Last week I was delighted to award the first scholarship for Strategic Alliance Competency – to Linda LoRe, former CEO of Giorgios and Frederiks of Hollywood who is now a Presidential Key Executive MBA candidate at Pepperdine University in Los Angeles. My post last Friday talked about her – here is a photo of me talking about how important collaboration is in business and in life – and that strategic alliance competency is one of the most marketable business skills and corporate advantages for a rising leader.
Many organizations partner without a formal structure to do so – which means that they fail to apply metrics and discipline to the effort. Which leads to partnership failure. The skills of conflict resolution, partner structure, disciplined processes and remediation activities can add significant value to business relationships which is why I created two foundations for up and coming leaders to recognise their prowess, encourage them to continue in these arena, and stand up as examples to others in the business world as an ethical approach to business growth and evolution. I am delighted that Pepperdine women are exemplary in this field, and use both the moral and ethical belief systems that are so much part of the Pepperdine approach as well as the scientific and rigorous capabilities that they gain from the pragmatic education that is part of the PKE MBA program.
Below is the Dean of the Graziadio School of Business at Pepperdine Linda Livingstone on my left.
Very cool. Congratulations. -Ed Rigsbee, author, “Developing Strategic Alliances”