The University of California, Berkeley recently started the first session of its Engineering Leadership Program for Professionals. This six month program is the first of its kind in the US and is being conducted in the Silicon Valley. It has been designed to provide top quality leadership training to engineers from leading technology companies, including Applied Materials (News - Alert), Cisco, Facebook, Lam Research, NetApp, National Semiconductor and Yahoo.

In a release, Ikhlaq Sidhu, the curriculum designer and lead professor for the program said that, “Engineering leadership is critical to the success of the best companies in the world. This program is designed to build on the strengths of top technologists and provide them with some key disciplines that will make them better engineers as well as leaders.”

This weekly program is made up of twenty-eight, 3-hour sessions which started in January and will continue until July 2011. The focus of the program is to teach engineers to expertly manage technical teams, influence top-level strategy, and amplify the inherent value of R&D.  Some of the subjects covered will include opportunity recognition, technical firm strategy, product management, customer development, operations, leadership skills, and finance.

Charles Giancarlo, managing director of Silver Lake and former chief development officer at  Cisco (News - Alert) said that, “I am a great fan of this program and believe that many companies in the valley can make use of it to meet the needs of engineering and marketing managers as they rise through the ranks. There is nothing like this anywhere.”

Shankar Sastry, Dean of Berkeley’s College of Engineering speaking on the topic of the complementary programs offered by Berkeley’s Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership said that, “Technology has the power to change how we live – but only if technologists have the tools and skills to lead these changes.” 



Carolyn John is a Contributor to TMCnet. To read more of her articles, please columnist page.

Edited by Jennifer Russell