A $6.5 million gift to the UW-Madison School of Business will create a Center for Product Management at the school. The center, which will offer students an MBA in product management, will be the first of its kind in the country, according to Michael Knetter, dean of the School of Business at UW-Madison.
Product managers are common at companies with a large number of brand names. They are responsible for developing and implementing a strategy to market a particular brand.
\People who are good at product management often assume greater and greater responsibility in an organization,"" Knetter said. ""It's often a very good proving ground for people who will become higher level executives.""
The center will be funded through a gift from Scott Cook and Signe Ostby, who is a UW-Madison alumnus.
""Both Scott and I began our careers in product management at Procter & Gamble and feel that product management jobs provide outstanding training for successful general managers,"" Ostby said.
The CPM, which will be within the School of Business's marketing program for master's students, will begin enrolling students in fall 2003. Knetter said the number of students admitted will depend on the applicant pool.
""We are going to be very focused on having high quality students,"" he said. ""The advisory board we've assembled for this center will have high level executives from Procter & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark, Kraft, General Mills and Intuit and they are going to help us try to apply the criteria they apply when they hire product managers for our admissions process so we're kind of screening on the same characteristics.""
