Maren Hopkins (MBA 2019)

Maren Hopkins (MBA 2019)

Maren Hopkins (MBA 2019) already had a strong understanding of the technical side of the digital world when she signed up for the Digital Innovation and Transformation MBA Program course in September 2018. Before coming to HBS, she had earned degrees in mechanical engineering and economics at Yale and then worked in tech investments at Morgan Stanley and as a project manager at Microsoft. But what Hopkins hoped to learn from the course taught by Shane Greenstein, the Martin Marshall Professor of Business Administration and co-chair of the HBS Digital Initiative, was how to develop the skills and insight to become a leader in the digital age.

Today’s MBA Program has multiple electives designed to help students conceive, lead, and execute digital innovation initiatives and develop new business models for organizations, from early stage to existing. Likewise, through its Executive Education Program and HBS Online, the School is educating business leaders about the latest technologies and how to capitalize on these new capabilities.

The course she took, says Hopkins, covered a broad range of digital technologies and the potential commercialization paths. “One of the biggest takeaways was that these technologies require new types of business models and monetization schemes. We explored how you build a business around these innovations and what the competitive dynamics are that will evolve,” notes Hopkins, a vice president at Bain Capital Tech Opportunities who invests in B2B software companies in the late-stage growth phase.

Hopkins cites an example that was brought to life in a case discussion attended by the protagonist, a founder of a company who had placed his product on Amazon and yet was competing against that global platform on his own website. “We discussed how you think about building a business in a world where you depend on your competitors to go to market. That’s something that doesn’t exist in many other business types, but it’s pretty common in the new digital marketplace landscape,” she explains. “We had to understand the complexities that come with innovation.”

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Learning to Lead and Transform

In addition to helping students learn about new digital-age business models, Digital Innovation and Transformation introduces the critical elements of designing and developing digital products and services, how these can be configured and led, and ways to manage the results. A related MBA elective launching in the spring, 2032: 5 Technologies That Will Reshape the World in the Next Decade, focuses on the skills students need to be entrepreneurial leaders over the next decade and examines five emerging technologies—ubiquitous networks, artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning algorithms, neuroscience and the human operating system, gene editing, and blockchain-based technologies. Another MBA elective geared to entrepreneurs is Launching Technology Ventures, which is designed for students interested in starting their own companies, joining early stage startups, working at growth-stage technology firms, and investing in startups.

The need for today’s leaders to have a solid understanding of data management and analytics also led HBS to introduce Data Science for Managers, a new Required Curriculum elective for first-year MBA students. Then in their second year, they can choose from a range of data science courses (see sidebar below) that provide the foundation to effectively derive and evaluate data-driven insights to inform managerial decisions.

Luis Viceira, the George E. Bates Professor and Senior Associate Dean for HBS Online and Executive Education. Photo by Susan Young

Giving Executives New Insight

Through its Executive Education programs, taught on campus and online, HBS is advancing business leaders’ knowledge of the digital world, giving them the skills and insight to drive effective decision making. Competing in the Age of Digital Platforms helps participants understand how to create sustainable value whether competing as, with, or against digital platforms, while Competing in the Age of AI—Virtual looks at advancements in AI and how companies are redefining the ways they create, capture, and share value, as well as achieve growth.

Driving Digital Strategy explores ways to leverage digital, social, and mobile marketing tools to drive innovation and spur growth. A related program is Marketing in the Digital Era—Virtual, which helps organizations thrive in the era of digital marketing and digital business models. Executive Education also offers Leveraging Fintech Innovation to Grow and Compete, a program that focuses on digital innovation from a financial perspective, exploring how blockchain, machine learning, big data, and AI are revolutionizing the financial sector.

Sharing Knowledge More Broadly

In addition to offering digital innovation and data courses and programs to MBA students and Executive Education participants, HBS shares its pedagogy with lifelong learners around the world through HBS Online. Within its portfolio of business courses are six that explore a variety of data-related topics, from data privacy to digital health to the use of big data for social good (see sidebar below). Five of the six courses (Business Analytics being the exception) were created by the office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning at Harvard University and thus are branded as Harvard Online or “from Harvard.” This arrangement has enabled other parts of the university to use the one-of-a-kind learning platform developed by HBS Online to extend their reach as well.

“Our MBA students and course participants are eager to learn new skills in an engaging way and employ them in their work lives, realizing immediate impact,” says Luis Viceira, the George E. Bates Professor and senior associate dean for HBS Online and Executive Education. “As new technologies enter the business domain, this sort of ‘on-demand’ learning will become increasingly important for leaders at all levels, in different formats that they can choose from, and so our faculty and staff are constantly working to update our offerings to that end. Lifelong learning is essential in a world where technology is constantly evolving.”

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