SDA Bocconi
Available to members of the Chief of Staff Association, this in-person residential programme at SDA Bocconi School of Management prepares chiefs of staff for the geopolitical and institutional forces shaping every strategic decision they support.
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Programme Overview
You will work with world-class faculty from one of Europe's leading business schools and engage with leaders who understand the forces reshaping the global environment. Through discussion, debate, and shared experience, you will develop the skills to interpret geopolitical complexity and bring sharper strategic thinking to your principal. By the programme's end, you will have built a trusted network of chiefs of staff from around the world, one that will continue to support you long after you leave Rome.
Learning Objectives
Key Learning Outcomes
Geopolitical Context and Global Risk
Learn to identify and interpret the geopolitical forces affecting your organisation. You will develop the ability to read global risk, understand how international dynamics shape business strategy, and translate that complexity into actionable intelligence for your principal.
Regulatory and Institutional Complexity
The programme will teach participants how to navigate the regulatory and institutional landscape that leaders must operate within. You will learn to anticipate policy shifts, understand how institutions shape decision-making environments, and position your principal ahead of regulatory change.
Decision-Making with Uncertainty
Participants will develop methods for supporting high-quality decisions when the environment is volatile and information is incomplete. The programme equips chiefs of staff to hold multiple scenarios in mind, challenge assumptions, and help leaders move from reactive thinking to considered, long-term strategy.
The Chief of Staff as Strategic Interpreter
Learn to act as the bridge between your organisation's internal priorities and the external forces bearing down on them. This module focuses on the chief of staff's role in synthesising complexity, framing the right questions, and preparing a principal to act with clarity and confidence.
Capstone Project & Certification
Completion of the programme includes a capstone project in which participants prepare a strategic brief for their principal on a real business transformation or change initiative. This is consistent with the capstone methodology used across the CSA's Oxford and Harvard Business School programmes.Participants who complete the programme will be awarded the Certified Chief of Staff® credential by the Chief of Staff Association. They will also receive an SDA Bocconi certificate of attendance.
The Experience
Delivered as a four-day residential programme in Rome, including a spectacular gala dinner. Participants join a global cohort of senior chiefs of staff and, on completion, enter the CSA's certified member community alongside Oxford and Harvard Business School alumni.
"Chiefs of staff are operating in a world defined by geopolitical disruption, regulatory complexity, and institutional change. No executive education programme has ever been designed specifically to prepare them for that reality. This programme does."
– Trent Smyth, Chief Executive Officer, Chief of Staff Association
"Chiefs of staff sit at the intersection of organisational decision-making and the forces reshaping the world. SDA Bocconi has spent decades studying that intersection. This programme puts that research to work"
– Gimede Gigante, Director of the Programme, SDA Bocconi School of Management
Take your seat in Rome.
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