A l u m n i M a g a z i n e - Duke University's Fuqua School of Business

DukeCE
DUKE CORPORATE EDUCATION
for Tailored Top-to-bottom
Educational Services
Duke Corporate Education’s separation from Fuqua’s
Executive Education program will provide corporate clients
with business education designed specifically for their
needs. It will also expand Fuqua’s innovative distributedlearning
consulting services to help corporations establish
or radically improve manager training programs and corporate
universities.
One important factor that accompanies any new development
is where to set up shop. As anyone who has ever purchased
real estate knows, the three most important things to
think about are location, location and location. And Duke
Corporate Education’s decision to relocate its offices took no
exception to this rule. They have moved to downtown
Durham in a warehouse-type building that is as big on character
and charm as it is on space. The new office, located at
333 Liggett Street, is in the process of being renovated and is
scheduled to be completed in April 2001. The all-brick building
has high ceilings and tons of windows. It’s nestled in the
heart of downtown Durham with a multitude of eating establishments
just blocks away. Employees are currently working
in a temporary area in the building and are looking forward
to moving into their permanent space.
Blair Sheppard, CEO of Duke Corporate Education, is
pleased with the progress thus far. He has been beefing up
staffing in response to the increased workload and anticipates
nearly doubling in size over the next few years. “As far as
staffing is concerned, we are looking for three types of talent,”
Sheppard stated. “The first are people who can help us
with education design and delivery on the content side.
Secondly, we need employees who can assist us in thinking
through and developing capabilities around different educational
methods. And thirdly, we need people who understand
technology and its relationship to education.”
In addition to looking for new talent in these three areas,
some of the existing Fuqua staff left with Sheppard to take
on this new venture. Wanda Wallace, former Fuqua associate
dean for executive education, is director of customer relations
and program operations. Professor John Gallagher, former
director of Fuqua’s Computer Mediated Learning Center, is
head of research and development and former Fuqua professor
John McCann is a specialist in e-commerce.
Duke Corporate Education, Inc. is the spin-off company
that emerged from the executive education program. By taking
the custom education and forming a private company,
Fuqua has become the first business school to provide tailored,
top-to-bottom educational services to the world’s major
companies.
On the financing front, things continue to move forward.
The initial process was time consuming, with both the venture
capitalists and Duke working through several points of
differences in determining the right structure. Several weeks
ago, this structure was finalized and the investors are excited
about it. Much of this excitement stems from Duke Corporate
Education’s unique approach to helping companies solve
business problems or issues. This approach can be described
as finding the “optimal mix” of educational content and ➢
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