What is “Executive Education” anyway? In the future, it will go by a different name

01 April 2026

Bruce Wiesner looks at the evolution of executive education and how it will change in the future.

When I first entered the field of Executive Education back in 2010, I was curious about the origins of the term. As a rare Associate Dean coming from the corporate sector, the framing I knew was around “leadership development” or “professional development.”

A short time later I was at Unicon, the worldwide conference for Exec Ed, and I found myself sitting next to a legend in the field (he was running Chicago Booth’s Exec Ed at the time). “Have you been in Exec Ed long?” I asked. “Kid,” he said, “I basically invented Executive Education.”  Whether that is the true origin of the term, fast forward to 2026, I neither get called “Kid” anymore, nor does that term inspire or capture the incredible opportunities in professional learning.

No doubt “executive” in some way was used to elicit prestige, but what does that term even mean anymore?  And “education” hasn’t captured the motivation for professional learners for some time. The connotation seems to be of some precious commodity held in the hallowed confines of higher ed, that you may be lucky enough to have bestowed upon you for the right price. People love to learn, getting taught less so.

Learning, and more critically, the application of learning for impact and change is of course what drives organizations, and the individuals who propel them. While business schools still almost exclusively cling to the old framing, the market has moved on.

The COVID era forced massive change in professional development, and it never went back.

Nimble, agile, innovative private competitors have flourished because they adapted and provided the solutions that move the needle now. There is a strong argument that Universities in general have largely reverted to where they were, with the legacy value of degree programs and campus experience. Perhaps they have never had a storm this intense that it required leaning into.

Business schools still deliver a highly relevant core value proposition. Carrington Crisp’s 2024 comprehensive study of the future of professional learning identified the elements of that value through the learner and organization lens. Namely, it comes down to the trusted brand, the empirical value of the knowledge, and the access to global thought-leaders.

The Chief Learning Officer of a large organization told me a few years ago, “I can get the best current management and leadership thinking disseminated in many ways, but if I truly want to see over the crest of the hill, I will come to you.” For business schools, delivering on that promise relies on a select group of engaging, talented and future-focused faculty who can bring unique value. These individuals are true moment-makers in the room (virtual or in-person) and they are game-changers.

However, that alone is not enough—the learning must be designed, delivered and reinforced in new and innovative ways. Professional learning has become democratized and decentralized, meaning organizations realize they can no longer move themselves forward by focusing exclusively on a small number of “high potentials” and spending heavily on an experience-heavy value proposition. Even less appealing is sitting a room all day (no matter how fancy) and listening to the sage-on-the-stage deliver endless PowerPoint slides. The approach is as important as the delivery.

For years, Exec Ed struggled with ROI, but let’s call it impact now. True impact requires a consultative approach for the business goals to be measured at the very outset, and an innovative approach to embed learner assessments and coaching in learning to reinforce and apply the value in a continuous loop.

When I was in the media business during the Financial Crisis, a new generation seemingly decided overnight that they wanted to consume media in a different way. The initial reaction was for the major, and minor players, to retrench in the existing value proposition. The next reaction of the media giants was to double-down on the fact that the changes may weed out the smaller players.  Well, we all how that played out. Higher Ed must avoid the same trap.

In the media business, we had relied for decades on the value of “branding,” something so evolved and ethereal, you couldn’t measure it. Suddenly, for pennies on the dollar, you could measure views, click throughs, and true impact of your advertising investment. This echoes into many of the same opportunities in professional development, with the underlying technological explosion enabling meaningful, exciting options for a broad spectrum of an organization’s employees. Business schools have taught the value of scale, the concept of disruptive innovation, and the advantages for first-movers. Now the time is nigh to actually model what they teach.

That also means not jumping to teach AI, but to embracing it in their own ethos, approach and learner technologies. To truly harness the power of AI, you must live it, not add it to curriculum topics. The possibilities to enhance the curation and delivery of professional learning is staggering.

Finally, with all of this goes the fundamental courage to change the tired uninspiring language of the past, to go past the embedded desire to spell out what they are offering in a name like “The Centre for Executive Development” or “Open Enrolment Programs” and “Custom Programs” to create brands which evoke the power, impact and appeal of true learning. It is not the programs that inspire, it is the learning.

Whatever Executive Education is, or was, it certainly won’t be called that in the future.  And of course, the future was five minutes ago.

Bruce Wiesner was Associate Dean at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business from 2010 to 2025, where he led their global professional development business. Prior to his tenure at UBC Sauder, Bruce held several senior leadership roles in the advertising, publishing and media industries. Bruce is currently a consultant in strategic market growth, revenue acquisition, and professional development.