Executive Leadership Development Program (ELDP)

NAMIC's award-winning Executive Leadership Development Program (ELDP) is offered in partnership with the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. ELDP is a globally renowned program uniquely tailored for media, entertainment, and technology and has been recognized for two subsequent years for Best Advance in Leadership Development. The program was created to meet several important goals:

• Help identify and nurture high-potential executives
• Build and strengthen their skills, preparing them for promotion to more senior positions
• Provide useful tools to help them meet the unique challenges that confront professionals who occupy key leadership roles
• Assist industry companies’ retention efforts for executives

Since 2012, the University of Virginia Darden School of Business has been NAMIC’s academic partner for ELDP. Darden consistently ranks in the top five global business schools for course design and faculty, elements considered by NAMIC to be of vital importance. Darden was selected as a partner to reimagine executive preparedness and success in an emerging global, digital marketplace, building on the NAMIC program’s decade of proven success since its founding in 2001 at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

ELDP is unique in its focus on the research-anchored exploration of the intersection of business-critical leadership competencies with cultural identity. The program is designed to help solve some of the industry’s most persistent diversity challenges: increasing the breadth of inclusion in the industry’s executive suites, retention of executives, and maximizing the ROI of a multicultural workforce within a business environment that demands strategic leadership agility and creative innovation.

The curriculum delves into the critical performance competencies that any successful executive in the industry must master. During three visits to Darden, spanning a seven-month program arc, ELDP class members explore topics required for strategic agility and sustainable success in the ever-changing, dynamic telecommunications industry: marketing and financial analysis, corporate strategy, operations management, communication strategies, change management, achieving optimal business results from multicultural teams, and leading innovation.

The ideal candidate for NAMIC’s Executive Leadership Development Program (ELDP) fits the following profile:

• Executive with a minimum of five years at the director level and above
• A superior performer
• On track for promotion or identified in the company’s formal/informal succession plan
• Aspiring to a senior-level executive position within the industry
• Endorsed by senior management for participation in the ELDP
• Current NAMIC member

The core objectives of the Executive Leadership Development Program at Darden are as follows:

• Deepen understanding of the changing strategic and market context in the telecommunications industry in an increasingly global and competitive environment;
• Develop an enterprise-wide perspective anchored in the overall business and the inter-connections of the functional business areas such as financial management, marketing, and strategic talent alignment;
• Enhance participants’ capacities to convert strategy into action;
• Cultivate a learning mindset that drives innovation;
• Introduce the competencies needed to grow and sustain high-performing diverse teams that span organizational, cultural, and ideological spectra;
• Nurture visionary and transformational leaders.

In order to nurture visionary and transformational leaders to achieve these goals, the comprehensive curriculum focuses on four key business pillars:

I. Strategic Thinking and Enterprise Perspective in a Global Context
II. Financial & Business Acumen
III. Customer Orientation and Innovation
IV. Leading Strategic Change and Fostering a High-Performing, High-Engagement Business Culture

Finally, with the help of leading-edge assessment tools supported by certified professional interpretation and coaching, participants will spend time in guided examination of their strengths and development opportunities, how to leverage emotional intelligence, and the unique rapport that executives have with power - acquiring it, using it wisely, and comprehending it in all its cultural and organizational complexity.

• Class XIV (2014-2015)
• Class XV (2015-2016)
• Class XVI (2016-2017)
• Class XVII (2017-2018)
• Class XVIII (2018-2019)
• Class XIX (2019-2020)
• Class XX (2020-2021)
• Class XXI (2021-2022)
• Class XXII (2022-2023)
• Class XXIII (2023-2024)
• Class XXIV (2024-2025)