Format
Hybrid
The Strategic Sustainability Leader Program
Make the business case for sustainability with strategic and financial frameworks, personal leadership skills, and a deeper knowledge of today’s sustainability landscape.
Apply By March 27, 2026
Start Date May 12, 2026
Take your sustainability leadership skills to the next level.
What does it take to become an effective sustainability leader? Far more than you might imagine. This highly demanding role requires a strategic and innovative mindset to help make the business case for sustainability and integrate it into your organization’s strategic plan. This program empowers aspiring, emerging, and experienced CSOs with business and personal leadership skills combined with cutting-edge sustainability perspectives to more effectively develop, promote, lead, and measure the impact of sustainability across your organization.
Take your sustainability leadership skills to the next level with a first-of-its-kind collaboration between Stanford Graduate School of Business and Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, blending business innovation with sustainability scholarship delivering a truly comprehensive, cutting-edge, and impactful program.
It’s a powerful combination of strategic frameworks, business innovation, and sustainability expertise you’ll find only at Stanford. This unique three-month program includes self-paced and live online sessions plus a one-week, intensive on-campus experience.
See bottom of page for module details.
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Key Benefits
Become a more effective and informed sustainability leader to advocate for and accelerate change across your organization.
- Enhance your ability to make the strategic, business, and value-creation case for sustainability initiatives.
- Explore the economics of sustainable business models, frameworks for innovation, and the role of systems leadership in the sustainability space.
- Blend strategic leadership skills with financial literacy to develop sustainable business strategies, realize competitive advantages, and create economic value for your organization.
- Become a more effective leader, communicator, and decision-maker to act with power, scale behavioral change, and tell your organization’s sustainability story.
- Expand your breadth of knowledge about key sustainability topics and trends to better manage risks and capitalize on opportunities.
Who Should Attend?
- Experienced, emerging, and aspiring chief sustainability officers looking to build their skills and knowledge to become more effective and strategic CSOs
- Sustainability leaders who are motivated to lead and ignite change in their organizations — from any industry and country
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Format and Module Details:
Module 1: May 12 – July 25, 2026
Format: Self-Paced and Live Online
Time Commitment: 40 Hours
Module 2: July 26 – 31, 2026
Format: In-Person, On Campus
Time Commitment: One Week
Meet the Faculty Leadership
This program is developed by Joseph Piotroski and Chris Field, and taught by a team of tenured, strategically focused, cross-disciplinary faculty who are experts in their fields. Together, they bring
Joseph Piotroski
The Robert K. Jaedicke Professor of Accounting
Co-Director, The Strategic Sustainability Leader Program
Chris Field
Melvin and Joan Lane Professor of Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies, Director, Woods Institute for the Environment and Professor of Earth System Science, of Biology and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy and at Woods
Co-Director, The Strategic Sustainability Leader Program
Earn Your Certificate
Upon successful completion of The Strategic Sustainability Leader Program you will be awarded a Certificate of Completion in recognition of your achievement and the investment you have made in your education and professional development.
Applications due March 27, 2026
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