Corporate Partners
Close ties to corporate partners are a hallmark of the Wisconsin School of Business.
We continue to make major strides in broadening and deepening our corporate partnerships and in finding new ways to connect with business leaders.
Advisory boards
Advisory boards are a key way we bridge academia and the corporate world. More than 360 business leaders are engaged on more than two dozen working boards in the school. This involvement strengthens our connection to corporate leaders around the world. Industry-related advisory boards share best practices, interact with our students and provide advice on current issues and corporate trends that help keep our curriculum relevant to industry.
The Wisconsin model of board interaction has earned national attention. We were one of only three schools featured in an article called “Advise & Connect” in BizEd magazine, which covers international management education. As Dean Michael Knetter said in the article: “The support of distinguished graduates might be what ultimately separates great business schools from those that are merely good.”
High-impact executive education
More than 5,000 leaders from 1,500 companies benefited from executive education programs at the Fluno Center over the past year. Companies like American Family Insurance, Fiserv and Actuant partnered with our executive education department to design and deliver innovative custom programs for their employees.
Talented employees
Wisconsin MBA and undergraduate students provide immediate value to companies who hired interns and full-time employees. Last year, more than 250 companies actively recruited Wisconsin MBAs and over 500 firms targeted undergraduate business students. We have achieved “target school” status with a growing number of leading companies, including Procter & Gamble, General Electric, Target, IBM, Kohl’s, and Philip Morris USA.
Project consulting
Many companies benefited last year from research and recommendations based on major project work by Wisconsin MBA students.
In return, our corporate partners strengthen our programs by:
Sharing experiences with students
Over the past year, leaders from companies including Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Kimberly-Clark, Grainger, Accenture, and many more, visited classrooms and participated in events to share their insights and experiences with students.
Sponsoring events and programs
Companies provide resources for key initiatives and raise visibility for their brand by sponsoring key programs and events including the Directors’ Summit™, the Women’s Executive Leadership Summit, Wisconsin MBA Diversity Weekend and other outreach efforts. Firms also supported a variety of career services programs to benefit undergraduate and Wisconsin MBA students, including a new initiative to create career development “podcasts” for students.
Providing resources
Over the past year, our corporate and foundation partners provided direct and matching gifts of more than $4 million to fund key initiatives.
CEO Summit
The CEO Summit brings together CEOs and other leading executives from around the world who share a common experience—an education from the University of Wisconsin. First held in Madison in fall 2006, the event was repeated in fall 2007. Important topics covered included the future of energy, paths to leadership and important scientific research being conducted at UW-Madison. The summit was organized by John Morgridge (pictured above), BBA ’55, chairman emeritus of Cisco Systems, to raise Wisconsin’s national visibility in producing business leaders and to continue that legacy of leadership by providing an opportunity for leading alumni to interact with each other and benefit from knowledge being created at Wisconsin.