Thought Leaders
 Taking a Broader View of Executive Development

In late August, Jonathan Spector joined Wharton as Vice Dean of Executive Education. During a 2-decade career with McKinsey & Company, he rose to director and helped to lead the development of offices in China and Southeast Asia. Over the past 4 years, he served as CEO of two venture-backed corporations, Darwin Networks, a wireless ISP, and Seurat Company, a consulting firm engaged in precision marketing services. In 2003, he founded Easy 411, Inc., providing directory assistance to mobile phone and landline users. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

In his first interview with E-Buzz, Spector offered perspectives on executive development from his business experience and his first few weeks on the job.

What attracted you to this position at this time?

First, the business is intellectual, our product is intellectual, and I enjoy that personally as I did at McKinsey. Second, I was impressed with the management team at Wharton. The team is very strong and very entrepreneurial. They are not content with the status quo and are willing to take risks. Last but not least, I felt that being part of executive education at Wharton would be an opportunity to join and build something that was genuinely the best in the world.

From your work with executives at diverse companies at McKinsey, what do you see as the areas of greatest need for executive development?

The greatest need for executive development is for more executive development. Even though most companies have now gotten the mantra that our employees are our most important assets, only a minority of companies actually behave that way. McKinsey did some interesting research, and I'm sure others have done the same, which showed the economic impact of top performers versus average performers in organizations. The economic impact of top performers is much greater than the cost. Creating top performers or enhancing performance is a very good investment. While most companies realize that executive development is important, I don't think companies realize the economic payoff. If executives operate better, the company operates better. We help clients develop executives so their companies perform better.

The Economist reported recently that there are 1,600 corporate universities in the U.S. What is the role of university programs in this context?

Over 25 years in business, I have seen trends in insourcing and outsourcing in different functions and fields, and we are seeing that in executive development to some degree. There are certain companies in certain situations that can benefit from it and other companies in other situations where it is an extraordinarily bad decision.

Corporate universities and programs like Wharton's serve complementary roles. We have a much deeper faculty than any corporate university and access to more cutting-edge ideas because of our research. We also can take a broader view than a single company could take alone. For example, we are starting to talk to faculty about creating courses built around the value chain of an entire industry company. A consumer goods company might involve retailers who distribute its products, transportation companies who move them, manufacturers, advertising agencies, and investment bankers — we could bring them all together for an executive education experience. There is plenty of room to expand Wharton's programs, and Wharton can even help a client build a corporate university if that will best meet their needs. We're doing that with several clients now.

How is the balance between custom and open-enrollment programs shifting?

Wharton, like other schools, has seen a shift toward more custom programs. But I think the view that executive education is just custom and open enrollment is too narrow. Those two product or service lines have defined the executive education industry in the past, and it is how people write about it and measure the business. We don't have to see it that way at all.

I see Wharton offering a much broader portfolio of services. Our mission is twofold: first, to help our clients develop executives and, second, to enhance the value of the Wharton brand. When I think about what it takes to help our clients develop executives, there is a lot more we can do. We can help them assess their executive development needs and then provide a full spectrum of services (see figure) to meet these needs. This pyramid of offerings ranges from spending 5 minutes reading an article in Knowledge@Wharton (for free) to holding a 1-day symposium at a Wharton research center to spending several days in open or custom courses to engaging in 5 weeks at the Advanced Management Program to participating in lifetime learning through the Wharton Fellows program. Clients need all these services, but almost never at the same time. We are only going to help them if we can be there with what they need at the right time. We need to think about executive development as a continuum. We provide this full pyramid of services over a lifetime.

Continuum of Executive Development

There have been tremendous changes in global markets, particularly in China and India. From your work in Southeast Asia, what are the opportunities in this part of the world? What is Wharton doing there now?

China and India are two very important international market opportunities for us. We already deliver executive programs in both of those markets. We are forming a task force this month to review our opportunities much more aggressively and by early next year will put into motion some plans to significantly ramp up our offerings. China and India are very distinct markets. Demand is significant, and Wharton's brand, position, and ability to meet this demand are very high. But we are going to be very careful about going in. There are many lessons to learn from other companies that have rushed into these areas, as I saw when I worked in Asia with McKinsey. These markets have huge potential but also significant risk.

Years ago, back when WebVan was going to deliver our groceries and Wingspan was going to be the only bank, there were people who talked about the "virtual university" taking over education. What is the role of distance learning?

E-learning in my view is a mode of delivery rather than a line of business. Clients don't need e-learning; they need executive development. They may need it delivered on site or electronically, sometimes in a different mix at different times. We don't deliver an e-learning product but use e-learning in our programs. For example, in a recent program for Booz Allen, we fashioned a very successful program with significant e-learning components. E-learning is an important vehicle for delivering knowledge, and we will take advantage of any available technologies to deliver knowledge.

    

This month's articles:

  • Thought Leaders
    A Q&A with Wharton's new Vice Dean offers new perspectives on executive development.

  • In the Classroom
    How can companies best assess and manage security and other diverse risks?

  • Custom Programs
    How have security careers and security organizations changed since 9/11?

  • Education à la Carte
    New programs to increase your job security.