Lead with confidence and impact in complex environments
The Executive Transition Program (ETP) from ESMT Berlin supports your transition into general management, equipping you with the capabilities required to succeed in senior leadership roles. It recognizes that leadership itself is evolving, and that navigating this transition requires reflection, clarity, and perspective.
Traditional challenges – production innovation, traditional workforce management, operational hurdles – are becoming secondary to bigger, systemic forces. Geopolitical pressures, artificial intelligence, social polarization, and climate risks define the leadership agenda.
Success no longer hinges on quality and efficiency alone. It asks for sound judgment, bold decisions, and long-term vision in increasingly complex environments. The ETP focuses on how to lead with impact and clarity during periods of sustained change.
Key facts
Your profile
- You are about to or recently have moved into a general management role.
- You are leading a business unit, department or regional entity, or overseeing a new product, market, or major project initiative.
- You are a leader of people leaders with at least 10 years of business experience and 7 years of leadership experience.
- You have a confident command of written and spoken professional English.
Benefits
- Strengthened business knowledge
- Enhanced confidence to tackle complex challenges
- Broadened perspective with leadership insights from other disciplines like humanities and geopolitics
- Expanded comfort zone established with peer coaching and immersive experiences
- More connections through the exclusive ETP Salon, a network of top-level leaders and change-makers
Program highlights
- Top faculty from ESMT Berlin and leading partner business schools
- Experiential growth opportunities, including outdoor challenges and actor-led exercises
- Case study discussions or a business simulation to exchange perspectives and practical insights
- Peer coaching sessions to deepen individual learning throughout the program
- Networking with like-minded peers and the broader ETP community
- Inspiring locations and unique spaces for personal reflection and growth
- Select online nuggets and webinars
Topics
Core business functions and strategy
- Strategy definition and change implementation
- Financial management
- Operations and supply chain management
- Marketing and commercialization
- Innovation and AI
- Sustainability
- Business ethics and responsibility
Leadership practice
- Team leadership and decision-making
- Authorizing your leadership
- Influencing and stakeholder engagement
- Self-mastery
- Your presence, vision and story
- Mindful and inclusive leadership
- Crucibles of leadership
Downloads
Executive Transition Program
Request a consultation
This required consultation is your opportunity to share your goals and explore whether the Executive Transition Program is the right fit.
Next dates
Program structure
You will...
- dive into various business functions and their interconnections
- apply your learning in a business simulation, orchestrating value creation across functions in a global context
You will also...
- explore executive transitions and strategies to address related challenges
- reflect on your leadership journey and define the leader you aspire to become.
- get to know your classmates and engage in peer coaching
You will...
- take a company-wide perspective to understand key levers for strategic competitiveness, innovativeness and growth including the role of AI to understand what it takes to drive holistic change
- learn to make effective, unbiased, ethical and responsible decisions in a leadership team
You will...
- reflect on your leadership vision, value contribution, and practice storytelling to inspire
- understand how to build authority as a leader
- discuss how to leverage strategic and operational networks to influence effectively
- benefit from group and individual transition coaching to reflect and grow.
What participants say about the Executive Transition Program
Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Management
Having completed the Executive Transition Program, you will receive the ESMT Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Management, a prestigious recognition of your professional development.
Ellen Herb
Dr. Urs Müller
Gianluca Carnabuci
Nora Grasselli
Konstantin Korotov
Olaf Plötner
Hanna Setterberg
Francis de Véricourt
More participant perspectives
ETP not only builds confidence in making complex business decisions but also shapes well-rounded leaders committed to sustainable growth and impact.
The combination of academic rigor, peer consulting, and deep self-reflection is unique.
The Executive Transition Program stood out because it focused on who you are as a leader, not just what you know.
The combination of academic rigor, peer consulting, and deep self-reflection is unique. Compared to other programs, ETP felt highly relevant, practical, and immediately applicable to real leadership situations.
ESMT offered more than top-tier faculty – it gave me space to grow as a leader and as a human, in both mindset and business acumen.
I came for strategy and skills – but left with a new perspectives on how to lead authentically, courageously and with confidence.
Scholarship opportunities
ESMT Berlin offers full and partial women’s scholarships designed to support talented female leaders.
Looking for more information, a consultation, or support with your application?
Contact our program advisor Laura Kiehne.
- Book a consultation
- Phone: +49 30 21231 1490
- Email: bd@esmt.org
