Executive Influence Accelerator
One Immersive Week, Two Duke Certificates
After registering for Strategic Business Communication, use the code ACCELERATE when registering for Leading Through Negotiation to unlock 40% savings.
Great leaders don't just make decisions, they shape outcomes, align stakeholders, and navigate complex conversations with clarity and confidence. Influence has emerged as a critical leadership capability in a business environment defined by agility and ambiguity.
To meet the moment, Duke Executive Education has formed the Executive Influence Accelerator, a new and specialized leadership pathway designed for those who recognize that negotiation and strategic communication are competitive advantages and interdependent capabilities that reside at the heart of modern leadership.
A Unified Approach to Executive Influence
This immersive, one-week pathway integrates two core Duke Executive Education programs—Strategic Business Communication and Leading Through Negotiation—into an optimized learning experience focused on persuasion, alignment, and strategic clarity. Together these programs, along with the guidance of esteemed Duke faculty, provide a rigorous and real-world exploration of how leaders can better shape decisions, build wider commitment, and drive results in high-stakes or adverse environments.
Participants will develop the ability to:
- Identify, communicate, create value in complex conversation and negotiations
- Express ideas with precision and clarity across diverse audiences and stakeholders
- Navigate power dynamics without relying on positional authority
- Lead confidently and authentically in moments of disagreement, ambiguity, or pressure.
Combining two of Duke’s most impactful programs, the Executive Influence Accelerator equips leaders to unlock a powerful, integrated approach to influence—sharpening their ability to lead, persuade, and drive results in complex environments.
A One-Week Experience On Campus With Duke
Delivered in a concentrated, immersive format, this communication deep dive allows executives to step away from daily demands and engage in learning that translates to immediate impact. Over the course of the week, participants will leverage communication and negotiation frameworks through advanced application practice utilizing real-world case studies and leadership scenarios.
Program design insights from communication strategy directly inform negotiation, and vice versa. Faculty-led discussions, simulations, and peer exchange reinforce learning and accelerate the translation of ideas into action, providing new and more dynamic approaches that can be adapted and applied to the specific context and challenges of the participants.
Who Should Attend the Executive Influence Accelerator?
This experience is designed for professionals who regularly:
- Lead strategic initiatives or critical negotiations
- Influence with or without direct authority
- Communicate across organizational, cultural, or stakeholder boundaries
- Shape outcomes in environments of uncertainty and change.
For participants pursuing the Duke Certificate of Leadership and Management, this one-week intensive offers a fast track to certificate completion.
Gain Credentials and Share Your Achievement
Upon successful completion of the Strategic Business Communication and Leading Through Negotiation programs, participants receive verified Certificates of Completion and digital badges issued by Duke Executive Education.
These credentials signal your achievement and can be easily added to your LinkedIn profile to highlight your enhanced ability to influence across contexts and drive change.
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Faculty
Ashleigh Rosette
Ashleigh Shelby Rosette, PhD is the James L. Vincent Professor of Leadership at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. She is one of the foremost leading scholars on research that resides at the intersection of leadership, gender, and race and one of the most decorated teachers at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.
In her primary area of research on leadership and diversity, she studies how stereotypes and bias provide a framework to better understand the diversity shifts in present-day organizations, especially for top leaders. Her secondary area of research, negotiations, complements the diversity considerations as a basic premise of her work is that an in depth understanding of an array of negotiation skills must be understood and engaged to capitalize on the benefits of diverse experiences. Her research has been featured in Forbes, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, Business Week, the Financial Times, USAToday, Huffington Post and National Public Radio.
She was ranked as one of the Fifty Most Influential Business Professors by mbarankings.net, ranked as one of the Favorite Professors of the MBA Class of 2019 by Poet & Quants, received the 2019 PhD Project’s Trailblazer Award, is the recipient of the 2019 Bank of America Faculty Award (Fuqua’s highest faculty honor) and is one of the most decorated teachers in the history of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business having received the Teaching Excellence Award of the Year a record-breaking twelve times.
She provides consulting services on topics such as leadership, diversity, decision-making, and negotiations to an array of clients in varied industries, such as banking, consulting, auditing services, automobile manufacturing, medical services, and the social/non-profit sector.
Daisy Lovelace
Daisy Lovelace, PhD, is an Associate Professor of the Practice at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. She teaches leadership and communication and is committed to creating inclusive teams and organizations. Her professional interests include leadership, inclusive excellence, interpersonal communication, crisis management, persuasion, and influence. In addition to live instruction, she teaches short courses on the LinkedIn Learning platform. She earned her doctorate from the University of Virginia. In addition to teaching at Duke, she has held faculty posts at Indiana University-Bloomington, Princeton University, Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, Korea, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and the University of Virginia.
Richard Freishtat
Richard Freishtat, PhD, serves as Associate Dean for Executive Education at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. In this role, Freishtat leads all aspects of the Executive Education portfolio including strategy, business development, finance, curriculum, and program delivery focused on making a positive impact through the cutting-edge work of faculty.
In addition to serving as a leader in executive education organizations since 2018, Freishtat has deep experience as a faculty member in executive education, working directly with industry leaders to transform themselves and their organizations. He has been designing and delivering communications and leadership executive programs since 2013 to thousands of executives in organizations across the globe, from start-ups to Fortune 50 companies.
Freishtat has published several research articles and worked as a PI on NSF-funded grant projects. He earned his PhD in Education (Curriculum & Instruction) from Arizona State University and his MA and BA in Rhetoric & Public Address from Pennsylvania State University.
How to Register
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Frequently Asked Questions
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