64%
of CEOs no longer consider their organization viable over the next 10 years without reinvention.
PwC, 2026
Management and Strategy
Advanced Strategy for Top Executives
Clarify your identity. Define your direction.
next edition Nov 2, 2026
duration 36 hours
mode of study In person
language Portuguese and English
investment €2,550
why this program?
Strategic decisions return to where the pressure is greatest: top leadership
6x
more time spent on short-term decisions than on long-term decisions.
PwC, 2026
68%
of senior leaders anticipate a multipolar or fragmented world order.
WEF, 2026
US$4.9 trillion
in global M&A in 2025, with deals driven by growth and capability acquisition.
Bain, 2026
16%
of CEOs identify innovation as central to their strategy.
PwC, 2026
how you will learn
This program takes you beyond the classroom. It puts you at the center of decision-making.
Advanced Strategy for Top Executives is designed for leaders who need to translate strategic identity into clear, defensible choices that can withstand scrutiny from boards, investors, and stakeholders.
The experience combines an opening session with a global perspective, two immersions beyond the traditional classroom, and boardroom challenges where strategy is debated, tested, and defended in conditions that reflect decision-making at the highest level.
Opening session
A macro perspective on the world with Paulo Portas
The program opens with Paulo Portas, offering a perspective on geopolitics, strategic disruption, and systemic risk from a vantage point few boards can access.
Immersion 1
Systemic risk beyond the planning cycle
At the Biodiversity Gallery, located in Casa Andresen in Porto’s Botanical Garden, you enter an immersive environment dedicated to biodiversity, evolution, genetics, and adaptation.
Immersion 2
Innovation as a strategic asset
After time to develop your strategic thinking, you return for another intensive experience focused on the choices that shape growth, innovation, mergers and acquisitions, resource allocation, and a board-ready narrative.
Many strategic decisions fail because they have never been tested under real-world conditions. Each immersion therefore includes an AI-powered challenge that helps you identify where your strategy holds up and where it breaks down.
Boardroom Challenge 1
Decision Under Fire
You step into the CEO’s role amid public scrutiny, incomplete information, and an increasingly narrow window for action. Your initial certainties are the first to be challenged.
Boardroom Challenge 2
The Bet That Defines the Next Decade
As part of a top management team, you commit capital, conviction, and reputation to a growth choice tested against finite resources, competing proposals, and conflicting stakeholder voices. Your strategic thesis is tested when the capital commitment cannot be reversed.
who is this for?
Different backgrounds, shared challenges
Executives and executive board members
For those directly responsible for strategic direction, growth, portfolio management, and decisions that shape the organization.
Leaders progressing toward C-level roles
For directors and business unit leaders who need to operate at a strategic level, beyond their functional responsibilities.
Owners and managing partners
For leaders of family-owned or founder-led businesses navigating growth, international expansion, professionalization, or generational transition.
Senior cross-functional executives
For executives in strategy, general management, sales, operations, or finance who help shape the organization’s direction.
what you will develop
Knowledge that translates into decisions
Clarify strategic identity
Define more clearly who your organization is, what sets it apart, and the strategic ambition it is equipped to sustain.
Assess context and internal readiness
Connect external forces, internal capabilities, and organizational constraints in an integrated strategic assessment.
Make disciplined choices
Decide where to compete, how to grow, and which options to leave behind, with greater clarity about the trade-offs.
Integrate growth, innovation, and corporate strategy
Evaluate innovation, international expansion, and mergers and acquisitions as strategic options aligned with a shared direction.
Build board-ready narratives
Communicate strategic choices clearly and convincingly, ready for scrutiny from boards, investors, and stakeholders.
why PBS?
5 reasons to choose this program
The boardroom is the classroom
An in-person experience focused on debate among senior peers, decision-making under pressure, and strategic thinking, without lengthy cases, a capstone, or theory disconnected from practice.
Decisions under pressure
Two boardroom challenges put you at the center of decision-making, with incomplete information, conflicting stakeholder demands, and choices you must defend in real time.
Strategic context at the leadership level
The global environment becomes a strategic landscape to explore, where geopolitics, institutional power, systemic risk, and growth intersect with decisions at the highest level.
Immersions beyond the traditional classroom
The Biodiversity Gallery and INESC TEC bring dimensions rarely addressed in the boardroom into strategic discussions: systemic risk, science, applied research, and innovation as an asset for growth.
Faculty and guests with an executive perspective
Academic and executive leadership with experience in strategy, leadership, and decision-making, complemented by guests who broaden your perspective on geopolitics, systemic risk, and innovation.
expected impact
Outcomes that translate into value
For you
Greater clarity on strategic identity and alignment.
Greater conviction when making and defending strategic choices.
Strategic communication better suited to the boardroom.
A stronger strategic diagnosis, with an integrated assessment of the external context and internal readiness.
For your organization
Better-framed strategic decisions, grounded in explicit trade-offs.
A shared strategic language among senior leaders.
A greater ability to assess systemic and long-term risk.
A more defensible strategic direction when engaging with boards, investors, internal teams, and external stakeholders.
Apply to Advanced Strategy for Top Executives
Start your applicationCustomize this program for your team
Contact our Corporate Solutions team
international recognition
Rankings that reinforce our results.
Financial Times
Executive Education 2026 Worldwide
program structure
From strategic identity to strategic choices
36 hours of in-person learning, organized into two intensive sessions connecting contextual analysis, strategic identity, growth choices, and decision-making under pressure.
— Where we are and what we stand for18 hours
Read the external context as a strategic landscape, clarify identity, capabilities, and internal readiness, and test choices under pressure.
Topics
- Strategic Context: Geopolitics, Disruption and Systemic Risk
- Capabilities, Readiness and Strategic Identity
- Systemic Risk as Strategic Context
- Boardroom Challenge 1: Decision Under Fire
— Where we are going and why18 hours
Turn diagnosis into explicit choices about growth, portfolio management, innovation, and resource allocation.
Topics
- Strategic Choices: Where to Play and How to Win
- Corporate Strategy, M&A and Resource Allocation
- Innovation as Strategic Asset
- Boardroom Challenge 2: The Bet That Defines the Decade
faculty
Program directors
Luís Filipe Reis is a Professor of Strategy and an executive advisor with more than 30 years of international experience in leadership and organizational transformation. His areas of expertise include corporate strategy, organizational transformation, leadership development, and strategic alignment, with a strong focus on translating strategy into execution. He has held senior leadership roles in […]
Daniel Gelsing is a Professor of Strategy, Leadership, and Decision-Making at Porto Business School, and an independent strategy consultant. He helps organizations and leaders navigate complex challenges to ultimately make better strategic decisions. He works with leaders from small startups to large multinationals to improve decision making in various domains such as corporate strategy, innovation, […]
Guest speakers
Nuno Ferrand
Guest Speaker · MHNC-UP
Paulo Portas
Guest Speaker
FEES AND CONDITIONS
Prepare your application
Admission is subject to availability, so we recommend submitting your application as soon as possible.
- early bird 5% discountUp to 1 month before the program starts€2,422.50 Savings of €127.50
- last call Standard feeUp to 1 week before the program starts€2,550 Subject to availability
Admissions team
Meet the Admissions team
Get your questions answered, assess how the program fits your career path, and learn about the application process, schedule, fees, and next steps.
advanced strategy for top executives
The next edition starts on November 2. Your decision starts now.
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