At Shizenkan, in collaboration with the Institute for Strategic Leadership (ISL), our founding organization, we offer various executive education programs in addition to our master’s degree program. Our executive programs are unique and unparalleled in the world, based on the concept of “whole-person leadership education.” We fuse the essence of management professional education cultivated by Western business schools and design schools with our distinctive liberal arts education and Eastern introspective approaches, focusing on establishing the foundational principles and philosophy essential for leaders and executive talent in their actions and judgments. In this sense, while sharing the same design philosophy as Shizenkan’s MBA program, these programs cultivate the qualities essential for executive talent who hold higher positions and bear greater responsibilities.

At the same time, one of the distinctive features of Shizenkan’s executive education is the provision of spaces and communities filled with spirit. For people to transform their behavior, not the acquisition of knowledge and skills but “inspiration” is essential. Intrinsic motivation—”I want to be this way,” “I want to grow into this kind of person”—cannot be fostered through external teaching or commands. Shizenkan’s executive programs go beyond the framework of “corporate training,” focusing on building spaces and communities of mutual stimulation and friendly competition where colleagues who share a sense of mission and aspiration contribute to one another while sharing time and space, seeking to transform themselves into business leaders who will make their mark on the times and carry Japan and the world into the next era.

From Shizenkan’s executive education activities, and those of ISL over 25 years, thousands of graduates have emerged, and their network extends not only throughout Japan’s business community and society but around the world.

The executive programs that Shizenkan operates together with ISL differ significantly from those typically run by business schools around the world. What our programs aim for is the development of whole-person business leaders who possess a firm foundation for decision-making and action, grounded in a distinctive worldview, historical perspective, and understanding of humanity.

Leaders as managers and entrepreneurs who can envision strategies, business models, and ecosystems that create great value for humanity and society amid the discontinuous changes brought about by the decarbonization revolution and the advancement of scientific and technological innovation led by AI and digital technologies. Leaders who, amid the world’s deepening confusion and division, possess their own identity while simultaneously demonstrating understanding of diverse values, and can flexibly yet confidently bring together people and organizations globally. Leaders who can gain people’s empathy and trust, move organizations, and draw out people’s potential toward realizing the business and management visions they envision. These business leaders are simultaneously social leaders who contribute to human prosperity and happiness and the sound development of society at this major turning point in history, and are also individuals overflowing with integrity and personal charm who naturally earn respect from those around them regardless of titles or positions… The mission and aspiration of Shizenkan’s executive education is to produce as many business leaders as possible who will carry the next era forward with passion, aspiration, sense of responsibility, and pride.

The open enrollment programs offered by Shizenkan have two core programs: the Strategic Leadership Program (SLP) for mid-level business professionals from their late 30s to mid-40s, and the Transformational Leadership Program (TLP) for senior executives from their mid-40s to 50s. The former focuses primarily on business management, while the latter focuses on overall corporate management; both are intended for developing executive talent and do not aim to develop specialists in specific functions such as finance or human resources.

Both programs are to develop participants as a person, transcending the framework of business training, with total learning time exceeding 300 hours. Under the philosophy that “everything begins with oneself,” the programs consistently follow an approach of starting from the individual, broadly opening perspectives to society and the world, and examining one’s own mission in one’s affiliated company or organization as a business leader. We limit the number of participants up to 36 per class. Every year, the programs start at the end of August and finish at the end of June, with admissions for the program start in September of the previous year. For details, please refer to the ISL website, which serves as the operating entity.

In addition, although irregular, Shizenkan’s core faculty members personally host management seminars for top executives and senior management, focusing on cutting-edge management issues.

For example, the “21st Century Management Seminar” led by Tomoyoshi Noda, founder of Shizenkan and ISL, is one such example. This management seminar is, so to speak, a private academy, providing a forum to jointly discuss and explore the most advanced global themes regarding the nature of corporations and management under stakeholder capitalism, including purpose-driven management, the social contract between corporations and stakeholders, redefining corporate value creation including externalities, new approaches to stakeholder strategy from the perspective of value co-creation, the nature of people and organizations in the age of AI and well-being, measurement and evaluation of corporate impact, and the roles and responsibilities of corporate executives. These management seminars are primarily operated by Shizenkan EDX, a 100% subsidiary of Shizenkan.