Girl Scouts and Wharton Business School Pair Up

May 7, 2003

By Ursula Castrillon and Torri Eubanks, staff writers

Twenty-five Girl Scout chief executive officers were chosen out of hundreds of applicants to attend the Girl Scout Executive Leadership Program at University of Pennsylvania's The Wharton School, from March 23-28. Girl Scouts of the USA teamed with the nation's top business school to further prepare these handpicked CEOs for innovative leadership and to enable them to lead organizational change.

Girl Scout CEOs found they needed a competitive edge to face contemporary issues of today and ensure the future success of the 91-year-old organization.

In response, Girl Scouts of the USA and Wharton developed an intensive five-day session to help CEOs address both day-to-day and long-term challenges. The courses, all taught by prominent instructors, included Defining the Girl Scouts' Competitive Advantage/Building a Business Strategy for Competitive Advantage, Girl Scouts: Identifying Current Issues, and Girl Scouts: The CEO Competency Model.

"Education is not the filing of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."
—W.B. Yeats

While everything from relationship building to creating business strategies was covered, the session participants enjoyed the curriculum's intensity. "This was not a 101 level business course, which is usually what's available for non-profit professionals, it was a graduate level business program," said session attendee Peggy Anne Hupcey from Girl Scouts of the USA. The CEOs found the Wharton program applicable to their work. CEO Reta Wilcox of Girl Scouts-Illinois Crossroads Council, shared with her staff the strategies she had acquired, particularly information from the brand marketing session given by Professor Barbara Kahn. CEO Mary Lee Hoffman of Girl Scout Council of St. Croix Valley (Minnesota) found her work at Wharton useful. "It is extremely important and meaningful to sit back and truly think about what we are doing," said Hoffman. "I don't have answers yet, but these are questions to work from and figure out how to best go about our work."

A special Internet platform developed by The Wharton School will be available for at least six months so the participating CEOs can continue to share information with their colleagues and ask instructors questions. Girl Scouts of the USA hopes to expand this pilot program and, eventually, offer every Girl Scout CEO an opportunity to participate.

To volunteer your time or make a donation to the Girl Scouts, call (800) GSUSA 4 U.