The Aalto Leadership Performance Program is designed to increase your insights into leadership performance and more importantly, to measurably improve your awareness, confidence and performance as a leader. The program combines recent findings in the field of neuro-science and current research on performance with practical lessons that leaders can apply when leading self, others and results. An important focus of the program is, to enable you to apply the knowledge, insights and competence gained during the program to support the goals and business objectives of the organization that you work for.

The Leadership Development Program is a two-day interactive model which focuses on the role of leaders in various settings. Issues of diversity, trust, culture, communication, decision-making and change are all addressed in this module. Theory and practice are interwoven though the case study analyses, readings, and in-class activities. Participants play a key role in this module. They are expected to be fully engaged so that they can gain maximum benefit from the module.

This module covers methods of enhancing the effectiveness of communication used by corporate managers to facilitate change and to implement new strategies. It focuses on role presentations, providing candidates with opportunities to perform, receive feedback on their personal communication tendencies and styles, and learn methods for enhancing their communication styles to suit the situation. While the module focuses on oral presentations, the concepts covered will be related to interpersonal or one-to-one communications that are critical to managers.

The purpose of this module is to provide the practice and theory of modern corporate financial management. It will cover both the analytical tools that can assist in structuring and making financial decisions, and the institutional environment within which financial decisions take place. One of the major areas of corporate finance is to acquire funds to ensure adequate financing for the ongoing activities of the firm. Another key area of finance is the control over the usage of funds with the aim of maximizing economic value.

This module provides the participants with the foundations of economic analysis. The first part of the module deals with some principles of microeconomics while the main focus is on understanding the decision-making environment of individuals and firms, especially the importance of market structure in pricing and production decisions of the firms. The second part of the module deals with fundamentals of macroeconomics. The aim is to understand how an economy works and how various participants in an economy – consumers, firms, financial markets and governments – will impact the performance of an economy. The role of international trade and exchange rates is also considered.

This module is designed to build basic competence for the analysis and interpretation of financial information and to provide the basic methods used for the analysis of financial reports.

This module covers the following topics

• A framework for understanding corporate financial reporting
• Revenue recognition and accounts receivable
• Expenses and accrued liabilities
• Analysis of financial statements using ratios
• Gains and losses in accounting reports
• Business combinations
• Intangible assets, leased assets

This module examines international marketing management from multiple Executive level perspectives, yet providing the necessary basic tools for those in need:

• Context of an international company and the global marketplace
• General manager’s role in marketing planning and decision-making
• General manager’s interest in tracking and measuring marketing performance
• Strategic marketing as a driver for competitive advantage

These perspectives are not exhaustive. However, they give participants a viable approach to addressing and structuring an intriguing and complex issue.

Management accounting information is vital to successful decisions. Executives need to understand how to analyze, interpret and use internal information to be unbeaten. Besides supporting decision-making, management control systems are crucial to ensure that strategies are translated into action. No matter how good the strategy is, it is worthless unless it is implemented. This module covers contemporary alternatives for control system design. Management accounting and control systems constitute a core of what is today called performance management.

Key theories or concepts covered are: Levers of control, balanced scorecard, value-based management, the relevant costs for decision-making, traditional overhead allocation methods and activity-based costing.

This module examines operations management in both manufacturing and service organizations and emphasizes tools and principles that are equally useful in both sectors. It looks at the coordination of complex and dynamic systems of people, technology and materials to achieve competitive advantage. A process view of operations is developed and used in order to understand key operational decisions in the management of capacity, cycle time, quality and linkages to other partners in the value chain.

This module introduces the basic concepts of Human Resource Management applied in an international context for professionals. The major focus of this module is to introduce managers and professionals to human resource management principles, procedures and methods that are used by effective, leading-edge global companies to attract, retain and develop their people. Specifically, it covers topics such as strategic human resource management, human resource planning, recruitment, selection and repatriation, performance management, training and development, compensation and international business context for leaders and managers.

This module explores alternate approaches and styles needed for developing and maintaining the long-term viability of contemporary business (and other) organizations. It presents key concepts and frameworks that organizational decision makers can employ to negotiate the very turbulent and challenging environment confronting them. The primary focus of this module will be on fundamental issues in strategy (situation analysis, core competence, competitive strategy, strategic alliances and corporate restructuring).

The Strategic Business Projects will be launched during this module and participants will be given instructions for executing the projects.