Where Business Meets Technology

Delivering value to enterprises and ensuring long-term career success requires much more than pure technology skills. This course is an industry technology executive’s view of how, as information becomes increasingly strategic for all organizations, future technology leaders can accelerate career growth and bring value to their organizations more quickly by developing this core set of business skills.

This course will explore a series of critical business topics that apply both to start-up and Fortune 500 enterprises. This course is divided into three primary sections, delivered through a series of readings, industry guest speakers and hands-on practice of business skills:

• Examining business models and strategies: How do companies plan to succeed? What are their business strategies and how do those translate into technology strategies and investments in support of these plans? Secondly, how does one analyze whether an organization’s culture is enabling or inhibiting that success?

• Interacting with SF Bay Area technology executives: Students will have access to C-level executives in an intimate classroom setting as they discuss their organizational strategies, cultures and technology styles. How do they trade off speed, quality and features? How do they manage innovation when they also must operate? Currently scheduled speakers include:

  • Dick Daniels — CIO of Kaiser Permanente
  • Michael Kelly — CIO of Red Hat
  • Hugo Evans — VP of Data Science at A.T. Kearney
  • Roy Bahat — Head of Bloomberg Beta Venture Capital
  • Diana McKenzie — Former Workday CIO, current advisor and board member.

• Enhancing core business skills: Presentation skills, negotiations, leadership styles, organizational change, personal brand and future career vision are topics that will be explored in class and in written assignments. A brief presentation will be required from all students.