High Demand Leads Michigan Ross Executive Education To Offer Second Free Online Seminar Series on the Most Pressing Issues Facing Organizations

After more than 13,400 global business professionals from a wide range of industries participated in its first series, the Executive Education team at the Ross School of Business has launched a follow-on series of free online seminars called “Co-Creating the Future.”

The new series will focus on helping participants navigate future opportunities and challenges of the “new normal” created by the COVID-19 pandemic. It will build on the first session, "Leadership and Organizational Resilience in Challenging Times," which was developed in response to the immediate issues that businesses were facing during the crisis. 

“We decided to launch ‘Co-Creating the Future’ based on the overwhelmingly positive feedback and expressed demand we heard from seminar attendees and our Ross Executive Education community,” said Melanie Weaver Barnett, chief executive education officer at Michigan Ross. “Ross faculty members are leaders in their fields and experts at translating their research and theory related to the most pressing issues facing businesses today into practice. They provide practical tools and frameworks so that participants are not only learning something new, they also learn to apply it in an impactful way.”

While the topics vary, each seminar features a Michigan Ross faculty expert and often guest thought leaders, including C-suite executives from major corporations like Morgan Stanley and Tencent. There is also a live question and answer session.

The “Co-Creating the Future” series began with its first seminar on June 10, “Reimaging Beyond the Restart Using Enlightened Design Thinking.” Led by Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, professor of management and organizations at Michigan Ross, thousands of business professionals, students, and alumni tuned in from more than 35 countries to learn how design and business can be used to solve challenges imposed by the pandemic.

The next seminar, “Diversity and Inclusion: Bonuses, Margins, and System,” will take place on June 24 at 8 a.m. EDT. This session will explore the business case for making effective diversity and inclusion policies core missions of organizations, and why it often requires systemic change to address disparities in wealth, health, education, and safety.  

Acclaimed diversity researcher Scott Page — John Seely Brown Distinguished University Professor of Complexity, Social Science, and Management; the Williamson Family Professor of Business Administration; and professor of management and organizations at Ross — will provide his expert insight during the seminar alongside Ross alumnus Ralph Johnson, MBA ’92, Americas Ombud at McKinsey & Company.

Helping business professionals and organizations successfully navigate the crisis

With seminars designed for the global business community on timely topics, Michigan Ross Executive Education received very positive feedback from those that attended its original seminar series. 

Additionally, the Executive Education team shared the seminars with their current client partners as important learning and development resources for their companies. Many client partners consistently had employees attend the sessions based on the value added to their organizations. 

“The COVID-19 pandemic was sudden, leading to many corporations being ill-prepared and employees left dazed by the speed and magnitude of change that was being brought about in the way they lived and discharged their work responsibilities,” said Kasi Viswanath, head-management development and OD at Larsen & Toubro Ltd. in India. “The webinars from Michigan Ross helped our employees to cope with this change and it helped our managers communicate and lead their teams better into this new normal.”

Ross Executive Education is planning to run seminars in the “Co-Creating the Future” series through December. Future dates and topics will be announced on its Online Learning webpage as well as on the Executive Education LinkedIn page.

Register for “Diversity and Inclusion: Bonuses, Margins, and System”

Learn more about the online learning programs from Ross Executive Education