Mark Hill

Congratulations to City Manager Mark Hill who has earned the Business Management Certificate from the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management. Mark started the program last year and has now completed all the requirements to be awarded this accomplishment from Vanderbilt University.

The Vanderbilt Business Management Certificate consists of 4 courses with the following topics.

1. Strategic Leadership

  • Manage teams and foster effective decision-making

  • Create and communicate a vision for workplace change

  • Build coalitions that work

  • Master the art of self-management

  • Develop your executive personal brand

  • Improve your presence online, in email, and on video

  • Become a more persuasive presenter

2. Finance and Accounting

  • Utilize sound financial concepts to make better-informed decisions

  • Understand the 3 main types of financial statements and how they can be used to evaluate your firm’s performance

  • Apply decision-making criteria for evaluating capital investments and creating cash-flow forecasts

  • Learn how to identify and measure risk, and then translate that into sound investment decisions

3. Strategic Innovation

  • Generate, assess, and implement great ideas in your organization

  • Build your organization’s capacity for innovation, including creating an innovative culture

  • Lead innovation projects, processes, and teams

  • Recognize big issues lurking on the horizon before they become constraints

  • Drive adoption of great ideas

  • Develop and manage an innovation portfolio

  • Innovate to stay relevant and competitive in a fast-changing landscape

4. Strategy and Operations.

  • Plan and implement a business strategy from start to finish

  • Design and lead successful projects that support your organizational strategy

  • Analyze external and internal contexts of your firm using established frameworks

  • Identify sources of competitive advantage

  • Align functional strategies with corporate strategies

  • Measure success and distinguish good metrics from bad metrics

  • Analyze and improve manufacturing and service processes

  • Use time-tested tools such as process flow diagrams and queuing theory

  • Create a work breakdown structure, uncertainty assessment, network diagram, Gantt chart schedule, and communication plan for your project

  • Close your project effectively