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Lipscomb launches second session of its CEO Connect executive leadership program for emerging business leaders

Kim Chaudoin | 615.966.6494 | 

Nominate a business leader for CEO Connect's 2018-19 class!

Lipscomb University is launching the second year of its new executive leadership program for emerging business leaders called CEO Connect.

SPARK_DT_2The 2018-19 session will begin in September in its two Spark facilities located in downtown Nashville and in Cool Springs. One class will meet in each location with sessions running simultaneously. Nominations for the program’s 2018-19 class are now being accepted.

CEO Connect is designed to connect Nashville’s top executives with emerging business leaders in a highly relational and powerful leadership learning experience. The program focuses on nine executive leadership competencies and includes interactive sessions in Lipscomb University’s newest Spark facility, located at 4th and Commerce in downtown Nashville.

“We know that the most powerful learning comes through relationships,” said Michael Winegeart, executive director of Spark and vice president of corporate relations. “We know that social and cultural capital are often the difference-makers for realizing one’s potential. CEO Connect offers the unique opportunity to rub shoulders with executive leaders who will offer their stories and experiential wisdom on various aspects of good leadership.”

CEO Connect is a six-month program that begins in September and runs through February. It is limited to 25 emerging leaders in business nominated by local executives. After nomination, participants apply and are admitted into the program by a selection committee. The program begins with a daylong retreat and is six months long. Program tuition is $4,500 per person and includes all materials, meals and any administrative fees throughout the program.

Ron Samuels, vice chairman of Pinnacle Bank, was a member of the inaugural CEO Connect faculty last year.

“Lipscomb’s CEO Connect program has been one of my best experiences,” said Samuels. “The participants were professional and hungry to learn more about leadership and were very engaging. I probably learned as much as they did.”

To nominate an individual for the program, visit  www.lipscomb.edu/spark/ceo-connect-nomination. Individuals who are nominated will be contacted with information about the program and an application. The CEO Connect 2018-19 class will be announced late summer.

“I discovered how humble the CEOs and how many are passionate about servant leadership,” said Rachel Sigler, director of development and marketing, YMCA of Nashville and Middle Tennessee. “The program gave me a good opportunity to pause from my responsibilities and hectic schedule to take time to dig in and really reflect on what I’m doing well and what do I need to work on if I want to eventually get to where some of these CEOs are. For me it provided a good pause in the week to have that time that I don’t normally get.”

spark opening 1“I appreciate the candor the instructors brought to us,” said Worth Scott, vice president of operations, Batten & Shaw, “and being open about their career path and how they got to where they are today, challenges they faced along the way. They have their own unique stories about the paths they followed. I’m taking what I’ve learned back with me and thinking about things in day-to-day conversations I’m having all the way to big strategy thinking and looking at the business from a larger perspective.”

Goals of the program include participants to building a network of CEOs, gaining valuable experience engaging and communicating with high-level executives; synthesizing their understanding of the practice of leadership; reflecting on their own leadership challenges at work relative to competencies and skills of the program; and increasing self-awareness and intentionality of their careers through exposure to CEO career stories, values, and lessons learned.

CEO Connect is the newest leadership development program launched by Lipscomb University. In 2013, Lipscomb’s Nelson & Sue Andrews Institute for Civic Leadership launched Leadership Tennessee, a program designed to cultivate a statewide network of business, nonprofit, education and government leaders who are committed to addressing the state’s challenges and opportunities.

Want to know more? Visit www.lipscomb.edu/spark.