Executive Electives Week

Drexel LeBow Executive Electives Week features coursework that spans a diversity of disciplines and explores some of the most pertinent challenges facing industry today. Designed by leading faculty members, industry experts and the Corporate and Executive Education team, these immersive experiences are designed to enhance your business acumen and sharpen your existing skillsets.

Executive Electives: Course Descriptions April 2024

Healthcare Finance and Entrepreneurship

Date: Thursday, April 4, 2024
Location/Format: Drexel University City Campus, In Person Delivery
Instructors:

• David Becher, PhD, Professor, Finance; a faculty member for its Corporate and Executive Education and a Fellow for Drexel’s Raj & Kamla Gupta Governance Institute
• David Stein, PhD, Regional Chief of Surgery, Baltimore; Chair of Surgery MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center, Chief MedStar Harbor Hospital, Professor of Surgery Georgetown University School of Medicine

Course Description:

The United States Healthcare System is complex and constantly changing. It comprises more than 18% of the GDP and according to the 2021 U.S. Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns (CBP), the 947,676 businesses in the Healthcare and Social Assistance sector topped all others with more than 20.6 million employees and over $1Trillion in annual payroll. New regulations, complex payments systems, and digital and technology-based platforms all afford tremendous opportunities for healthcare, but also present significant challenges navigating the myriad of systems and obstacles. Beyond all this, many individuals view health care as an inalienable right, but are unaware of the financial impact and implications that daily decisions can bring to the corporations that supply these services. This executive course will take a holistic approach to better understand the fundamental tenants of financial decision making as well as the key inputs in health care finance and entrepreneurship. Through case-based learning, participants will be exposed to actual health care investment decisions and be required to assume the role of a health care start-up founder in making financial decisions. Particular emphasis will be placed on how investment decisions are made in healthcare, the role of innovation, and the challenges and opportunities currently facing the industry.

Bulletproof Problem Solving

Date: Friday, April 5, 2024
Location/Format: Drexel University City Campus, In Person Delivery
Instructor:

• Michaela Draganska, PhD, Associate Professor, Marketing

Course Description:

Are you looking for a way to sharpen your problem-solving skills and impress your clients and bosses with clear and persuasive communication? Do you want to learn how to tackle complex and ambiguous problems with confidence and creativity? Bulletproof Problem Solving is a course that teaches you how to use the Pyramid Principle and decision trees to analyze complex issues and craft effective business memos. The Pyramid Principle is a method of structuring and presenting your arguments in a clear and logical way, using a top-down approach that starts with the main message and then supports it with facts and analysis. Decision trees are graphical tools that help you break down a problem into smaller and simpler components and uncover the underlying structure and logic of the problem.

Empowering Work in the Age of AI

Date: Saturday, April 6, 2024
Location/Format: Drexel University City Campus, In Person Delivery
Instructors:

• Dr. Daniel Albert, PhD. Assistant Professor, Management

Course Description:

Explore the transformative impact of generative AI in redefining how we work and think. In this interactive, one-day session, immerse yourself in leading technologies like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. Discover how these tools not only enhance productivity but also revolutionize decision-making, ideation, and may set a new standard for what distinguishes exceptional managers in the modern workplace. Learn to leverage large language models (LLMs) for innovative solutions, and understand why managers harnessing AI’s power are poised to displace those who don’t adapt, reshaping the competitive landscape across various industries. The course will be highly interactive and hands-on using some of the currently available generative AI models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. We will also discuss some of the basic concepts underlying generative AI models to better understand how these models work and why their true potential is not even close to being understood as this point. While we take an emergent and exploratory approach to this course, the content and activities will be guided and complemented by the most recent insights from research on LLMs, prompt-engineering, and cognitive psychology.