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Undergraduates Have New Way to Learn to be Leaders: Accenture Leadership Center Opens 

Undergraduate business and engineering students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who aim to be leaders in their careers and communities, now have a new way to reach that goal.  This fall, the new business school opens the Accenture Leadership Center (ALC) to provide opportunities for students to develop leadership skills outside the classroom.

Steve Schroeder, director of the business school’s Business Career Center, said the new leadership center will “provide a unique laboratory atmosphere that encourages students to practice their leadership in a supportive environment.”  

The Accenture Leadership Center  will be housed in 2261 Grainger Hall. Active and retired senior executives of Accenture, the global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, provided financial support to endow the center, helped develop its curriculum and will serve as instructors and role models. The Accenture Leadership Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business is the only one of its kind. 

The ALC curriculum is delivered in partnership with the highly successful LeaderShape® Institute that over the past 20 years has been delivered to more than 20,000 young adults representing 750 colleges and universities.

Jim Wierzba, a retired Accenture partner who earned his undergraduate  degree and MBA from UW-Madison, said he and his colleagues wanted to “create a special learning experience by combining the inspirational instructional material from the LeaderShape Institute with the mentoring capacity of active and retired Accenture senior executives.” 
 
The Accenture Leadership Center  serves pre-business and business students, with participation available to engineering undergraduate students. Enrollment is open to all undergraduate students in the two schools, regardless of major.

The center’s year-long curriculum has four major components: LeaderShape® Institute – an intensive six-day session focused on concepts and hands-on learning; mentoring sessions led by experienced business practitioners; project work – clusters of students working together on a major project for the School of Business or broader Madison community; and a capstone event  to celebrate the accomplishments of participants.

For upcoming information on the Accenture Leadership Center,  go to www.bus.wisc.edu/ALC, call Steve Schroeder at 265-4190 or email ALC@bus.wisc.edu.