The Transformational CHRO Programme is a groundbreaking collaboration between Egon Zehnder, University of Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education and Mobius Executive Leadership. Created for Chief HR Officers and CHROs in the making, this leadership initiative offers an unparalleled development journey.
Structured around three pedagogical pillars of business, self and function, the 10-month cohort-based experience will equip people leaders with what they need to occupy the seat in a truly differentiated way. Much more than an educational programme, this is a collective, personal, and profound experience that will redefine the participants’ future in HR leadership.
The role of the CHROs has never been more critical or complex. The classical and fundamental expectations of HR—talent management, team development, performance management, organizational design, total rewards—still exist, but they are now compounded by a series of additional expectations and challenges that come at unprecedented speed.
Against an increasingly VUCA world, the imperative to lead the conversation on the future of work, new operating models, DEI, employee wellbeing, organizational culture/purpose, and the impact of AI and Big Data, while attending to emerging crises, requires something differentiated. It calls for not only access to a best-in-class toolkit and thinking, it also demands today’s CHRO to have made significant headway on their own leadership development journey to be resourced to respond to it all at an individual level.
The Transformational CHRO Programme is designed to equip CHROs and CHRO successors with business, functional and personal tools to lead in a complex ecosytem.
Over the course of 10 months, the Transformational CHRO Programme will consist of a combination of in-person and online immersive modules, led by academics, business leaders, and practitioners. The programme focuses on vertical development principles, which aim to enable leaders to think in more complex and sophisticated ways, gain greater wisdom, and have clearer insights, all of which will help them mature into self-authoring individuals.
In addition to exposure to world class experts and facilitators in the immersions, participants will also have a year’s subscription to an online portal with resources on self-development, interpersonal skills, team dynamics, large systems change and societal contribution. Made up of hundreds of podcasts, book excerpts, videos and articles by seminal thought leaders, this consists of a broad exposure to best practices in key domains of leading human capital.
In the ‘Age of Disruption’, the new game requires leaders to disrupt their inner order. As the world reinvents itself, the only way to win is to reinvent yourself too.
Featuring peer-to-peer learning as well (across sectors and borders), participants will have the opportunity to engage with Chairs, Board Directors, CEOs, and tenured CHROs across a myriad of topics to help respond to the increasing complexity and evolving demands of the role. Participants will also receive invaluable 1:1 executive coaching and mentoring tailored to guide their unique growth trajectory.
The Transformational CHRO Programme offers a comprehensive syllabus. The Business Leadership module delves into megatrends impacting society, economics and business, understanding the role of the Board and the ecosystem of the CEO/the ExCo. The Self Leadership module is an experiential intervention that dives deep to accelerate each individual’s growth and ability to transform themselves as leaders. It is aimed at enhancing leaders’ self-awareness and capacities for holding adaptive change, creating psychological safety and inclusion and supporting an organizational culture that has belonging at its center. Finally, across the Functional Leadership module, the focus is on the HR leader of the future—not only in how they lead the function as an enterprise leader, engaging with the Board, the leadership team and the rest of the organization but also reflecting on best-in-class talent management and succession planning among others. At each step of the way, partnered with a dedicated Development Advisor, the participants will glean experience and insight that they can immediately apply to their teams and their own careers.
In–person sessions will be convened at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School during the course of the programme, with convenient online sessions bridging the immersive journey. The programme is invitation-only and will be capped in terms of attendance to ensure a personalized experience for all attendees.
The programme is delivered across three learning modules: ‘The Changing World’, ‘The Exploring Self’ and ‘The Transformational Leader’. The in-person learning (a total of 8 days across 10 months) will be complemented with digital access/virtual gatherings enriching the curriculum. Across the entire learning journey, the participants will benefit from 1:1 executive coaching and mentoring to further personal growth.
The Changing World (In-person)
Immerse yourself in a University of Cambridge Judge Business School in-person experience as the programme launches and connect with your cohort through scene setting and goal identification. Embark on a journey where sessions will be led by Cambridge professors, Chairs, Board Members, CEOs and CHROs, as well as Egon Zehnder consultants. We will canvas the horizon around megatrends that impact the economy and society while spending time on the business ecosystem Boards, CEOs and ExCos need to respond to. We will also explore the changing role of the CHRO and what it takes to develop and implement a world-class HR strategy.
Embedding the Learning Through Digital Experiences (Virtual)
Connect with your cohort to round out the curriculum and attend virtual sessions hosted by the University of Cambridge Judge Business School, Mobius Executive Leadership and Egon Zehnder, as well as experienced Chairs, CEOs, CHROs and subject matter experts.
The Exploring Self (In-person)
Led by Egon Zehnder and Mobius Executive Leadership this in-person programme will take you on a catalytic transformative experience that vastly expands your self-awareness and emotional intelligence and helps prepare you to cultivate high-performing organizational cultures that foster trust, inclusion, psychological safety and innovation and to be a future-ready HR leader.
Embedding the Learning Through Digital Experiences (Virtual)
Connect with your cohort to round out the curriculum and attend virtual sessions hosted by Cambridge, Mobius Executive Leadership and Egon Zehnder, as well as experienced Chairs, CEOs, CHROs and subject matter experts.
The Transformational Leader (In-person)
Consolidating the learnings and reflections to date, chart the path forward with the latest thinking in people and business leadership. You will focus on how CHROs can champion culture, values, vision, and mission, how they can set up a world-class HR team and how they can build and retain the workforce of the future. The final piece of the programme will allow participants to start reflecting on their non-executive careers as well, equipping them with what they need to invest in to emerge as effective Board Directors themselves in due course.
Erica Ariel Fox, Chief Thought Leader, Mobius Executive Leadership, Co-founder and Faculty Head, Executive Breakthrough Program and author, WINNING FROM WITHIN®: A BREAKTHROUGH METHOD OF LEADING, LIVING, AND LASTING CHANGE, and Lecturer, Harvard Law School
