Notre Dame Executive Education announces new director

PaulC. Velasco, who has been serving as interim director of Executive Education at the University of Notre Dame, will take over the position permanently, announced Mendoza College of Business Interim Dean Roger Huang on Thursday (Aug. 9).

Velasco joined the Mendoza College in August 2009 as Executive Education's Director of Degree Programs. He has served as interim director of Notre Dame Executive Education since October 2011.

“Paul Velasco fully understands our values and culture at the Mendoza College and is committed to excellence,” said Huang, Kenneth R. Meyer Professor of Global Investment Management. “He brings to the job years of experience, strong work ethics and numerous talents. Above all, Paul is devoted to continuous learning and innovation.” Huang also noted Velasco’s previous experience in higher education and corporate development, his success in leading the Executive MBA program, which included a comprehensive curriculum redesign, and his leadership and initiative while serving as interim director.

"Over the past year, our team has significantly grown Executive Education, and laid the framework to develop new foreign and domestic opportunities for Notre Dame,” said Velasco.  “I appreciate the opportunities Notre Dame has provided for me to apply my skills to grow Executive Education, while also providing a rich team of colleagues to foster my own development."

Notre Dame Executive Education has had significant growth in recent years, which includes the opening of an executive education facility in downtown Chicago, and most notably with the construction of the Ralph C. Stayer Center for Executive Education. The three-story, 54,000-square-foot Stayer Center is slated to open in February 2013 adjacent to the Mendoza College of Business.

"With new facilities such as the Stayer Center and our Notre Dame Chicago Commons, we have great opportunities to expand the depth and reach of the University’s unique values-centered leadership approach around the world,” said Velasco. “I'm pleased to be leading that effort, which will see us bringing new relationships to Notre Dame." 

Previous to joining the Mendoza College, Velasco served as the Executive MBA director of instructional technology at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, where he taught in four of their five graduate programs. He also was a lecturer and associate director of Taylor Murphy Center at Virginia's Darden School. Velasco also has worked as an economics consulting expert as well, providing professional analysis of antitrust issues to several Fortune 100 firms, the U.S. Department of Justice and the attorney general for the state of Ohio.

Velasco earned his MBA from Michigan and his bachelor of philosophy in communications studies from Northwestern University.

Founded in 1980, Notre Dame Executive Education provides leaders in the executive and management ranks the opportunity to develop and strengthen their leadership abilities and business acumen skills. Today, Executive Education offers non-degree as well as degree programs, awarding about 120 degrees annually and delivering programs in 10 countries. In keeping with the Notre Dame mission, the program emphasizes values-based leadership in addition to academic rigor. Recent rankings include No. 18 by Bloomberg Businessweek for Non-degree Executive Education Open Enrollment Programs, and No. 6 worldwide among the top-ranked 25 Executive MBA programs by The Wall Street Journal.

More than 1,700 executives, managers and directors have participated in Notre Dame Executive Education’s innovative open-enrollment Integral Leadership, a portfolio of three programs that incorporate moral, spiritual and ethical strengths as well as other personal dimensions into leadership training.

More information about the Executive Education programs, including EMBA, is available by calling 800-631-3622 or 574-631-5285, or by e-mailing execprog@nd.edu or visiting http://business.nd.edu/executive_education/ on the Web.

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