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Mini-MBA for Leading Change and Innovation

Accelerate your ability to drive immediate impact as a leader in an age of innovation and disruptive change.

Flexible hybrid design with 3 in-person sessions and 10 virtual Zoom sprints

Flexible hybrid design with 3 in-person sessions and 10 virtual Zoom sprints

Recognition as a Price College of Business Alum gaining access to exclusive events and networking opportunities

Recognition as a Price College of Business Alum gaining access to exclusive events and networking opportunities

Digital Badge to display your achievement for completing the Leading Change & Innovation Mini-MBA and becoming a change agent

Digital Badge to display your achievement for completing the Leading Change & Innovation Mini-MBA and becoming a change agent

Certificate of Completion from the University of Oklahoma Price College of Business

Certificate of Completion from the University of Oklahoma Price College of Business

Earn 3.5 CEUs upon completion of the Leading Change and Innovation Mini-MBA

Earn 3.5 CEUs upon completion of the Leading Change and Innovation Mini-MBA

Optional DiSC Assessment and virtual 1:1 professional coaching sessions

Optional DiSC Assessment and virtual 1:1 professional coaching sessions

50% program discount for OU Alumni, 15% discount for corporate partners

50% program discount for OU Alumni, 15% discount for corporate partners

Skip the commute to Norman – in-person sessions are held at the Gene Rainbolt Graduate School of Business in Downtown OKC

Skip the commute to Norman – in-person sessions are held at the Gene Rainbolt Graduate School of Business in Downtown OKC

Networking dinner opportunities with program facilitators, industry leaders and program participants – included at no extra cost!

Networking dinner opportunities with program facilitators, industry leaders and program participants – included at no extra cost!

Who Should Attend?

This program is designed for people leaders (up to Director-level) and individual contributors tasked with navigating change in companies focused on innovation. The Mini-MBA for Leading Change and Innovation is a great fit for anyone without formal business or leadership training seeking to have greater impact in their company.

Program Features

This program prepares you to:

  • Lead with confidence when your company faces uncertainty
  • Build high-performing teams with trust, EQ and safety
  • Span organizational boundaries to influence up and across your company

Hybrid design to maximize flexibility and social learning with peers from across industries.

  • Three-month total duration
  • Three full in-person immersions
  • Ten 90-minute live online sprints

Session Begins: September 11, 2025
Cost: $6,650

Contact us for special OU Alumni and corporate partnership pricing!

Grow your leadership skills, your business acumen, and your network.

Key Features

Peer Coaching Circles

Learn how to support, hold accountable and share developmental feedback with teammates while sharing individual goals and discussing roadblocks, supporting each other to achieve those goals. 

Innovation Capstone Project

Working with your same peer circle, you will develop a team project that identifies and provides a solution for a common, challenging situation or scenario in the workplace. This project allows learners to apply everything they’ve learned in the program while bolstering collaboration and business communication skills. 

ExperiencePoint Simulation

This full-day computer-based simulation delivers the essentials of a year-long change journey in just one day, giving learners the tools, behaviors and skills needed to make change happen and leave with the confidence, process and practice to immediately start leading change and making an impact.  

Experience Accelerator Live Tutor

Learners will practice how to communicate change with team members utilizing a live tutor. Sessions will include learning how to construct effective messaging and how to successfully deliver the message to their team.

Business Improv

Creative problem solving is a core skill needed for leading change. Participants will be given real-word scenarios and using improv, strengthen their skills related to reacting, adapting and communicating.

Agenda

Week 1, Day 1 - Business Improv

Date: Thursday, September 11th - 1pm to 5pm

Location: Gene Rainbolt Graduate School of Business, Downtown OKC

Facilitator: Kate Duffy

 

Week 1, Day 2 – Leadership Foundations

Date: Friday, September 12th - 9 AM to 5 PM

Location: Gene Rainbolt Graduate School of Business, Downtown OKC

Description: How can we gain clarity on who we are as leads and accelerate our growth to reach out full potential? The program kicks off with providing a space for leaders to deepen their self-awareness, identify their unique leadership goals and foster connections with other participants in the program

Key Outcomes: Discover your individual leadership strengths and how to harness these capabilities as an agent of change in your firm. Deepen your self awareness and learn tools to help you regulate emotions and build better relationships at work. Foster connections with peers in your class to enhance your professional network and sustain growth post-program.

Facilitator: Dr. Troy Smith
Email: troy.smith@ou.edu

Link to Bio

Facilitator:  Nick Tobey, MSOD
Email: nick.tobey@ou.edu

Link to Bio

Week 2 – Strategic Thinking

Date: Friday, September 19th - 11am to 12:30pm

Location: Virtual

Description: Why is it important to understand your organization’s strategy when leading change and innovation? This session will prepare you with frameworks to understand how strategic decisions are made and demystify the “big picture” of business. To get your organization to move towards a future state, you will need to be able to understand how to translate your business strategy into influential communication as you lead change and innovation down, up and across your organization.

Outcome: You will learn how to translate your organization’s strategy that drives alignment and creates meaning for the people and teams you lead. Understand the basics of strategic decision-making to ensure your decisions and actions are aligned with the strategy of your business.

Facilitator: Dr. Brandi McManus
Phone: (405) 325-2651
Email: brandimcmanus@ou.edu

Link to Bio

Week 3 – Organizational Influence

Date: Friday, September 26th - 11am to 12:30pm

Location: Virtual

Description: Our brains perceive work as a social system, a network of interactions among the people. This session sharpens your ability to understand the political and social systems that we operate in as leaders to drive more influence and change.

Outcome: Understand the social and power dynamics of your organization and provide tools for you to help identify and foster relationships with the key power players driving innovation to your business.

Facilitator:  Dr. Christina Li
Email: christina.s.li@ou.edu

Link to Bio

Week 4 – Corporate Finance

Date: Friday, October 3rd - 11am to 12:30pm

Location: Virtual

Description: How can you leverage corporate finance knowledge to drive change and innovation? Your organization’s financial performance will play a major factor in the types of strategic decisions made and influence your company’s ability to invest in innovation and support the change process. Having a clear picture of your organization’s financial health will help you navigate change and influence innovative ideas with the key power stakeholders in your company.  

Outcome: Develop fluency and confidence in the language of corporate finance basis to shift your team to focus on profits over just revenue, leverage financial data to influence up and across the organization (i.e. defending budget requests), and understand and apply cost/benefit analysis to influence senior leadership.

Facilitator: Lubomir Litov
Email: litov@ou.edu

Link to Bio

Week 5 – Managerial Accounting

Date: Friday, October 10th - 11am to 12:30pm

Location: Virtual

Description: How can we make more effective financial decisions that align to your company’s business strategy, improve operational performance and ultimately drive innovation? This practical session will allow learners to apply foundational accounting skills to become more effective agents of change at their organization.    

Outcome: Develop fluency in accounting terms to lead more effective communication with key business stakeholders. Understand and apply cost analysis techniques alongside budgeting and forecasting. Enhance your ability to contribute to your organization’s financial health.

Facilitator:  Joe Dulin
Email: joe.dulin@ou.edu

Link to Bio

Week 6 – Project Management

Date: Friday, October 17th - 11am to 12:30pm

Location: Virtual

Description: How can we design and manage projects that are as adaptable and agile as our business needs? As businesses compete with disruptive forces in the market, developing a capability to lead agile projects at scale will be a critical factor in organizational performance. Leaders of change and innovation will need to be able to bring diverse stakeholders together, align their work towards a common goal and navigate challenges along the way.  

Outcome: Learn the foundations of agile project management and apply frameworks to bring immediate application to your current project-based work. Understand how to identify when a project is at risk and tools to bring your team back into alignment.

Facilitator:  Matt Singleton
Email: matt.singleton@ou.edu

Week 7 - Leading Change Simulation

Date: Friday, October 24th - 9am to 5pm

Location: Gene Rainbolt Graduate School of Business, Downtown OKC

Description: ExperienceChange™ helps leaders and managers tackle a realistic change project. More than 75% of their time is spent on team-based project work, leading a change from analysis through to planning and implementation. The experience delivers the essentials of a year-long change journey in a one-day workshop, enabling people to engage with the behaviours, tools and skill sets that make change happen. They leave with the confidence, process and practice to immediately start leading change and making an impact.

Outcome: Quickly turn powerful ideas and solutions into reality. Speak and act with a common language. Align and engage stakeholders around new ways of doing things. Build a highly engaged culture of execution.

Facilitators:  Troy Smith + Sarah Schwab

Week 8 - Capstone Project Intro

Date: Friday, October 31st - 11am to 12:30pm

Facilitator:  Matt Wood

Week 9 – Artificial Intelligence

Date: Friday, November 7th - 11am to 12:30pm

Location: Virtual

Description: How is artificial intelligence affecting how a business creates and delivers value? This application-focused session will implore the current landscape of common AI tools and expose how you can harness this emerging technology to be more effective in your ability to lead change and innovation in your current role.

Outcome: Develop confidence and fluency in AI applications and how this technology can positively impact your business. Learn and practice with common AI tools available for working professionals.

Week 10 - Data Analytics

Date: Friday, November 14th - 10 AM to 12:30 PM

Location: Virtual

Description: How can we draw more meaningful conclusions from the vast amount of data that we create and collect? This practical session will provide bases for harnessing your data to determine and validate innovative ideas and understand how to be more effective at navigating team and organization-wide change efforts.

Outcome: Learn the basics and gain tools for sourcing and analyzing data to drive better decisions. Build confidence and fluency in data science basics to become more effective with business analysts inside your organization. 

Facilitator:  Dr. Naveen Kumar
Phone: (405) 325-3565
Email: naveen.kumar@ou.edu

Link to Bio

Week 11 - Make Conflict Work for You

Date: Friday, November 21 - 11am to 12:30pm

Location: Virtual

Description: How can we influence our teams, key stakeholders and senior executives to lean towards the change we are seeking? Establishing win-win scenarios with various groups and leaders in our organization is critical for innovation to flourish across stakeholder groups. This session will allow learners to apply influential communication foundations to ensure their teams and organizations are adaptable and open to new ways of thinking.   

Outcome: Learn and apply the fundamentals of influential communication to drive change at the individual and team level. Understand how to navigate resistance to change and mitigate the resistance to innovation with your key stakeholders.   

Facilitator: Dr. Bret Bradley
Email: bret-bradley@ou.edu

Link to Bio

Week 12 - Thanksgiving Break - No Class

Friday November 28th - Thanksgiving Break - No Class

Week 13 – Influential Communication

Date: Friday, December 5 - 11am to 12:30pm

Location: Virtual

Description: How can effective communication impact your ability to influence change up, down and across the organization? This session will prepare learners to create shared meaning through your approach to communication regarding change and innovation.  

Outcome: Participants will learn and apply evidence-based tools to improve their ability to communicate as a leader and improve their ability to capture the attention of their stakeholders and influence change.  

Facilitator: Dr. Kylie Harrison
Email: kylie.j.harrison-1@ou.edu

Link to Bio

Week 14 - Project Presentations + Graduation

Date: Friday, December 12th - 9am to 1pm

Location: Gene Rainbolt Graduate School of Business, Downtown OKC

Description: Learners will present their capstone projects, utilizing all the skills gained throughout the program. A networking reception dinner will be held to celebrate the completion of the program and further build professional relationships.   

Outcome: Participants will apply all the knowledge gained throughout the program while practicing business communication skills.

Facilitator:  Nick Tobey, MSOD
Email: nick.tobey@ou.edu

Link to Bio

Questions

What is the difference between a Mini-MBA and an MBA?

The Mini-MBA is not a degree program but will allow leaders to quickly develop skills that will increase performance in their roles. While a degree credential may be necessary to prepare for major career transitions, a Mini-MBA is more suited for professionals seeking immediate skill development in a very accelerated format. The Mini-MBA does not have the same significance as a degree credential in the job market. While the Mini-MBA does not offer degree credits for matriculation, it does offer CEU credits to applied with professional associations.

What sets the Price Executive Academy's Mini-MBA apart from other programs?

Our Mini-MBA program stands out for its focus on innovation and leading change in today's dynamic business environment. We emphasize practical application and real-world case studies to ensure that participants can immediately apply their learning to drive tangible results in their organizations. Participants will experience a learning design that is highly experiential, social and adventurous.

What support is available to learners during the program?

Participants receive personalized support from our faculty and program coordinators throughout the duration of the Mini-MBA. This includes access to resources, networking opportunities, and mentorship to ensure a valuable learning experience.

What are the potential career benefits of completing a Mini-MBA program?

Graduates of our Mini-MBA program gain valuable leadership skills, strategic insights, and a broader understanding of business dynamics, positioning them for career advancement, new opportunities, and the ability to lead innovation in their respective industries. 

What benefits are available to OU Alumni?

OU Alumni receive a 50% discount off the total cost of the mini-MBA program.

 

Location

All in-person sessions will be hosted at our downtown Oklahoma City campus:

Gene Rainbolt Graduate School of Business
865 Research Parkway
3rd Floor
OKC, OK 73104