Managing Technology for Innovation
in cooperation with the Rotterdam School of Management (RSM)
Innovation is one of the key drivers for sustainable competitive advantage, especially for technology-driven companies. Therefore ESMT and Rotterdam School of Management (RSM) are offering a joint executive education program for managers working in R&D environments.
Our goal is to help executives who are responsible for innovation within their respective company to expand their general management and leadership competencies - with a strong focus on the management of technology. This program will bridge technology, innovation, management and leadership.
The program runs as a consortium program involving four to six international companies. Each company is expected to send up to five participants.
The program helps the consortium companies to achieve sustained competitive advantage through the improvement of their innovation efforts and supports teams on real projects through peer coaching, in class discussion, and the accompanying support of dedicated program directors and faculty. Overall participants will enhance their strategic thinking and entrepreneurial spirit, get sensitized to the challenges of leading R&D and innovation teams, and improve their judgment in these fields by being exposed to real business situation from various companies and industries.
Target Audience
You are an executive who is responsible for innovation in the broadest sense. Typically you are actively steering projects/processes related to innovation, and have an engineering/science background.
For example, participants will include direct reports of R&D directors, group leaders, cluster and team leaders and people on the interface of R&D. The program will be made up of teams of 3-5 participants per consortium partner, with a maximum of 28 participants.
Key Topics
- Aligning competitive strategy and the technology strategy
- Organizing global R&D efforts
- Managing the interface between technology and innovation
- Bridging the gap between R&D and client-facing professionals
- Learning from "good practice" in other companies
- Building networks that allow companies and participants to broaden perspectives
- Unleashing the creative potential of the innovation teams
Take-Home Value
You will return to your company with the best tools, techniques, and concepts available for improving your role in R&D or related fields. You will be able to assess and align your technology strategy and and manage the various aspects and interfaces between technology, innovation, and leadership. You will have gained additional insights from other managers brought together from a range of industries and companies.Meet the Faculty
Bülent Gögdün (Program Director)Bülent Gögdün has experience in strategy development, change management and executive coaching. He has previously been employed as a consultant for the Boston Consulting Group.
Francis Bidault (Program Director)
Full biography
Francis Bidault is a full professor at ESMT, since September 2005. From September 2005 to December 2009 he was the founding director of ESMT's Full-time MBA Program. Before joining ESMT he was a professor of Strategy and Innovation Management at Theseus Institute and EDHEC Business School and the dean of the Theseus MBA program. His special area of expertise covers industry analysis, the management of alliances and the management of innovation.
Betina Szkudlarek
Betina Szkudlarek is Assistant Professor at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. She has a wide experience in training, coaching and mentoring in fields such as intercultural communication, cross-cultural management, project management, human resources, fundraising and public relations. Betina has taught on and co-ordinated MBA, master and undergraduate programs. For several years Betina has been working as an intercultural trainer, mostly in the NGO sector, but also in the energy industry. She worked with clients including Shell, the Dutch Platform for Foreigners Rijnmond area (Platform Buitenlanders Rijnmond) and the Spanish education and research association for Immigrants CeiMigra. She also taught at the Graduate School of Business Economics in Warsaw, Poland and on an online course at Golden Gate University in Sacramento, USA.
Jan van den Ende
Jan van den Ende is a professor of technology and innovation management at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. Jan’s expertise is in innovation management, with special emphasis on internal and external idea generation and management, joint project teams between firms, and the effects of design. Jan has also done extensive research in the organization of system innovation, particularly governance of complementary product and service development. In his research, Jan works with companies such as Shell, Unilever, ASML, FrieslandCampina, and many others. Jan has extensive teaching experience in executive programmes (both in-company and in the Executive MBA programme) . He published in Harvard Business Review and numerous academic journals.
Simon Wakeman
Full biography
Simon Wakeman joined the ESMT faculty as an Assistant Professor in September 2007. Simon holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Economics and a Bachelor of Laws with Honors both from the University of Otago, New Zealand. He received his PhD in Business Administration and Masters degree in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley, and was a Fellow at Stanford Law School's Center of Law & the Biosciences in 2006-7. Before entering graduate school, he worked for four years as an economic consultant, researching and writing economic testimony for competition/antitrust, regulation, and damages cases in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand.
ESMT European School of