Nearly 40 years ago on his return from Vietnam, Mike Shaler was sent by the US army on a two-year scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. It opened his eyes to what business schools could offer the military. “I learnt things that just didn’t come through from the army’s internal education programme,” he says.

Retired from the army in 1992, Mr Shaler now has his own leadership consulting practice, and has played a key role in developing a new set of short courses for army general officers at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.