Brian Guthrie is in the inaugural class of a transformative leadership program offered jointly by his graduate school alma mater, the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin, and the University of Adelaide, Australia.
Mr. Guthrie's day job is executive director of the $117.5 billion Teacher Retirement System of Texas, Austin, but he was attracted by the program's international focus.
A dozen senior executives from a wide range of corporate and non-profit entities from Texas will be paired with 12 Australian executives to start an exchange of their best ideas for organizational management. Between August and January, the executives will work together first by webinar and e-mail, and then will join together for two weeks of intensive training, one in Austin and one in Adelaide.
The goal is to develop a primer for good global management that will benefit many people in “guiding their agencies,” Mr. Guthrie said.
“TRS is a worldwide enterprise. We have money invested all over the world. We have staff working around the clock. In a world without borders, it's so important to have a global viewpoint,” he said.
What is crucial to Mr. Guthrie is not what Texas TRS looks like now, but what it will look like in five or 10 or more years. “I'm hoping to find out what tools I need and how I will help TRS get there,” he said.
