| Dates | Location | Tuition |
|---|---|---|
| - |
Philadelphia
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$55,000 |
| - |
Philadelphia
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$55,000 |
Business leaders are experiential leaders. We recognize this. It's part of what makes the Wharton School's Advanced Management Program unique. Instead of confining the learning platform to reading and discussing case studies, we use a multi-level approach that goes beyond history.
The instruction you receive in AMP is immersive and state-of-the-art. Starting in 2011, each AMP participant will receive the new Apple iPad containing all of the program's written materials.
AMP is exclusive and selective, (only 60 executives are accepted to each program session), allowing participants to flourish in an optimal learning environment that is collegial and diverse.
Our approach ensures memory retention and transferability of new found knowledge and skills across business disciplines, industries, cultures and contexts. Knowledge gleaned from discussions is reinforced, amplified, and challenged through guided practice, simulation, reflection, small group projects, team coaching, and peer mentoring.
Tuition for Philadelphia programs includes lodging and most meals. Prices are subject to change. Program Consultants are available to provide more information on course specifics and discuss how this program might meet your professional development requirements. Please contact them by e-mail or by telephone at +1 215.898.1179. Plan your stay.
What to Expect
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Wharton's Advanced Management Program (AMP) is a five-week transformational program that will put you on the path to further developing your leadership capabilities. AMP has a rich curricular approach that takes the latest research on best practices and creates in you a fresh perspective on investor value, social responsibility and leadership.
Here's what you can expect during your five-week AMP experience:
- Innovative business, arts and science curriculum
- Dynamic, state-of-the-art, multi-model instruction that melds business acumen and emotional intelligence
- A new 32GB Apple iPad replete with selected readings, faculty presentations, and books
- World-renowned faculty, expert business practitioners and published authors
- New frameworks, models and practices for thriving in a volatile global environment
- New business relationships and, perhaps most importantly for you, a place among the powerful global network of Wharton alumni
AMP participants come from a range of disciplines, industries, cultures and countries. Expect at times to be an expert and mentor, while at other times to be a novice, depending on the situation and topic. Participants find role-changing with other seasoned executives to be an invaluable part of the AMP experience, and superb training in being responsive and open to learning when they return to their organizations.
What sets Wharton's Advanced Management Program Apart
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- Peer mentoring
- Real time context
- Guided practice and reflection
Three key components of the Advanced Management Program are its emphasis on peer mentoring, real time context, and the focus on guided practice. Research shows that learning is accelerated and memory retention is enhanced through multiple learning pathways. Through guided practice and reflection, you will explore key situations. For example, the data you had, how well your team performed together and whether you led, followed or rotated leadership. Learning how to reflect intuitively and effectively is a fundamental aspect of professional and personal growth.
AMP also keeps you firmly grounded. While case studies offer tremendous leadership lessons from the past, the Wharton AMP goes further by exploring the conditions that can affect your business in the present and in the future.
It's not just about business acumen.
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The Wharton AMP won't keep you up nights sweating business algorithms. You can hire a mathematician for that. At Wharton Executive Education our mission is to help you become an extraordinarily skilled and nimble leader who can interpret dashboard metrics and convert them into management action that will optimize organizational outcomes.
Our multi-modal approach will surprise and inform you with unexpected perspective and content and practices. For example, you may spend one afternoon in small group discussion of a case study, and another engaged in a simulated crisis that tests your skills of persuasion on actual colleagues, peers and distinguished faculty from around the world. Then, the next morning you may find yourself competing on a sports team, rowing down the Schuylkill River, for example, and learning more about your leadership capabilities than any other conventional approach could ever teach you.
You will complete the program with a tremendous reserve of strategies, practices and self-awareness that you can put to immediate use, as well as mobilize for every contingency.
Many questions pressure the rising executive:
- Do I have what it takes to be a top leader?
- How do I keep driving my performance?
- How do I deal with increased expectations?
- How do I build capability for tomorrow?
- What happens if I fail?
Top leadership requires more than knowledge of current business trends. Wharton’s Advanced Management Program addresses the whole person: character, tone, presence, and style. We'll also explore your role as a global citizen and the social responsibility that comes with that position. You’ll become attuned to what works for you, and what is no longer working. Uncover the potential pitfalls and metaphorical landmines that may be putting you and your organization at risk.
KEY REQUIREMENTS
The people who attend Wharton’s Advanced Management Program come from diverse cultural and professional backgrounds. However, there are some key qualities they all share:
- Global senior executive within two reporting relationships of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) or Managing Director
- More than 20 years of management experience
- High level of English proficiency* (Please see note below)
- Nominated by the chief executive officer, division president or senior corporate human resources officer
*Note: All candidates for the AMP program must be highly proficient in the English language. You must be capable of actively engaging in group discussions and conducting various activities in English as well as handle the reading assignments. If you have taken the TOEIC exam within the past two years, you need to have received a minimum score of 800.
If you have less than one year's experience working in an English-speaking environment or if you are unsure about your current level of English, please contact us immediately at execed@wharton.upenn.edu. We will schedule an appointment for you to speak with one of our language specialists about our business English language programs. The Admissions Committee may also require that you do an interview by phone.
PROGRAM SIZE
Wharton's AMP is exclusive and selective. Only 60 executives are admitted per program session. AMP provides an in-depth, comprehensive educational experience with the finest business faculty, business practitioners, bestselling authors, and participants from around the world.
AMP Participants come from a wide array of companies and countries. Below is a sample list of companies that have entrusted their senior executives’ business education to us.
- Banco Bradesco
- The Boeing Company
- Credit Suisse
- Estee Lauder
- Mitsui & Co., Ltd.
- Philips
- Saudi Aramco
- Siam Cement
- The Vanguard Group
POWERFUL NETWORK
Upon completing our program, you will become a member of the Wharton alumni, one of the largest and most distinguished business school alumni organizations in the world. With more than 88,000 members who live and work in over 130 countries and supported by 77 U.S. and international clubs and regional representatives, the Wharton alumni network helps you stay informed through annual forums around the world. In addition to a lifelong Wharton email address, AMP graduates receive a full complement of print and online communications.
Wharton’s Advanced Management Program is not just about business acumen.
AMP will nurture your career holistically. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle and having supportive relationships are essential as you face triumph and defeat, uncertainty and opportunity in a chaotic world. AMP will get you acquainted with your mental habits and help you uncover and learn how to manage your pressure points in moments of crisis. Becoming more self-aware about what works for you and what doesn’t will make you a stronger, more effective leader in your organization.
After completing AMP, you will be prepared to:
- Reimagine your customer relationships
- Replace binary thinking with more critically-integrated design thinking
- Know when and how to fail productively
- Persuade, influence and negotiate expertly
- Balance corporate social responsibility with fiduciary realities
- Acquire new ways to create shareholder value
- Formulate a corporate vision and set a new direction for your organization
Faculty: A Concentration of Knowledge
* Please note that these are core faculty and may not be in every program.
DAVID R. BELL, PhD
The Wharton School
His current research focuses on spatial diffusion of new products and services, customer profitability, and consumer response modeling. Articles on these topics have appeared in Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Retailing, Management Science, Marketing Science, California Management Review, and Sloan Management Review. Bell serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Retailing, and Marketing Science. He is Senior Editor for Manufacturing and Services Operations Management.
PETER CAPPELLI, DPhil
Director, Center for Human Resources
The Wharton School
RAM CHARAN
GEORGE S. DAY, PhD
Co-Director, Mack Center for Technological Innovation
Director, Emerging Technologies Management Research Program
The Wharton School
TOM DONALDSON, PhD
Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics
The Wharton School
Tom Donaldson has written broadly in the area of business ethics, values, and leadership. His books include: Ethical Issues in Business, 8th Edition (Prentice-Hall Inc., 2007), with P. Werhane and Ethics in International Business (Oxford University Press, 1989).
IAN C. MACMILLAN, DBA
Professor of Management
Director, Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Research Center
The Wharton School
RICHARD C. MARSTON, PhD
Professor of Economics
Director, Weiss Center for International Financial Research
The Wharton School
Dr. Marston regularly participates in the Investment Management Consultants Association (IMCA) Program and the Advanced Management Program. He is also director of the Institute for Private Investors Program at Wharton.
Dr. Marston has given presentations in more than a dozen countries in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. He has also given presentations for a number of securities firms in the United States, including most recently Merrill Lynch, Lincoln Financial, and Smith Barney. His work has been widely cited in the press, including publications such as Barron's, the Financial Times, Newsweek, and The Wall Street Journal, and he has also appeared on television programs such as the Nightly Business Report and on CNBC.
JOHN R. PERCIVAL, PhD
The Wharton School
PAUL J. H. SCHOEMAKER, PhD
Research Director, Mack Center for Technological Innovation
The Wharton School
G. RICHARD SHELL, JD
Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics and Management
The Wharton School
Professor Shell is the academic director of Wharton's Executive Negotiation Workshop and Strategic Persuasion Workshop: The Art and Science of Selling Ideas. He teaches in a variety of open-enrollment and customized programs. A partial list of his consulting clients includes the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Hewlett-Packard, Merck & Co., Citibank, Bank of America, and several of the largest labor unions in the United States.
JEREMY SIEGEL, PhD
The Wharton School
MIKE USEEM, PhD
Professor of Management
The Wharton School
Mike works with the World Economic Forum on several initiatives to identify ways of preventing, mitigating, and responding to significant enterprise risks. He serves with the WEF Global Council on Catastrophic Risks.
DAVID WESSELS, PhD
The Wharton School
In addition to his teaching on campus, Professor Wessels serves on the executive development and training faculties at Coca-Cola, Home Depot, Lockheed Martin, McKinsey & Company, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Siemens, and UPS.
Before joining Wharton, David served on finance faculty of the Goizueta Business School at Emory University. Prior to Emory, he was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company and a technology analyst for Boston-based Harbourvest Venture Partners. David holds a PhD in finance from the Anderson School at UCLA, a BS in economics and a BAS in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania.
Responses among participants in the Authentic Leadership sessions in AMP have been outstanding. The sessions have received some of the highest AMP program scores in participant evaluations. In the following testimonials, participants relate how the sessions have had a transformative effect not only upon their leadership development, but in aspects of their personal life as well.
"AMP 56 was one of the most profound experiences of my life. The experience was analogous with peeling away the layers of an onion. This forced deep introspection (something that I hadn't done for a very long time) which created an unbelievable level of renewed self awareness. For me the programme design helped surface the 'real me.' Whilst these onion layers were being peeled away I realized how outdated many of the tools that I used in business had become. Some needed replacing and others needed sharpening. Most importantly, in this exposed state, we developed meaningful friendships and an extended community that nurtured each of us, helping us rebuild ourselves. I left a far more complete and better human being than when I arrived."
—Doug Leather, REAP Consulting Ltd.
"My main experience has been as a commercial director for Heineken in the Congo for the last four years. The Congo is an extreme business environment. On the one side, you have to hit your numbers, you have to make your plans, you have to brief your agencies — you're just behaving as if you are running any other big fast-moving consumer operation. But you're in a bizarre business environment. The Congo — the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) is rock-bottom from any perspective. If you take the United Nations Human Development Index, Congo is in the bottom five for poverty, and the top five for corruption. It is the worst place in the world to do business according to the IFC/World Bank. And being relatively young to the position in such an environment has been an incredible stretch for me. It has been an incredible learning and development experience whereby I learned more than how to drive business.
The most striking moments have been where I have had to make decisions that went further than business. These were literally about life and death. I've been in a situation where some people tried to hijack or arrest me, probably for ransom, and where I had to fight to get free, physically breaking loose to get away. Besides, I have been responsible for our people and brewery at a moment of great instability, when serious fighting erupted in the center of Kinshasa very close to the brewery. At such moments you are called upon to make very tough choices and decisions that normally would not be within the scope of a manager of a FMCG firm.
Through this Authentic Leadership (AL) experience, I realized that what I've been doing in the Congo is my real purpose — to lead with wisdom. That's something I realized thanks to the AL sessions. Somewhere deep down, you know your purpose. You feel it. But you're not able to articulate it. In these sessions, in a surprisingly short timeframe — within two days, with complete strangers, you are able to articulate your purpose. So, it has been a fantastic experience. And it's already helped me during the Advanced Management Program, and I'm sure it's going to help me by making me much more articulate and conscious about my purpose. It will help me in making the choices I make while in my current job, and in making choices about what kind of position I will strive for in the future and how I will perform in that new position."
—Dolf van den Brink, Bralima S.A.R.L. /Heineken N.V.
"My experience at the AMP program has been the best educational experience I have ever had. I would never have imagined the impact that Wharton has made in my life, company, and within the security industry. In these difficult economic times, my company business has been booming with new growth and I have no problems getting credit. I really believe that all of this has been because of Wharton. I put Wharton learning into action with my company, and that has been the key for me."
—Kent Moyer, CEO/President, The World Protection Group, Inc.
"Without doubt, the Advanced Management Program was the most stimulating educational experience I have had. It made me think deeply about the impact of global competition on my industry and how the lessons from other industries can be applied. The human dimension was particularly valuable and helped me reflect on my role and my future career. The whole experience was first-rate."
—Valerie Gooding, BUPA
"When I joined Unilever Turkey, I was the only foreigner on the board. Wharton's Advanced Management Program focused on how to manage a transnational organization in a fast-moving environment. I did things I probably wouldn't have done before, like taking the high ground and staying there as long as possible. From the program, I have a personal toolkit that I refer to quite often."
—Philippe Barthen, Unilever
Frequently Asked Questions
The AMP program is five weeks long. How will I manage a five-week hiatus from my job?
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Our research and experience indicate that five intense weeks (Monday through Saturday) provide the right level of rigor and immersion for a senior management audience.
We know that leaving your organization for five weeks is a significant time commitment. However, successful leaders are able to convert this time away from the office into an opportunity that extends beyond the AMP experience itself. Allowing sufficient time for AMP, they delegate their daily and monthly tasks to direct reports, peers and boss.
We suggest that you plan several weeks, or even months, in advance of your departure. This will give your colleagues and subordinates the opportunity to receive your insight and guidance before you leave. You will be pleased to find that this delegation of tasks and responsibilities can work seamlessly, and perhaps you may even decide to leave things as they are upon your return.
In fact, leaving certain tasks delegated to your professional colleagues will free up more time for you to implement the new practices and ideas you have brought back from your Wharton experience. That is one of the frequent and happy outcomes of AMP participants who have planned well in advance.
How is Wharton's Advanced Management Program different from other business school's executive education programs?
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Wharton's AMP program is radically different from the competition. Here's how:
- Small, exclusive, intimate program with 60 participants maximum. Other schools have in excess of 100 participants per program session.
- AMP participants spend up to six hours daily with Wharton faculty. At other programs, the faculty do not spend a lot of "face time" with the participants or the majority of the primary program instructors are outside consultants and professionals who aren't standing faculty.
- A brand new 32G iPad tablet computer is part of your instructional package. All reading materials and worksheets will be preloaded onto the device for you before your arrival on Wharton's campus in Philadelphia. When the program is over, the iPad will be yours to keep and use at no additional charge. This even includes AMP participants who live and work outside the United States. To the best of our knowledge, no other executive education program offers this feature.
- Reading and discussing case studies are a part of our curriculum, rather than the main focus. Other programs rely solely and exclusively on case studies to educate and illustrate business practices. While some things are easily learned from case studies, Wharton faculty strives to bring real-time, up-to-date data into the classroom in order to spark discussions about future goals and the possibilities of tomorrow.
How much does it cost?
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The Wharton AMP costs $55,000, and this fee includes private accommodations, most meals, and all program materials. There are two program sessions per year, in the summer and fall.
How do I pay for it?
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If you are accepted to AMP, we will issue your company an invoice. Payment in full (by check, wire transfer, or credit card) must be received before the program start date.
Where is the program held?
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The Wharton AMP program is held twice a year (summer and fall/autumn) in Philadelphia. Wharton AMP participants live and attend classes in the beautiful Steinberg Conference Center on the University of Pennsylvania's vibrant and historic campus. Surrounded by the culture, history, and vitality of the birthplace of the United States, the Steinberg Conference Center offers unparalleled hospitality in a university setting with well-appointed conference rooms, healthy gourmet food and beverages, private bedrooms, and an executive gym. Each bedroom at the conference center provides lavish bedding, private bath, personal computer, and flat screen TV.
Can my spouse or family attend?
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During the last two days of each program, spouses, partners, or other guests are welcome to take part in the Partners' Program, which features selected AMP sessions and social activities. After more than four weeks of absence, this shared experience greatly enhances and eases participants' return to their home and work environments.
Will I become a Wharton alumnus if I complete the program?
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Yes, completion of Wharton's Advanced Management Program confers alumni status. You will be joining one of the largest business school alumni organizations in the world. With more than 88,000 members who live and work in more than 130 nations, the Wharton alumni network helps you stay informed through annual forums around the world. In additional to a lifelong Wharton email address, AMP graduates receive a full complement of print and online communications.
I graduated from university several years ago. Do I need to brush up on my finance or business algorithms to attend?
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Because AMP participants come from a variety of professional and educational backgrounds, the program starts with a quick immersion into the key components of business to build a common language before rapidly advancing to a higher, more sophisticated level.
That said, the Wharton Advanced Management Program is designed specifically to address the knowledge and leadership needs of top executives, not undergraduate business majors or recent MBA graduates. We are preparing you for the next level of leadership in your organization or beyond, and that means a leader who is "ambidextrous" when it comes to business, equipped with a new global network, framework and perspective to draw upon.
Is there an application deadline?
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Admissions are done on a rolling basis. That means the earlier you submit your application the better. It is suggested that you apply at least three months in advance of the program date you wish to attend. This will ensure that you have adequate time to delegate your monthly tasks and provide an opportunity to guide and coach your colleagues before your departure. With sufficient time and planning, you will feel confident that everything will be in good hands during your absence.
I've been accepted to AMP but I'm unable to attend. What should I do?
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If you've been accepted to AMP and can't attend, we will be more than happy to reschedule you for the next program date. If that isn't desirable, we will work with you to identify a more convenient session. Please note that there are transfer and cancellation policies that apply specifically to the AMP.
- Transfer of Registration: Transfer requests received within 45-14 days prior to the start of the program will incur a 30% transfer fee. Transfers received less than 14 days prior will incur a 50% transfer fee.
- Cancellation of Registration: Cancellation requests received prior to 45 days in advance of the program start date will incur a charge of 35%. Cancellation requests received 45-14 days prior to the program start date will incur a charge of 50%; cancellations received less than 14 days prior to the start of the program will forfeit the entire tuition amount.
English isn't my native language and I don't work in an English-language environment. Can I still attend?
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All candidates for the AMP must have English language fluency to complete reading assignments and to actively engage in group discussions and activities. AMP is an intense program and being able to fully communicate in English with your executive peers and Wharton faculty is an integral part of the experience. If you have any doubts about your current English level, please call or email us to discuss your particular situation. We can better advise you then.
What other executive education programs does Wharton have for senior executives?
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Please visit our Senior Management Development Programs section.
How can I stay up-to-date on Wharton Executive Education events and programs?
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Yes. Wharton @Work is our monthly newsletter. It is sent via email and will keep you informed of new and recurring programming at Wharton Executive Education. To receive this free newsletter, please fill out the subscription form.
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I have a question which isn't addressed here. Who can I contact?
If you have any further questions about the AMP program, please email Ms. Robin Salaman, associate director of customer engagement.



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