Notre Dame Names Executive MBA Leader

The University of Notre Dame Executive Education has
named Suzanne Thoren Waller as director of Degree Programs, responsible for
leading Notre Dame’s two Executive MBA (EMBA) programs in South Bend and Chicago. In this role,
Waller will guide a wide range of strategic initiatives for the top-ranked
program, including leadership and administrative oversight of marketing,
recruiting, student services, curriculum implementation and operations.

In recruiting Waller to the Mendoza College of Business, Paul Velasco, director of
Executive Education, noted, “I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Suzanne for many
years, and her impact on the EMBA industry has been
remarkable. Her poised leadership, clear understanding of student recruiting
and support, rapport with faculty and experience with international programs
will add great value to Notre Dame.”

Waller previously served as
associate director for executive MBA programs at
Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. She earned a bachelor’s
degree in business administration from Iowa State University and currently is
enrolled in the Master of Business Administration/Sustainability program at the
San Francisco Institute of Architecture. In her prior positions, some of her
key achievements include the expansion of EMBA programs
into Latin America and other global markets.

“The Notre Dame Executive MBA program has a strong commitment to equipping and
inspiring leaders with the tools to be impactful in their decisions,” Waller
said. “This is a unique time in history for the global business community to
step forward and make a difference in people’s lives, and I am excited to be a
part of that. I care deeply about the student experience and impact that
leaders have on the communities they live in.”

Notre Dame Executive Education
has seen significant growth recently, including the opening of an executive
education facility in downtown Chicago, and most notably with the construction
of the Ralph C. Stayer Center for Executive Education. The three-story,
54,000-square-foot Stayer Center is slated to open in March 2013, adjacent to
the Mendoza College of Business.

The department also extensively
redesigned its EMBA curriculum in spring 2011 to
emphasize strategic-thinking skills and the ability to effect strategies
through strong values-based leadership.

Waller takes over the
directorship from Velasco, who in August was named as the director of the Notre
Dame Executive Education department, which includes both non-degree and degree
programs.

Founded in 1980, Notre Dame
Executive Education provides leaders in the executive and management ranks the
opportunity to develop and strengthen their leadership abilities and business
acumen skills. Today, Executive Education awards about 120 degrees annually and
delivers programs in 10 countries. In keeping with the Notre Dame mission, the
program emphasizes values-based leadership in addition to academic rigor.
Recent rankings include No. 18 by Bloomberg Businessweek for Non-degree
Executive Education Open Enrollment Programs, and No. 6 worldwide among the
top-ranked 25 Executive MBA programs by The Wall Street
Journal.

More than 1,700 executives,
managers and directors have participated in Notre Dame Executive Education’s
innovative open-enrollment ExecutiveIntegral Leadership, a portfolio of three programs that incorporate moral,
spiritual and ethical strengths as well as other personal dimensions into
leadership training.

More information about the
Executive Education programs, including Executive MBA,
is available by calling 800-631-3622 or 574-631-5285, emailing execprog@nd.edu or visiting http://executive.nd.edu.

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