Course Topics

Electric Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution

• Basics of generation, transmission and distribution, including electrical terminology, equipment, construction and operating theory

Natural Gas Production, Transmission and Delivery

• Basics of natural gas production, transmission and distribution, including essential equipment and its operation
• Current issues in the natural gas industry

Utility Accounting and Financial Reporting — How Utilities Make Money

• Basic accounting concepts
• What the financial statements communicate and how they are used
• Cost management and how to know when you are making money

Financial Management and Capital Markets

• Value creation and the cost of capital/money
• Financial policy development and accessing capital
• Financial quality and credit ratings
• Perspective of a utility sector investment manager

Regulation and Rate Making

• Rate making process including revenue requirements, cost allocation and rate design
• How rate mechanisms are used in general rate cases

Fuel Diversity: Integrated Resource Planning

• Trends in generation and the changing fuel mix
• How to manage fuel diversity
• Integrated resource planning process

Strategic Leadership in the Natural Gas Industry

• Utility industry perspective on improving safety, managing risk and driving continuous improvement
• How current events affect natural gas operations, business strategy and practices 

Strategic Human Resources

• Energy industry challenges and the impact on the workforce
• Culture, engagement and employee experience
• Workforce of the future

Leading Inclusively: Creating a Culture of Belonging

• Creating personal learning and practical leadership skills to manage, lead and contribute to a diverse and inclusive environment 

Mini-versity

• Cohort led exchange of ideas, experiences, best practices and perspectives 

Customer Experience

• Customer experience design and management 
• Integrate the customer experience into product and service design
• Identify and communicate the customer experience ROI

Experience Change: Accelerate and Realize Strategies, Initiatives and Solutions

• 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

Managing Advanced Grid Planning and Operations

• Challenges of operating and coordinating supply and demand in a dynamic and complex system
• Enabling more flexibility, adaptability and responsiveness
• Integrating renewables, advanced AMI, distributed generation and storage

Next Generation Technologies

• Zero carbon sources of energy
• Connected home devices and the next wave of demand responses
• Enabling new capabilities with automation 

Trends in Energy Security

• Areas of greatest vulnerability and who is in charge of overseeing physical protections of the grid
• Strategies to detect and deflect attacks on critical utility infrastructure systems
• Building up the resiliency of our infrastructure to withstand disruptions

Strategic Trends in Consumer Engagement

• How technology advances are powering new ways to engage
• Managing information for competitive advantage
• How nontraditional players are challenging the utility business model

Regulatory Strategy

• How the regulatory model impacts the changing industry
• How regulatory strategy supports corporate strategy
• Current issues

Environmental Collaboration

• Removing unintended regulatory barriers to increase utilities' capacity to invest in environmental solutions
• Making energy efficiency and renewable energy a profit center
• Creating diversified, environmentally responsible electric and gas resource portfolios to ensure more reliable and affordable service for customers

Energy Industry and the Environment — Shaping the Future

• How public policy, emerging technologies and changing customer needs and expectations are transforming the energy industry
• Major trends reshaping the utility industry

Effective Stakeholder Engagement

• Understanding the needs and issues of your stakeholders
• Aligning business objectives across diverse stakeholders
• Best practices in effective outreach and engagement to build collaboration

Strategic Communication 

• Communicating about an energy future so that what you intend to say is heard by your stakeholders
• Building awareness, understanding and support for your organization in the industry 

Experience Innovation: Design Thinking Simulation

• Human centered design and balancing analysis with intuition
• Terms, techniques and thought patterns of successful innovators

Strategic Sustainability: Integrating Policy, Climate Science and Resilience

• Understanding the impact of climate risk on investors, consumers and regulation
• How utilities are managing the impacts of climate risk and positioning themselves for a future of increased load on a weather dependent system

Climate Impact: Fire and Ice Panel

• Why extreme weather events matter to customers, communities, states and utilities 
• What companies are doing to address this growing and complex problem and what is on the horizon

CEO Panel: Pathways to the Future

• Leading in a time of transformational change
• Aligning corporate strategy across diverse stakeholder interests