What others have to say about Acumen International

thought leader dr tom Mckaskill, Global serial entrepreneur, educator and author

Entrepreneurs who seek real world pragmatic knowledge about how to drive growth, profit and resilience in their businesses will find the Executive Acumen program world-class and ideally suited to those entrepreneurs who want to take world’s best practice and apply it directly to their businesses.

Tim Connolly, THG

Acumen International, through the Executive Acumen program and other business interaction, has provided THG with cutting-edge thought leadership. Acumen has been the catalyst to changing the way we think about and perform business. Our organisation has experienced a successful and exciting journey into the future.

peter hinson, spence constructions

It does not matter who you are or what you do, you will benefit from [participating in Executive Acumen]. We found the program excellent and will make it part of our ongoing leadership program.

ian hughes, clarkekann lawyers

Executive Acumen is an exceptional program for business executives – particularly those operating in the SME space.

Many academic features of a University MBA, combined with the real-world experience of Acumen founder, Greg Loudoun, and the other outstanding presenters, give it value far beyond similar programs I have attended before.  

Over the course of a year, participants are exposed to a comprehensive range of skills needed to be successful – from leadership, strategic planning and innovation to marketing, management accounting and principles of organisational behaviour. At the end of the course these are combined in a practical way through development and presentation of a formal plan for each participant’s specific business.
 
The opportunity to road-test ideas, with the help of fellow participants and presenters from diverse backgrounds, exposes each person to new ways of thinking and doing things. By the end of my course I found our group had developed far more insight into important aspects of our businesses and a greater willingness to challenge some of the conventions we had been working under. At the same time most of us also acquired a greater appreciation of how to think outside the box without losing the ability to judge which ideas were really capable of making a difference.

Given my decade-long background in executive roles in law firms – which are not generally thought of as being open to new ideas - I found this quite fascinating.   As a commercial lawyer with over 2O years’ partnership experience in major law firms, Executive Acumen was also a terrific opportunity to work at a different level with companies of the kind I have traditionally acted for, and to gain an understanding of the complexity of some of the less obvious challenges facing their owners and managers. Finally, as an investor, the course gave me a valuable tool-kit to test the various private equity opportunities which come my way.

All of this is perhaps an interesting perspective from an intellectual point of view – and the course is well worthwhile in terms of its educational aspects alone – but business people generally need to justify in financial terms the investment of time and money required. Perhaps what was most impressive about Executive Acumen were the many examples of significant improvements in financial performance by companies which had an owner or CEO complete it – and of those companies sending other senior executives to later programs.