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How leadership training is shaping a generation of mayors

Bloomberg Cities Network

Mayors are busy people, as Amarillo, Texas, Mayor Ginger Nelson can attest. “As mayors, often our days are full of budget projections, crisis meetings, emails, media interviews—we’re spinning a lot of plates,” she says.

One commitment Mayor Nelson is grateful she made time for is her participation in the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative. It’s a world-class executive training program for mayors and their top senior leaders, taught by faculty from the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School, and featuring urban leaders from Bloomberg Philanthropies’ global network of experts.

“This plate is worth spinning,” says Nelson, a member of the Bloomberg Harvard Class of 2022. “You’re getting new tools and techniques from some of the best teachers in the world.”

This week, the initiative welcomes its sixth class of mayors, a diverse group of 40 leaders from North America, Latin America, Europe, and Africa. “This class brings together a diverse and dynamic group of mayors from across the globe,” says Michael R. Bloomberg, three-term mayor of New York City and founder of Bloomberg L.P. and Bloomberg Philanthropies. “With all the urgent shared challenges facing cities, the opportunity for mayors to exchange ideas and learn from one another and experts is more important than ever.”

The incoming class of mayors joins a network that includes nearly 200 of their peers from 24 countries who, through participation in the program, have built their leadership and management skills to do their jobs better. The initiative is the flagship program of the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University.

Article continues at the Bloomberg Cities Network

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