdana had been searching for a veritable superstar to train the EMBAs to make memorable presentations, and he finally found him, thanks to Brian Warrick (Metlife Executive, EMBA 2008).
In this session, Dr. Jim focuses on voice projection, eye communication, audience engagement, storytelling, modulation and optimal PowerPoint presentations (i.e., bringing out the story in each slide so that your audience members can hear, see and feel what you’re saying). Additionally, there is a session in which he will teach Executive MBAs how to open, close and structure business communications to diverse audiences such as potential investors, boards of directors and hostile audiences. Dr. Jim’s exposure to EMBA has recently been increased to give students greater opportunities to present in class. If you are transitioning from a world of Research, Medicine, Finance, IT, etc., to another world in which you will be client-facing, or moving to the C-level and making high-level presentations to your stockholders, your Boards, the Media, and so on, then this module will be transformative! Dr. Jim has presented to both national and international audiences of all sizes.
Dr. Bershad: Leadership Lessons from the Frontline
It all began with an EMBA class Project in Prof. Rosa Oppenheim's Analytic Techniques course; the course is really Data-driven Strategy, and Rosa teaches two courses in The Powerhouse.
In a remarkable display of adaptability and creativity, Dr. Josh Bershad, then CMO at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in NJ, had deployed Prof. Oppenheim's Queuing Theory models to Healthcare! Instead of minimizing assembly and procurement time for components in an engineering process, Josh had now re-engineered the models to minimize patient waiting time, to shorten reimbursement time form insurance companies, to cut waiting time in the inner office after seeing the nurse, to optimize the follow-up scheduling, and so on. It was fascinating! It takes a lot for Rosa to be impressed---and she was impressed!
Fast forward to the present. Dr. Josh Bershad has created a C-level position at RWJBarnabas, the mega-hospital conglomerate in NJ, to run operations systems based on his original Rutgers EMBA project. Currently he is the Executive Vice President of Physician Services and also the Chief Medical Officer of the Rutgers Athletic Program, along with too many other activities and Board memberships to include here.
Josh has addressed the Powerhouse several times in the past, but now he will be featured on a regular basis in the newly engineered "Executive Leadership" course. Josh will conduct a session, "Leadership Lessons from the Frontline", based on his experiences in Healthcare from physician to CMO to EVP. The session, while embedded in Healthcare, will have Leadership lessons for every discipline. Furthermore, participants will connect with one of our all-star alums, and will also observe Josh's Presentations Skills, at the C-level.
5. Finance for the C-Suite
Financial acumen is a key driver of the strategic decision-making process. Regardless of industry or function, high-level executives must fully understand areas such as Budgeting, Valuation, Cash Flow Maximization, Real Estate Finance, Implications of recent Fed policy and changes in Banking Regulations, Relationship Building and Hedge Fund Strategy. This elective deploys an optimal mix of distinguished in-house professors and veteran industry experts to present a finely balanced and constantly updated array of topics to our Executive MBA students.
The highly-experienced industry leaders include:
Lisa Kaplowitz: Assistant Professor of Professional Practice – Finance and Founding Director of the Center for Women in Business. Professor Kaplowitz is a former investment banker, Treasurer of Bed Bath & Beyond and CFO of various private equity backed retail and consumer products companies. She continues to advise executives, at all stages of growth, by using finance to help direct corporate strategy and decision making.
Dr. John Longo: Dr. Longo is Professor of Professional Practice, and Chief Investment Officer and Portfolio Manager for Beacon Trust, a registered investment advisor with $3 billion under management. Dr. Longo is also a Visiting Professor of Finance at EMBA Global – the joint international Executive MBA Program of Columbia University, London Business School and The University of Hong Kong. He is the bestselling author of The Art of Investing: Lessons from History’s Greatest Traders, published by TheGreatCourses.com. He has won a total of four awards for teaching and research excellence at Rutgers Business School. He has led the RBS student team to four research case competition championships organized by the CFA Society of New York. He has also led Rutgers to personal visits with Warren Buffett in Omaha, Nebraska on four separate occasions.
Fred Hoffman: Professor Hoffman was previously a Managing Director and the Head of Corporate Credit Strategies at Napier Park Global Capital (“Napier Park”). Professor Hoffman has managed almost all sectors of the fixed-income marketplace including ABS/MBS, Municipal Bonds, Interest Rate Products and Credit. Between 2004 and 2006, he was Deputy Chief Investment Officer of Northstar Financial Services of Hamilton, Bermuda. Professor Hoffman holds an MA in Econometrics from Fairleigh Dickinson University and a BA in Economics and Computer Science from Rutgers College, Rutgers University.
Darius Palia: Rutgers EMBA is fortunate to have Professor Darius Palia, the Thomas A. Renyi Endowed Professor of Banking at RBS, deliver two stand-alone sessions on "Fintech: Overview and Challenges" in the highly acclaimed 4th semester finance elective, Finance for the C-Suite. The confluence of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain, Cloud Computing and Big Data have yielded "FinTech". Not just startups, but established financial organizations, individuals, and even central banks will be increasingly driven by developments in FinTech in the very near future. In these sessions, Prof. Palia will conduct an overview of FinTech and then outline its immense potential utility and the challenges FinTech poses to traditional financial institutions and to regulators.
Also included in this elective is extensive online training and familiarity with the Bloomberg Terminal. Bloomberg terminals are one of the main product offerings from Bloomberg L.P. They are one of the most heavily used and highly regarded professional investment systems to be created for the financial marketplace. You will find a Bloomberg terminal on almost every institutional financial professional's desk. Many EMBA students have Bloomberg at their desks already and find Professor Hoffman's usage and knowledge of the terminal to be exceptionally helpful.
Navigating the World of Financial Derivatives
Prof. Ahmed Albrolisy
Financial derivatives are among the most powerful tools in the financial world, described by Warren Buffett as "financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are potentially lethal." This session will explore why these instruments hold such risk but also why they offer substantial rewards when understood and managed skillfully. Derivatives have the unique capacity to magnify both gains and losses, offering sophisticated means to hedge risk or amplify returns. John F. Kennedy famously noted that the Chinese word for 'crisis' combines the symbols for 'danger' and 'opportunity.' In this course, we’ll uncover how derivatives operate at this intersection, presenting both potential hazards and avenues for strategic financial growth. Through this session, you'll gain a balanced view, understanding how to approach derivatives with caution, recognizing their inherent risks while also seizing the opportunities they present.
6. Leadership and Corporate Strategy in the Artificial Intelligence World
This interactive course will explore concepts and strategies for engaging in effective corporate leadership. The course will introduce key theories associated with the practice of executive leadership, highlight relevant research studies related to the evolving nature of leadership, and review strategies for leading others across modalities. The course will interrogate issues related to collaboration, communication, and the cultivation of trust in a global post-COVID context. A key component of the course will be the integration of considerations of AI in leadership, focusing specifically on examples featuring OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Nvidia, and Tesla.
For example, Fiserve class participants will explore how AI is reshaping corporate leadership by enabling better informed decision-making, enhancing organizational and operational efficiencies, and driving innovation and change.
These examples will highlight the ways in which AI is shaping the practice of leadership, along with the ways corporate leaders are leveraging AI to shape their respective industries. Students will utilize an in-class ‘tool” to have an opportunity to assess their own leadership strengths and areas of improvement, explore immediate connections to their individualized executive experiences, and present on specific themes related to the subject of the course.
7. Healthcare (HC) complexity and what all Executive Leaders need to be aware of
This 3.5-hour overview by Pharma/Healthcare veteran executive, Prof. Gary Branning, highlights some of the major challenges, pitfalls and complexities of what you as a future/current CEO need to understand fully as you navigate your company in the years ahead. Clearly, Healthcare will come to demand even greater attention at the Executive level---both from an HR as well as a Strategic Finance perspective. And with the Biden emphasis on massive HC funding, your leadership role in this area will be critical. In addition, this module is an introduction to a full, highly regarded, 3-credit Healthcare Overview and Strategy course offered by Prof. Branning in this area, as a possible elective choice (in RBS, outside EMBA) in your last semester.
8. Data-Driven Analysis for Decision-Making: The Foundations of Big Data Analysis
As an executive, your success will be determined by your choices and decisions. Prior to the ubiquitous nature of data, decisions were made by borrowing learnings from experience. The probability of the decision being correct was based on similarity of the current situation and previous experience.
In today’s world, where data is being generated and stored by every business process, data can guide your decision making with certainty. You can run experiments to collect and analyze data to inform your strategy, thus fulfilling your business vision. The most successful companies make this a repeatable process and by doing so, they learn from data faster than their competition. Welcome to the world of Big Data!
This Rutgers powerhouse course will develop your data-driven competency. It will empower you to build and lead teams to identify opportunities of strategic importance and will equip you with tools and techniques to transform organization data assets into insights and knowledge. By the end of this course, you will develop an analytical framework and mindset to make decisions with confidence.
This course builds the foundation for Big Data analysis. It introduces data-driven model-building and analytic techniques for business applications. It covers key concepts of both deterministic and probabilistic models, including big data forecasting techniques, such as linear regression; inventory management; linear programming algorithms; and queuing (waiting line) analytics. Examples are drawn from various real-world applications such as production operations at Bristol-Myers Squibb, service operations at Verizon, and queuing systems at the Port Authority of NY & NY among many other illustrative examples.
9. Digital Transformation, Disruption & Design Thinking: D3
It is becoming increasingly clear-- if mature economies like the US, Japan, and Western Europe do not, or cannot, relentlessly innovate, they will be run over, displaced or disrupted by the juggernauts emerging from the most unexpected places from all parts of the world. But what drives innovation? Is it the Eco-system? Genetics? Supply- chains? Regulation? Technology? And once we identify the drivers, how can we leverage them? How can we strengthen our peripheral vision? How do we unleash human capital through the lenses of innovative and creative thinking?
Prof. Mukesh M. Patel, serial entrepreneur of the highest order, and star professor at Rutgers (Business School, Law School as well as Director of Innovation at the Honors College), has built this course that is truly unique to The Powerhouse. This highly anticipated course delivers interdisciplinary perspectives on breakthrough ideas, innovation concepts, and the phenomena of creativity. It is a visual experience of entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial insights through use cases and case studies spanning more than 15 industries and 50+ companies. Concepts include new business models and frameworks, agile structures and processes, and transference of ideas across industries.
This course includes a special workshop on Design-Thinking where EMBA students will explore, work through and analyze specific use cases. This course integrates the Professor's research and learnings from his personal interviews of Chief Digital / Technology / Innovation Officers from iconic public and private corporations, non-profits, governments and academia. This is a fast paced, immersion experience incorporating insights regarding entrepreneurial mindsets, game-changers, technology trends, social networks, disruption, innovation for corporate enterprises, experiments, and future-casting. “This course sits firmly at the crossroads of Technology, Social Media, Innovation, Strategy, Leadership, and Psychometrics,” writes Prof. Patel.
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