Take your sustainability leadership skills to the next level with a first of its kind collaboration between Stanford Graduate School of Business and Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, blending business innovation with sustainability scholarship.

The Strategic Chief Sustainability Officer Program delivers a curriculum unlike any other — co-created and taught by world-renowned faculty from Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) and Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability (SDSS). This interdisciplinary collaboration will give you multiple perspectives and insights from the leading minds in strategy, leadership, innovation, communication, climate, energy, and more. It’s a uniquely Stanford experience designed to help experienced and emerging sustainability leaders make a powerful impact on their organizations and the world.

The academically rigorous curriculum, delivered online and in person, includes strategic frameworks, case studies, and an individual project to create a sustainability roadmap for your organization. Over the course of the five-month program, you’ll develop a deep understanding of the sustainability landscape, connect with like-minded leaders, and strengthen your business skills to more effectively integrate sustainability into your company’s strategy.

Faculty from Stanford GSB and SDSS will deliver an all-encompassing learning experience focused on five key themes.

Creating and Sustaining a Competitive Advantage

Gain an understanding of corporate strategy and the types of factors and decisions that create long-term competitive advantages (and value) for organizations. Use this know-how to enhance your participation in your organization’s strategy development conversations, effectively articulating how sustainability can link to the firm’s long-term value creation process.

Sustainable Business Models and Related Business Ecosystems

Enhance your understanding of the strategic, economic, and financial aspects underlying business models. This includes understanding your organization’s value proposition and the financial implications of how you deliver value to your customers, highlighting the role of your organization’s ecosystem of upstream and downstream partners and key stakeholders.

Personal Leadership Skills

Become a more effective leader, communicator, and decision-maker at your organization. Discover how to influence organizational behavior without authority, act with power, communicate effectively and persuade others, scale behavioral change, and tell your organization’s sustainability story.

Financial Literacy

Learn to use and interpret financial data for strategic decision-making purposes. Exposure to basic accounting and finance concepts, including measuring performance and assessing risk, time value of money, valuation, investment decision-making, and green financing. Become empowered to make a financial / business case for sustainability.

Key Perspectives on Sustainability

Deepen your understanding of the environment and sustainability-related topics that define the landscape of sustainability-related challenges from experts at SDSS. Topics may include valuing nature, pacing sustainability commitments, energy transition, new advances in technology, offsets, oceans, measuring sustainability, carbon reporting requirements and net zero pledges, sustainable value chains, economic and social impact of climate change, green finance / impact investing, and psychological barriers to sustainable behavior.

Below are just a few of the sessions you’ll attend as part of the program.