So you think you’re CEO material? UMKC’s ‘CEO Academy’ puts that ambition to the test

Aspiring executives with an eye on the C-suite need to be ready well before the opportunity arises, said Dan Hesse, leaning on his years of past experience as president and CEO of Sprint. It’s not about just being the boss, he emphasized.

“Of all the roles, that of the CEO is so different than any other in the company,” said Hesse, now co-host of The Mentors Radio podcast and a leader on several boards.

On one hand, Hesse said, a CEO is indeed the boss, but on the other … they themselves answer to a number of bosses of their own — people who don’t even work at the company: the members of the board.

And that’s why, Hesse said, preparation is key.

A specialized program at UMKC — CEO Academy of Kansas City — provides the foundation. It is set to return Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, 2025 at UMKC’s Henry W. Bloch School of Management. Applications are open now.

Designed for hopeful and emerging CEOs, the CEO Academy is led and delivered by current and former CEOs like Hesse. (UMKC’s CEO Academy instructors receive no pay for their time. Instead, tuition funds scholarships to attend the Bloch School.)

The experience “lets somebody understand what they need to do to develop themselves, to be ready to become CEO if that opportunity ever presents itself,” he said.

Or, Hesse mused, maybe, “they’ll say, ‘Man, I don’t want that job. It’s really hard!’” 

Paget Alves, Sorenson Communications

Serial board member to CEO

When budding execs arrive at CEO Academy in the fall, they’ll learn insights from one teacher — a recently minted CEO — who was a student of the program in 2024.

Paget Alves previously was chief sales officer at Sprint under Hesse and a veteran of corporate boards, like YUM! Brands, the parent of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. And, while serving on the board of Sorenson Communications, his peers turned to him in a time of leadership change; they urged him to take on the duties of chief executive.

“Sometimes, the CEO isn’t performing well enough, and the board looks around the table and they say, ‘How about you?’” Hesse noted. “And that’s the case with Paget.” 

Alves at least knew a leadership change was coming, the new CEO said with a laugh. And, he was aware of the CEO Academy thanks to his connection to Hesse. As it became clear to Alves that he was being drafted by the Sorenson Communications board, he reached out to his mentor. 

“Candidly, it was a few weeks before the academy,” Alves said. 

He counts his  experience as a student there as foundational in his new role as company leader.

In the academy, surrounded by either early tenure CEOs or members of the C-suite with aspirations for the top seat — COOs, CTOs, CFOs, etc. — a heady mixture of those trying to master the new role and others weighing whether it would be a good fit for them made for a highly engaging experience, Alves said. 

Not only were his fellow students high performers to a fault, he said, they were genuinely wrestling with envisioning the day-to-day of the CEO role. 

“‘How do you think about it? What even is the role?’” Alves recalled, reiterating the questions his peers came eager to answer. 

“But then there are a lot of people who are somewhere in that track where they can envision themselves being selected to be CEO and they’re looking for it, they’ve been preparing for it,” he continued. “They’re asking themselves ‘What is it really going to be like in the job? What are some of the things that you need to do to be successful?’ So it’s a bit of a master’s class, and I don’t want to underestimate that.” 

The Henry W. Bloch School of Management on campus at UMKC; Startland News photo

Two crucial lessons

The CEO Academy isn’t a credentialing course or continuing education experience. The sessions raise deep questions about ethics, empathy, leadership styles and more.

For Alves, two experiences from his time as a student stood out.

First, Hesse’s lessons on culture creation and recreation were front-of-mind for Alves as he stepped into his current CEO role, he said. And, though Alves had the advantage of being present for the events of Hesse’s Sprint tenure, he noted that those lessons proved timeless — reinforced by CEO Academy.

“It was helpful to hear it again and remember,” Alves said. “Because there were a lot of things that we did right at the time — you didn’t know if you were doing them right, you had to make some battlefield decisions and make some tough calls and have faith that the decisions will take you in the direction you really would like to go.

“Dan reached into the company at Sprint. He was able to connect very effectively with 70 odd thousand employees. And that’s not easy to do and not easy to do when most of those folks didn’t all work in Overland Park.” 

Speaking to his current role, Alves noted that he’s responsible for 6,500 employees across the globe. 

“So, being able to connect with them and make sure they feel a sense of leadership, some transparency, that they recognize the fact that we value them,” he said. “Culture becomes one of the most important things.”

In addition to Hesse’s guidance, Alves said, CEO Academy instructor Bill Zollars’ stories about industry disruption and his time at Kodak were essential. 

“Kodak is a very, very cautionary tale for anybody if you don’t pay attention to what’s happening around you,” Alves said. 

He used AI as an example.

“(AI) is much like the first internet,” Alves said. “Companies were never going to be the same after that.”

“So, if you don’t pay attention to it, if you don’t have the insight, you’re not paying attention, you’re not hearing from people, you’re not listening, you’re not getting external perspective, you’ll run right off a cliff,” he continued.

In the case of Sorenson Communications, Alves said, some core services face significant challenges from AI.

“One of the services we offer … is captioning services for the hard of hearing. (Another) is video relay communication services for the deaf,” he said. “Both of these are going to be replaced to a great degree or transformed to a great degree by AI, and we need to disrupt ourselves to avoid being disrupted and essentially being out of business.”

Ready to enroll? Here’s what’s on the agenda

Hesse said students of this year’s academy can expect the following discussions: 

• Paget Alves: stabilizing a company, rebuilding a company, taking a company in a new direction  
• Mark Donovan: what it takes to go to the top in an organization — taking the Kansas City Chiefs from last to first and the idea of preparing for success
• Dave Dillon: the importance of feedback and how the best leaders have to proactively seek it 
• Greg Graves: the personality traits and qualities of the world’s most successful CEOs
• Dan Hesse: Culture and how it’s a job that no leader should delegate
• Beryl Raff: succession planning — how to lead and develop other leaders to own key functions of a firm
• Brent Schafer: what it’s like to follow a founder — startup energy versus corporate energy 
• Maggie Wilderotter: navigating the board of directors experience — from reporting to a single person to reporting to a collective
• Bill Zollars: maintaining an open mind and strategizing after critical mistakes

For more information, click here, email umkcexeced@umkc.edu or call (816) 235-2892. 

Haines Eason is the owner of startup media agency Freelance Kansas. He went into business for himself after a stint as a managing editor on the content marketing team at A Place for Mom. Among many other roles, he has worked as a communications professional at KU and as a journalist with work in places like The Guardian, Eater and KANSAS! Magazine. Learn about him and Freelance Kansas on LinkedIn and Facebook.