Please note that this description was taken from an earlier semester. New information will be posted when available.

COURSE NUMBER: EWMBA 296-4

Cross listed with the FT MBA program

COURSE TITLE: Haas@Work

UNITS OF CREDIT: 3

INSTRUCTOR: Pierre Loewe

E-MAIL ADDRESS: ploewesf@gmail.com

CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION: http://haasatwork.berkeley.edu

MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: Wednesday evening 6:00-9:30 PM

PREREQUISITE(S): PFPS (or concurrent enrollment)

CLASS FORMAT: Mixture of lecture, group work/ breakouts, and client deliverable meetings

REQUIRED READINGS: Project specific info, course reader, and text book

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Project work, team performance, class participation

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:

Haas@Work is a unique and popular project based course, offering students an opportunity to work with a very select group of prominent companies, to address significant business innovation challenges. During the term, teams of students develop recommendations to address a growth or innovation issue impacting the performance of one of the participating companies.
Students follow a proven innovation methodology which includes insight development, concept generation, business modeling, and pilot/experimentation design. 
The teams work closely with company executives during all phases of the work, and the strongest recommendations are typically added to the client's business roadmap for implementation, often with the help of some of the students from the course.  
Along the way, students develop tools that will help them think more innovatively, and better approach the ambiguous strategic challenges that they will encounter in their careers. These tools include analyzing industry trends and competitive space, challenging established industry practices, identifying core competences, uncovering unmet customer need,  leading teams in developing a range of options, evaluating and selecting among possible options, and putting in place low risk implementation plans.

Important notes:

• Student project preference is taken into account in building project teams, and while we have a 90%+ success rate in accommodating student interests, there is a chance you will not get assigned to your top choice.
• For each project, there will be 3-4 formal client workshops/presentations outside of normal Wednesday evening class hours, in addition to the normal outside work and coordination needed to manage your client, the deliverables, and your team responsibilities. 
• Once assigned a project, you will be required to sign an NDA and IP waiver
  

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:
Pierre Loewe is a strategy, organization and innovation expert with over thirty years business experience in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa.  He has worked as a coach and consultant to senior management, as a marketing executive, and as an executive program designer and teacher.
Pierre currently teaches innovation in the MBA program at the Haas School of Business at Berkeley, and Business Strategy in the Executive MBA program at San Francisco State University.  Previously, Pierre co-founded Strategos, a leading global strategic innovation consulting firm chaired by best-selling author and strategy guru Gary Hamel.  His consulting experience also includes being a Senior Vice President at Gemini Consulting and at its predecessor company the MAC Group, and working as a project manager for McKinsey & Company. 
Pierre also served as Director of Marketing for Salomon/North America, the leading sports equipment manufacturer, and worked as a lecturer in strategy implementation in the Fully Employed MBA program at UCLA.  He has authored multiple articles on global strategy, strategic innovation and marketing strategy in a variety of publications and been a speaker on strategic innovation at many industry and company meetings.
Pierre holds an MS in Management from the Sloan School of Management at MIT, a BS in Engineering from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris, and a BA in Economics from the Faculté de Droit et des Sciences Economiques de Paris.   He is bilingual in English and French and has consulted and taught in both languages.