The Financial Times ranked Duke Corporate Education in the top three for the 19th consecutive year in the 2019 custom executive education rankings. Duke CE ranked #2 worldwide and is the #1 provider headquartered in North America.
We are extremely proud of this consistent track record, not only because of the dramatic changes that are taking place in business education, but also because the rankings are based on client feedback. Duke CE CEO Michael Chavez said, “We recognize that our clients demand ever more impactful leadership development solutions and deeper and more strategic partnership from us. We try harder every day to ensure that our clients feel that they have a capable, thoughtful and innovative partner—one they can trust and rely on to prepare their leaders for what’s next. However, these results also remind us that we can always improve. Our promise to our clients is that we will to continue to strive for even greater impact.”
Our clients are telling us that the transformation that leadership development can deliver is more valuable now than ever, especially as every company and industry faces unprecedented change and disruption. They are also telling us that leadership development is no longer isolated to the top of the organization; it must happen at multiple levels to drive agility and transformation. And, while transformation remains a consistent theme, we are discovering that the foundational leadership and business skills still matter but must be delivered with greater access and speed. In our experience, the task of leadership is more complex than ever. Leaders today must learn to deal adaptively with completely new, unknown challenges while at the same time embracing well-known executional challenges with greater discipline and rigor. However, they must also possess a third skill: knowing how to pivot seamlessly between these distinct environments.
The Financial Times rankings underscore Duke CE’s commitment to ensuring that education is relevant and impactful. We do this by partnering with clients to understand their most pressing business challenges and ensuring that we anchor our solutions in their business and organizational context. This approach has enabled us to learn what truly makes a difference in leadership development:
- Context is everything.
We catalyze learning and ongoing transformation of leaders at all levels so that they can adapt, create and continuously transform their organizations. We believe that education ultimately is about not just new skills but also about changing mindsets and behaviors. That’s why we are committed to a customized, problem-centered approach. This requires innovative design, immersive experiences and content based on the tough, real-world, and wholly new problems and opportunities facing organizations. And, it requires that we continually refresh and renew our approach to learning to keep up with the accelerating changes in business today.
- Get ready to let go of old models.
Both leadership and learning require completely new approaches. Our core business challenge remains the same: reinvent business education to keep up with the expanding demands on leaders. Impact, access and speed are more important than ever. In addition to continuously inventing new and creative ways to deliver customized executive education, our Ready-to-Learn offerings deliver fast, relevant, and timely learning on cutting-edge topics through a range of multi-modular options, including digital, blended and face-to face.
- Diversity of thought is imperative.
As unpredictability increases, so does the need for creativity, adaptation and a human-centered approach. That’s why we believe so strongly in co-creating solutions in partnership with our clients. We collaborate by brining smart frames, tools and insights in order to achieve a shared goal: new perception, new thinking and new action. Central to this capability is our global educator network, which brings unparalleled diversity of thought in discipline, culture, and experience –diversity that provokes new mindsets and behaviors.
IBM CEO Ginni Rometty said in a recent interview that AI will change 100% of jobs over the next decade and will present new opportunities which need reskilling. A Forbes Insights survey reveals that 51% of executives consider their businesses at risk from digital disruption in the next five years. Almost a third report they are already directly affected by competition from digital and data-savvy players in their markets. No industry or organization is immune. While we are proud of our Financial Times rankings results, we know that we can’t grow complacent in this age of disruption. The changes in business education will only accelerate. But we are confident that we can continue not just to keep up, but also to shape the future of learning, as we have done for nearly two decades.
We look forward to deepening our partnership with our clients so that we can adapt to these shifts together to bring about even more impactful leadership and organizational transformation. Despite all the global challenges, we at Duke CE believe that leaders can and do make a difference. Unlocking their potential to do great things is the reason why we are here.
Learn more about the rankings here or download the PDF. You can also access this story in the Financial Times about our collaboration with Standard Chartered Bank.
