Executive Education Comes of Age to Address Innovation Skills Gap

PHOENIX--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today’s world of razor-thin margins and global competition can stress even the strongest organizations. Compound these pressures with a deep innovation skills gap facing corporate America and it can be tough for businesses to survive. Add the fact that 80 percent of leaders believe innovation is important for their future success* and there emerges a clear need to develop innovation skills within organizations. In a significant move to tackle this widespread issue, Innovator’s Accelerator™, an immersive, web-based learning experience designed to accelerate the innovation skills of individuals and organizations, has come to market.

“Professor Christensen and I believe that advances in technology, software platforms and sophisticated web-based and mobile delivery systems have converged with globalization and employers’ changing skill requirements around innovation. The result is a significant demand for a completely new executive education learning experience.”

Innovator’s Accelerator brings world-class content and a unique online competency-based learning model together with broadcast-quality production and design from global design and innovation firm IDEO, to create the next step forward in online learning focused on innovation. Three of the most prominent minds in the innovation field – Clayton Christensen at the Harvard Business School, Jeff Dyer at Brigham Young University and The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania, and Hal Gregersen at INSEAD – tapped into their globally recognized research, experience and insights to create the intellectual core of the Innovator’s Accelerator.

In a unique partnership, Apollo Group, one of the world’s largest private education companies, and its subsidiary University of Phoenix, leveraged its decades of experience with millions of online students worldwide to complement the contributions of Christensen, Dyer and Gregersen. University of Phoenix, the leader in online education in the United States, will distribute the unique offering to corporations eager to bring innovation learning to thousands of employees across their global organizations.

"We are extremely proud of Innovator’s Accelerator, and the collaboration with world-class experts in innovation that led to its creation,” said Apollo Group CEO Greg Cappelli. “We are confident that companies and organizations around the world will benefit tremendously from this new offering, as will their employees.”

“Through our constant discussions and interactions with many of the nation’s leading companies and employers, we have learned that the most critical missing skill in nearly every organization is innovation,” said Barry Feierstein, chief business operating officer, University of Phoenix. “So we turned to the world’s leading minds on the study of innovation to help us build the best offering in the world on the subject. Innovator’s Accelerator is the result of an unprecedented collaboration with leaders in their respective fields.”

Innovation can be learned: A next step forward in innovative online learning and teaching

The six-week learning experience comprises:

Thirty total hours of non-credit professional development focused on building essential innovation skills through the exploration of the three types of innovation: growth, sustaining and efficiency.
Nineteen high-quality, immersive lessons featuring video lectures from Christensen, Dyer and Gregersen, as well as success stories from top-level executives who consistently put innovation into practice.
Practice-based activities, cutting-edge creative and live team projects that provide opportunities to apply key learning.

“The relationship with Clayton Christensen began in 2010 with the development of the Phoenix Lecture Series,” said George Lichter, head of Apollo Group's advanced academic product team. “Professor Christensen and I believe that advances in technology, software platforms and sophisticated web-based and mobile delivery systems have converged with globalization and employers’ changing skill requirements around innovation. The result is a significant demand for a completely new executive education learning experience.”

Innovator’s Accelerator was developed under the leadership of University of Phoenix and its parent Apollo Group, the groundbreaking experts in online learning, and is the latest contribution in the University’s longstanding heritage of innovation in online education. For more information about Innovator’s Accelerator, or to enroll your organization, please visit: http://InnovatorsAccelerator.com

About Apollo Group

Apollo Group, Inc. is one of the world's largest private education providers and has been in the education business for approximately 40 years. The Company offers innovative and distinctive educational programs and services both online and on-campus at the undergraduate, master’s and doctoral levels through its subsidiaries: University of Phoenix, Apollo Global, Institute for Professional Development and College for Financial Planning. The Company offers programs and services throughout the United States and in Latin America and Europe, as well as online throughout the world.

About University of Phoenix

University of Phoenix^® is constantly innovating to help students balance education and life in a rapidly changing world. Flexible schedules, challenging courses and interactive learning can help students pursue personal and career aspirations without putting their lives on hold. It’s this link between education and careers that is at the core of the University’s efforts. As the flagship university of Apollo Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: APOL), University of Phoenix serves a diverse student population, offering continuing education as well as associate, bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs from campuses and learning centers across the U.S. as well as online throughout the world. For more information, visit http://www.phoenix.edu.

*Globe & Mail and the Schulich Executive Education Centre, survey conducted in 2007.