The Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley is to provide leadership development and project management training for Statoil, the Norwegian oil and gas company.

The three-year, multi-million dollar project will begin in September with its first cohort of 20 Statoil executives who will meet quarterly over the course of a year.

Haas’ Center for Executive Development will co-ordinate the programme to be known as the Project Leadership Academy. The centre will make full use of Berkeley’s interdisciplinary approach so that Statoil executives will be taught by faculty from across the university – business, engineering, political science and international studies. Senior Statoil executives will also act as teachers.

The academy will focus on a wide range of subjects including balancing innovation and risk and working in complex geopolitical environments.

Whitney Hischier, assistant dean of executive learning at the Haas School’s Center for Executive Development, says that Statoil wants to create “a big shift in the mindset of its executives to enable them to be stronger leaders”. The programme he adds is part of a trend towards highly customised, co-branded partnership programmes that use the company’s experience combined with the multi-disciplinary expertise of institutions.

The programme will be taught on the Berkeley campus as well as Statoil’s Norwegian headquarters and at a field site outside Norway.

www.haas.berkeley.edu

Chicago GSB offers executive education at London campus

The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business has launched an executive education programme at the school’s London campus.

The programme offers 15 short courses in topics such as strategic leadership, marketing and finance, taught by leading faculty.

www.gsb.uchicago.edu/