# Advising and executive education with Goran Calic

I teach strategy, innovation and generative AI to boards and executives in Canada, the United States and Latin America. I am the Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurial Leadership at McMaster University's DeGroote School of Business, and I work directly with boards and leadership teams on strategic clarity, competitive advantage, and managing change.

## Formats

- **Series.** Multi-session programs that build a leadership team's strategic capability over months.
- **Sessions.** Half-day to multi-day workshops tailored to your team's real decisions.
- **Keynotes.** Talks and board briefings on strategy, innovation, and generative AI.

## Topics

- **Strategy.** What turns a set of choices into a strategy, and what makes that strategy effective? I study how leaders build advantage through simple, stable, and differentiated choices.
- **Innovation.** Organizations say they want creativity. Research shows they systematically reject it. I study why some organizations are more innovative than others, and why the most creative people are often the least rewarded.
- **Generative AI.** AI hasn't changed what strategy is. It has changed who can execute it. I help boards and executives separate the myths from the real strategic implications of generative AI.
- **Technology and energy.** I study the organizational challenges that new technologies create, from generative AI to nuclear power.

## How the sessions run

I like to teach through decisions that don't have a lookup answer: buying a competitor you can't fully value, backing a venture on gut feel, or signing a long contract for an unproven technology. People remember what they experience, so a lot of my teaching is hands-on:

- cases, including the two I wrote for Harvard Business School with Andy Wu, and with Dennis Yao and Andy Wu ("Twitter Turnaround and Elon Musk" and "Meta's Energy Dilemma: Powering the AI Future");
- simulations, such as a day-long airline game and a resource auction built around an egg-drop challenge;
- sessions where teams use AI agents to plan and build a working web application.

## Organizations I have worked with

BDO Canada, Farm Credit Council Services, Coca-Cola FEMSA, Midwest Home Equity Group, Home Hardware, Land O'Lakes, Leonnova, Fairmont Consulting Group and The Globe and Mail are some of them. My industry ties are primarily related to my executive teaching, and they go from consumer goods to utilities to consulting. I don't discuss the specifics of those relationships.

## Booking

Speaking, advisory, research, and media inquiries are welcome. Please email calicg@mcmaster.ca.