Wharton School Celebrates 25 Years of the Leadership Education and Development Program

Nov. 14, 2005 — The Leadership Education and Development (LEAD) Program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is celebrating its 25th anniversary. LEAD, which reaches out to some of the nation’s brightest underrepresented rising high school seniors, introduces those students to the world of business.

The program was originally established by the School and executives from McNeil Pharmaceuticals in 1980 based on the concern that a lack of role models in corporate America was discouraging students in underserved communities from pursuing careers in business. It has since grown to become a nationwide organization, with individual summer institutes at 10 universities across the United States.

Barbara Kahn, vice dean of Wharton’s Undergraduate Division, stated, “Established at Wharton, LEAD exposes students to the full breadth of Wharton’s undergraduate core curriculum, introducing them to the principles of finance, economics, management, and marketing. The program also serves as a vital feeder system for the nation’s top business schools and Penn’s undergraduate schools. It really has a significant impact on the University and—most importantly—on the lives of LEAD participants.”

Each summer, Wharton’s four-week LEAD Program invites more than 30 students to attend lectures by the School’s distinguished faculty and corporate executives. Students also engage in challenging team-based assignments including case-study presentations, a stock competition and the development of business plans. All classroom exercises are held in Wharton’s Jon M. Huntsman Hall, exposing students to one of the most innovative large-scale instructional centers of any educational institution in the world. Throughout the program, participants are given the opportunity to visit major corporations in Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and New York City, establishing the lasting relationships essential to a successful business career.

The School celebrated the program’s quarter-century milestone this summer with a two-day Wharton LEAD event, kicked off by an alumni dinner in July. The banquet brought together past and present leadership and faculty of the program with alumni and current students. At the dinner, a $100,000-gift was announced from Ashish and Sapna Shah to support the continued development and implementation of the Wharton LEAD Program.

Ashish Shah is a 1992 Wharton School graduate. His wife, Sapna, earned her undergraduate degrees in 1993 from the Wharton School and the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Arts and Sciences.

The nationwide organization that has grown out of the Wharton LEAD program now has over 6,600 alumni, many of whom have gone on to successful careers in the corporate world. Sixty percent of the program’s alumni are currently pursuing careers in business and 50 percent have received or currently are enrolled in an MBA program. At all of the LEAD summer institutes, participants are exposed to a similar curriculum, with an overriding focus on the establishment of lifelong partnerships between outstanding students and the nation’s leading corporations and business schools.

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is recognized around the world for its academic strengths across every major discipline and at every level of business education. Founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school in the nation, Wharton has approximately 4,600 undergraduate, MBA, Executive MBA, and doctoral students, more than 8,000 participants in its executive education programs annually, and an alumni network of more than 80,000 worldwide.