TEDx meets HWZ
What do the HWZ and TEDx have in common? The New York-based TED organization has granted the HWZ an official TEDx license. Thus, the HWZ will be the first university to anchor TEDx as a fixed module in its EMBA curriculum.
TED is a non-profit organization dedicated to spreading innovative ideas. At TED conferences, leading thinkers and doers such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates or Jane Goodall are invited as speakers to present their "idea worth spreading" in 18 minutes or less. TEDx is an initiative of TED and enables individuals and groups to hold local, self-organized, independent events in the TED format worldwide.
Leading the TEDxHWZ module in the EMBA program is none other than Urs Bucher, co-founder and current presenter of TEDxZurich. His module goal is that the executives not only organize a TEDxHWZ conference as an EMBA class, but also that everyone learns how to give an inspiring talk thanks to professional speaker coaching.
What are other highlights of the EMBA Digital Leadership?
Another special feature of the EMBA is that the master's thesis, which is written in the second and third semesters, consists of a practice-oriented Innovation Challenge. Specifically, participating executives develop an idea for a digital product or service that originates from their own company or is based on their own business idea. A business plan, prototype and pitch deck are developed in workshops, prototyping hackathons and startup coaching sessions, and pitched to a panel of experts after nine months. The module is led by Samuel Scheer, a tech entrepreneur from Israel and now a startup coach at the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab at ETH Zurich.
Other lecturers include Prof. Dr. Claude Siegenthaler, who is known for setting up the "Entrepreneurial Leadership" course at ETH Zurich's MTEC, Stephanie Züllig, a long-time international executive at Siemens, now an entrepreneur and multiple board member with digital expertise in the IT, engineering, security technology and security services sectors, HSG Prof. Dr. Marcus Schögel, and Daniela Landherr, an executive with global responsibility at Google.
Executive MBA Digital Leadership
The HWZ under the direction of Sunnie J. Groeneveld and Manuel P. Nappo have created the EMBA in Digital Leadership. Now, just a few months before the start of the course in February 2020, the two have pulled off a coup: Starting in 2020, the HWZ Hochschule für Wirtschaft Zürich will launch the EMBA Digital Leadership, a unique, three-semester program for executives who want to deepen their knowledge of digital technologies and new leadership approaches and develop a digital vision for their company. Innovative and attractive elements define a new benchmark for EMBA programs in Switzerland.
Anyone who wants to successfully lead their company through the digital transformation needs new skills and leadership approaches. These include a sound understanding of digital technologies, business models, and the ability to inspire and empower employees to embrace a digital vision. In the new EMBA Digital Leadership, leaders explore topics such as data-driven decision making, platform economics, intrapreneurship, and learn to operate in innovation ecosystems and collaborate with new stakeholders across industries. In addition to providing a sound understanding of digital technology, the program focuses specifically on the participants' personal development as well as their entrepreneurial and communication skills.
Initiator and course director Manuel P. Nappo studied international management at the University of St. Gallen HSG. After various stopovers at companies such as Red Bull and GroupM, Nappo was hired by the HWZ Hochschule für Wirtschaft Zürich in 2010 to head the CAS Social Media Management course. Since 2014, he has been head of the MAS Digital Business and the Institute for Digital Business at the HWZ. In the same year, he was voted "Thought Leader of the Year" by the readers of Marketing & Communication magazine.
Initiator and program director Sunnie J. Groeneveld is an entrepreneur, board member and author. She founded the consulting firm Inspire 925 founded, was the first managing director of the location initiative digitalswitzerland and now sits on the board of three medium-sized Swiss companies in the IT, engineering and media sectors. She is also the author of the book "Inspired at Work" (Versus Verlag), was named one of the "Top 100 Women in Business" and was included by the business magazine Forbes on its "30 under 30" list for German-speaking countries. She holds a degree in Economics from Yale University.
