Enrollment
At the latest four weeks before your first program module starts
Delivery mode
Onsite
Flexible start, can be completed in 6–9 months
Frequency
Location
Aalto University Töölö, Helsinki, Finland
Language
English
Scope
3 core modules, 1 elective module + individual Digital Transformation Plan project
Leading Digital Transformation
– Graduate Diploma in Digital Strategy and Leadership
Does your current business model enable your organization to compete successfully in the global digital economy? Do you have managers and leaders who can fully embrace the digital era's new possibilities?
The Leading Digital Transformation program prepares you to disrupt the digital technology wave and leverage its full potential. It prepares you to become an ambassador for incorporating new technologies into your organization’s business model and leveraging their potential value for tangible business benefits.
The program equips senior decision-makers with the skills and competencies needed to build a more proactive digital strategy to utilize, develop, and commercialize digital technologies and data, and discover new ways to create value. You will combine your strengths in management with insights from technology to understand how digital capabilities at the organizational level enable and call for new strategic priorities. You will also learn what organizational structures, practices, and cultures support strategy execution and gain the knowledge required to analyze what capabilities you need to stay competitive in the future.
The Leading Digital Transformation program allows you to dive deep into the latest technologies through real-life business applications and company cases. You will better understand the practice, opportunities, and implications of using the technologies transforming your business environment.
In addition to four live modules taught by Aalto faculty, you will have the opportunity to take Stanford Online’s course Building an AI-Enabled Organization, where you will learn from Stanford University instructors and gain access to the latest knowledge and practical real-life cases.
During the program, you will develop a Digital Transformation Plan that balances your core business operations with new opportunities for competitive advantage. You can focus on the technology or digital strategy perspective based on your preference and current need.
The Leading Digital Transformation program is worth 18 ECTS credits, which can be transferred to the Aalto EMBA or Aalto MBA program.
Start
Fee: € 12,700 (+ VAT)
You can choose to take the full Leading Digital Transformation (Graduate Diploma in Digital Strategy and Leadership) program, including all three core modules and one elective module of your choice, or register for individual stand-alone modules.

Combine your strengths in management with insights from technology. Take a deep dive into innovation and business strategy.

Take Stanford Online’s course Building an AI-Enabled Organization and learn how leading professionals are utilizing AI to create superior customer experiences and increase operational efficiency.

Develop a Digital Transformation Plan that balances your core business operations with new opportunities for competitive advantage.

Benefits
The program will challenge and reward you as our world-class experts help you cut through the noise of digitalization and technology and focus on what really matters for your business. It covers the latest trends in technology, like Generative AI and its possibilities. Also, the program provides you with practical tools and methods for the agile implementation of new skills and knowledge at work. It will help you challenge your strategic thinking and gain a comprehensive overview of the latest theory, technologies, and business applications.





For
The program is for business leaders, senior executives, and decision-makers responsible for leveraging the possibilities created by digitalization within their companies.
We recommend the program for core strategy team members, business development managers, and digital transformation leaders.
Contents and Schedule
The program incorporates face-to-face sessions as well as individual assignments and project work. Participants will have the opportunity to deepen their knowledge on the program themes through facilitated workshops, interactive faculty lectures and company cases. A digital learning environment will be used to support the learning experience.
During the program, you will develop a Digital Transformation Plan that balances your core business operations with new opportunities for competitive advantage. Based on your preference and current need, you can focus either on technology portfolio management or digital strategy development in your plan. Our expert faculty tutors will support and guide you throughout this process.
The program covers the following themes:
- Digital strategy and competing in data-driven business
- Key technologies and future digital solutions – latest business applications and company cases
- Digital organization and leading the transformation journey
- Digital platform economy and dimensions of the digital market
- Defining the role of data
- Building a winning data team
- Digital technology management
- Leading in the digital world
- Leading a digital organization
Program structure

Three Core Modules
Eight face-to-face days held in Aalto University Töölö in Helsinki, Finland

One Elective Module
One 2- or 3-day module of your choice from the elective module pool

Stanford Online's course
Building an AI-Enabled Organization Flexible, self-paced online course includes lecture videos, exercises, knowledge checks, and final exam or project.

Digital Transformation Plan
Individual strategy project completed during the program
Schedule
Module: Digital Organization and Leading the Transformation
Schedule
May 5–6, 2025
Location
Aalto University Töölö, Helsinki, Finland
This module will address leadership and organizational issues in digitalization, including how to use data-based insights in leading people, how to collaborate in digital ecosystems across organizational boundaries, and how to lead people in digital transformation. The key topics of the module are:
- Leadership in the digital world
- How to use data-based insights in leading people
- How to collaborate in digital ecosystems across organizational boundaries
- Principles in digital organizing
- Leading people in digital transformation
- Understanding the role of shared purpose and vision in digital business
Instructors:
Patrick Furu, Director, Aalto EE & Adjunct Professor, Hult
More speakers to be confirmed.
Module: Digital Strategy and Data-Driven Business
Schedule
September 15–16, 2025
Location
Aalto University Töölö, Helsinki, Finland
- How digitalization is reshaping capabilities and value creation
- Generative AI in business
- A strategic perspective to Generative AI
- Digital modularity and ecosystems
- Rethinking management in the age of AI
Instructor:
Henri Schildt, Professor, Aalto University
Module: Digital Technology as an Enabler
Schedule
November 2025
Location
Aalto University Töölö, Helsinki, Finland
- Digital Platforms and the Dimensions of the Digital Market
- Platform Economy Fundamentals
- Future Digital Solutions
- Digital Technology Management
- Digital Strategy Execution
- Innovations and Organizational Capabilities
- Strategic and responsible use of Data and AI
Instructors:
Kimmo Karhu, Assistant Professor, Aalto University School of Science
Iiris Lahti, Saidot
Elective module
Location
Aalto University Töölö, Helsinki, Finland
- Module of your choice from the pool of electives
- Variety of topics available, for example:
- AI Methods and Applications
- Strategic Foresight in Business Management
- Vastuullinen digitalisaatio ja sosiaalinen vastuullisuus (in Finnish)
- Global Strategy
- Strategic Sustainability for Business
- Negotiation Skills (available both in Finnish and English)
Kindly contact the program team with any requests for further information.
Instructors

Henri Schildt
Henri Schildt is a Professor of Strategy at Aalto University School of Business and Aalto University School of Science.
Professor Henri Schildt’s research interests span technology strategy, organizational change, and strategy process (with specific interest in reasoning under uncertainty and the use of data analytics). He is currently heading two research programs on data-driven management and the management of digitalization in Finnish manufacturing companies.
He is a tenured professor with a joint appointment at the Aalto University School of Business and the School of Science’s Department of Industrial Engineering and Management.
Henri Schildt completed his PhD at Helsinki University of Technology in 2007.

Patrick Furu
Dr. Patrick Furu works as a Director at Aalto EE. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Management at Hult International Business School.
He has 20 years of experience in consultancy and executive education for management concerning strategies, change processes, and competence development.
He has worked with many large companies, such as Aviva, Cargotec, Ericsson, Fortum, NCC, Nokia, Nordea, Pfizer, SEB, Skanska, Telia, and UPM. Patrick has board work experience in SMEs. His past activities include top management group experience in the IT industry.
Patrick’s research has centred on strategic knowledge creation and sharing in multinational companies, the role of the board of directors in medium-sized companies, and leadership models and processes in improvising jazz bands and classical music ensembles. At Aalto EE, Patrick covers topics such as strategy creation and execution, the interface between leadership and strategy, managing complexity, agile organizational forms, digital leadership, and high-performing teams and collective competence.

Kimmo Karhu
Kimmo Karhu is an Assistant Professor, at Aalto University Department of Industrial Engineering and Management.
Karhu is an expert on platform business models and a seasoned teacher on digital strategy. By combining hands-on industry experience with academic thinking, he seeks to explain how AI, machine learning, and other technologies can be leveraged for scaling platform business. Karhu's recent doctoral thesis analyses open platform strategizing and digital tactics in mobile ecosystems.

Iiris Lahti
Iris Lahti is specialized in driving the utilization of data and helping companies to evolve their data driven culture, scale up their data capabilities and gain sustainable business value from data and AI solutions.
For the past 15+ years, she has been focusing on understanding and resolving how different companies find the most relevant data and refine and integrate it into their business processes and daily work. She has worked as a business controller, a consultant helping clients in various industries to utilize the full potential of their data and analytics systems, and as a development director of data utilization in Sanoma Media Finland. Her role at Sanoma was to drive the company-wide data-driven culture transformation and lead a team of 20+ analysts and data scientists supporting consumer sales, media content design, customer service, and digital service development operations.
She is a founding partner of AI Roots, a network and agency for data professionals. At AI Roots, she helped companies across various industries build winning data teams and exploit the potential of data through the right skills and talent.
Currently she works at Saidot, contributing to the development of an AI governance platform aiming at supporting the responsible usage of AI in organizations.
Program Fee and Registration
Program Fee
The program fee is € 12,700 (+ VAT).
Registration
At the latest four weeks before your first program module starts.
Leading Digital Transformation Stand-Alone Modules
You can choose to take the full Leading Digital Transformation (Graduate Diploma in Digital Strategy and Leadership) program, including all three core modules and one elective module of your choice, or register for individual stand-alone modules:
May 5–6, 2025

Schedule May 5–6, 2025
Location Aalto University Töölö, Helsinki, Finland
This program addresses leadership and organizational perspective of digitalization, including how to use data-based insights in leading people, how to collaborate in digital ecosystems across organizational boundaries, and how to lead people in digital transformation.
Fee: € 3,100 (+ VAT)
September 15–16, 2025

Schedule September 15–16, 2025
Location Aalto University Töölö, Helsinki, Finland
This program provides you with an in-depth understanding of the ongoing changes in strategy and management practices brought by contemporary digital technologies. The program will increase your understanding of the technical changes, economic logic, and new business models driving the ongoing digital transformation. After the program, you will be able to identity, foresight, and respond to changes taking place in an industry, including the shift toward digital ecosystems.
Fee: € 3,100 (+ VAT)
November 2025

Schedule November 2025
Location Aalto University Töölö, Helsinki, Finland
This program touches on digital transformation, especially from the perspective of technology and data. During the program focus on how digitalization, platform economy, digital technology strategies, and innovative business models are transforming and providing new opportunities for business. We will also investigate data strategy and how to build a competent data team.
Fee: € 4,650 (+ VAT)