Program | ABA-Wharton Leadership Lab | American Bankers Association

Top C-suite Training for Rising Bank Leaders

Immerse yourself in Ivy League education curated for aspiring and current high-achieving bank leaders. During Leadership Lab, you will learn from Wharton faculty with direct industry experience, providing innovative ways to think about business.

Small cohorts create an intimate and attentive learning environment, maximizing your time and investment. Leadership Lab allows you to engage in networking and peer-to-peer discussions that will help you build an enterprise-wide view of your bank.

Explore 2025 Schedule

Key Benefits

As a Leadership Lab attendee, you will leave with the confidence to:

Engage in strategic decision-making to enhance your bank’s success.
Explore maintaining and improving your bank’s culture as the workforce shifts.
Purposely embrace diverse, equitable and inclusive behaviors.
Understand the effects of generative AI – both from a business standpoint and a consumer perspective.

Explore new trends testing banking business models, such as digitization of money and embedded finance.
Learn how to affect timely, sound decision making and engage with board members.
Learn how to adopt continuous innovation to succeed.
Clarify your leadership as part of the C-Suite.

Earn the ABA Wharton Executive Leadership Certificate

Upon completion of Leadership Lab, you’ll earn the ABA Wharton Executive Leadership Certificate. Set your credentials apart from the rest, and join a powerful network of Leadership Lab alumni.

From start to finish, the lectures, the discussions, the participants (students & teachers), the topics and the insights all made an incredible impact on my leadership philosophy and ability. I would gladly recommend and discuss the benefits with anyone considering the program."

—Joshua Dortenzo, Vice President & Culture Manager, Community State Bank

Are you Right for Leadership Lab?

Leadership Lab is for rising leaders, namely those tapped to move into a C-suite role, and newly-minted C-suite professionals who are looking to develop their executive skillset. Leadership Lab’s cohort includes leaders from banks of all sizes, and leaders in a wide range of specialties, from all over the country. Previous participants have come from banks such as TD Bank, Apple Bank, Arvest Bank Group, Yakima Federal Savings and Loan Association, and ConnectOne.

Check out 2023's Cohort Profile

2025 Schedule

We’re working on his event’s program. To see the types of sessions you can expect, check out the 2024 program. To receive updates when registration opens for 2025, please fill out our KMI form.

2024 Schedule

All times are in ET.

Wed, Aug 7
Thu, Aug 8
Fri, Aug 9

Wed, Aug 7

7:00 AM – 9:00 AM	Breakfast
8:30 AM – 9:00 AM	Registration
9:00 AM – 9:15 AM	Program Introduction Peter Cappelli, Academic Director, ABA-Wharton Leadership Lab; George W. Taylor Professor of Management, The Wharton School
9:15 AM – 10:30 AM	Strategic Agility The increased speed of change in today’s business environment has caused a movement from discrete-event strategic planning to more dynamic planning―the quarterly strategy “refresh,” for example. However, many organizations struggle with the ability to stay nimble. This session explores the common barriers to agility, provides tools to overcome these barriers and describes three concrete actions in achieving strategic agility. Kathy Pearson, Ph.D., Adjunct Senior Fellow – Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, University of Pennsylvania; President, Enterprise Learning Solutions
10:30 AM – 10:45 AM	Break
10:45 AM – 12:15 PM	Strategic Agility Cont’d Kathy Pearson, Ph.D., Adjunct Senior Fellow – Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, University of Pennsylvania; President, Enterprise Learning Solutions
12:15 PM – 1:30 PM	Group Photo and Lunch
1:30 PM – 3:00 PM	Community Banking: Challenges and Strategies for the 2020s This session offers an in-depth exploration of the current landscape and future strategies for regional and community banks. Discuss the regulatory and antitrust environment, and how merger policies weigh in. Explore opportunities in specializing banking services, expanding through deposits and branching, and engaging with younger generations. Peter Conti-Brown, Ph.D., Class of 1965 Associate Professor of Financial Regulation, Associate Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics, The Wharton School
3:00 PM – 3:15 PM	Break
3:15 PM – 4:45 PM	Community Banking: Challenges and Strategies for the 2020s Cont’d Peter Conti-Brown, Ph.D., Class of 1965 Associate Professor of Financial Regulation, Associate Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics, The Wharton School
4:45 PM – 5:00 PM	Break
5:00 PM – 6:30 PM	Creating and Sustaining Meaningful Relationships Deeper conversations lead to enhanced psychological safety and trust – which can lead to more effective teamwork and stronger organizations. Engage in an exercise called Fast Friends, designed by psychologist Arthur Aron as a way of creating stronger social ties, even between strangers. Learn the neural and behavioral science behind why it so effectively changes interpersonal dynamics, and add this exercise to your own coaching toolkit. Elizabeth Johnson, Ph.D., Executive Director & Senior Fellow, Wharton Neuroscience Initiative, The Wharton School
6:30 PM – 7:30 PM	Dinner Reception at Steinberg Conference Center

Thu, Aug 8

7:00 AM – 8:45 AM	Breakfast
8:45 AM – 9:00 AM	Review & Integration Peter Cappelli, Academic Director, ABA-Wharton Leadership Lab; George W. Taylor Professor of Management, The Wharton School
9:00 AM – 10:30 AM	Talent Leadership: Building, Buying, and Borrowing Talent Based on his research, Professor Cappelli will explain the shift in the employment relationship from a lifelong commitment to open-market affiliation. This session will focus on understanding the current situation in the “War for Talent,” and honing your skills in managing the “flow” of employees through your organization. Learn various methods of recruiting talent, best practices for retaining key employees, working with the next generation of employees, as well as labor force trends. Peter Cappelli, Academic Director, ABA-Wharton Leadership Lab; George W. Taylor Professor of Management, The Wharton School
10:30 AM – 10:45 AM	Break
10:45 AM – 12:15 PM	Succession Planning With declining employee-employer loyalty and an aging workforce, many companies are facing high turnover rates. This session explains how to plan a talent pipeline, ensuring that current performers are rewarded and retained, and a new generation of employees is recruited and developed. Peter Cappelli, Academic Director, ABA-Wharton Leadership Lab; George W. Taylor Professor of Management, The Wharton School
12:15 PM – 1:00 PM	Lunch
1:00 PM – 3:00 PM	AI and New Technologies for Business From predictive technologies to Large Language Models like ChatGPT, AI will continue to affect workforce needs. In this session, review the capabilities of these technologies, with an emphasis on understanding how they affect the demand for skills in jobs. Discuss the frameworks being used by policymakers, academics, businesses and NGOs to assess the types of jobs that will be in demand in a tech-driven future. Prasanna Tambe, Ph.D., Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions, The Wharton School
3:00 PM – 3:15 PM	Break
3:15 PM – 4:45 PM	Unleashing Collective Intelligence This session will focus on how to create a culture and mechanisms inside organizations to maximize intelligence and resilience of the company. Engage in a discussion forum about how to get better at collecting and responding to important internal and external signals, and how to make decisions based on collective intelligence. Amrita Subramanian, Ph.D., Faculty, Organizational Dynamics, University of Pennsylvania
4:45 PM – 5:00 PM	Break
5:00 PM – 6:30 PM	Unleashing Collective Intelligence Cont’d Amrita Subramanian, Ph.D., Faculty, Organizational Dynamics, University of Pennsylvania

Fri, Aug 9

7:00 AM – 8:30 AM	Breakfast
8:30 AM – 10:00 AM	Identifying Value Drivers Too often, organizations equate growth to value. However, top-line growth can be deceiving. What really matters is whether the company’s growth is profitable, whether it is sustainable and how much investment is required to achieve it. In this session, we derive a valuation tool that allows management to assess projects, products and even customers, to determine where and how to prioritize resources. David Wessels, Ph.D., Adjunct Full Professor of Finance, The Wharton School; Director, Wharton Executive Education
10:00 AM – 10:15 AM	Break
10:15 AM – 11:45 AM	Identifying Value Drivers Cont’d David Wessels, Ph.D., Adjunct Full Professor of Finance, The Wharton School; Director, Wharton Executive Education
11:45 AM – 12:00 PM	Break
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM	Program Wrap Up & Commencement

This program is subject to change. Please bookmark this page to check for continuing updates. Read ABA Conference and School Policies to help answer additional questions.

Program | ABA-Wharton Leadership Lab