Zia Karim, Ph.D. completed his Certificate of Business Excellence (COBE) from UC Berkeley Executive Education in 2019. He currently owns 17 patents and has authored more than 40 papers in peer-reviewed journals. With 28 years of experience in the semiconductor and compound semiconductor fabrication and capital equipment business, Zia also boasts an extensive background in sales and marketing, technology management, business development, and product management/positioning. He currently serves as the Chief Technology Officer at Yield Engineering Systems (YES), a leading manufacturer of process equipment for semiconductor advanced packaging and life sciences, in Fremont, California.  

Two years after completing a COBE, the benefits have been far-reaching 

“There have been numerous lasting benefits from earning my COBE. They include setting up a winning culture, managing my emotional intelligence in a flourishing and fast-moving post-Covid business situation, encouraging an innovative environment, and establishing a successful product and technology strategy.” 

Since completing his COBE, Zia says... read more

Reena Miglani, Director – CX Cloud Applications, Oracle Corporation 

Reena is head of global sales engineering at Oracle, overseeing Marketing, Sales, and Service Cloud products. Her customers are hundreds of Oracle sales consultants located around the world. Reena also manages Oracle’s portfolio of acquired new products, communicating the value of each product, and ensuring that it becomes part of the Oracle ecosystem. “It’s exciting work. These aren’t back-office application, the CX market changes and evolves constantly – there’s always something new going on,” she says. Reena has worked for Oracle for 20 years.

Discovering UC Berkeley Exec Ed

In 2018 as Reena’s responsibilities at Oracle were expanding, she went online to look for training and development opportunities to expand her knowledge level. Her online search led to the UC Executive Education Digital Transformation Strategy program description. The thought of learning under the guidance of reputable Haas faculty was appealing to her and, reading further, she learned about UC Exec Ed’s... read more

Ramit Lamba, Professor of Radiology, Associate Chair, Chief of Abdominal Imaging, CT Director

The business world has always been an interest of mine. I was at a stage in my career where I felt like I already had leadership roles, but was also at a point where I wanted to learn more.

Physicians are very good at taking care of people but are generally not trained in understanding the operations of a business. They tend to be change-averse and sometimes resistant to learning about fields outside of medicine. In contrast, the business world focuses a lot on dynamic leadership, change, nimbleness, and strategy.

Going into the Berkeley Executive Education Program, “strategy” was just a generic term to me. Examples of ‘strategy’ included things such as: ‘this is my strategy to prepare for an exam’, or ‘this is my strategy in dealing with a difficult situation’. Taking the executive education programs at Berkeley Haas gave me not only a better understanding of organizational leadership, but also what strategy means in the context of a business, it's importance, why we need to learn it, and also illuminated how physicians sometimes lack the skills of building and implementing strategy in their practice... read more

Apurv Kamath, Engineer 

I discovered the Certificate of Business Excellence (COBE) Program while attending my first Berkeley Executive Education program. I've considered executive MBA programs including Berkeley's, but I thought the COBE offerings met my requirements and allowed me to be systematic and focus on select skills. I am reluctant, given my work-life circumstances and a small child at home, to commit to an executive MBA program. The COBE Program for me has been ideal. In addition to the Product Management Program, I have benefited from the Berkeley Executive Leadership program, Financial Analysis for Leaders and Digital Transformation Strategy. Though I’ve completed the COBE, there remain programs that interest me, so I plan to return.

I didn't have formal training in product management, so the first step I took was to find training that could close that gap. The most in-depth training I was able to find was the week-long Product Management program at UC Berkeley. I brought one of my close colleagues with me, and we... read more

I was looking for ways to gain new tools and new knowledge to keep a competitive edge in a dynamic landscape. That’s when I came across Berkeley Executive Education and the Certificate of Business Excellence program. The first course I took was the New Manager Boot Camp because I wanted to see what Berkeley had to offer. The course appealed to me because there were several managers within my organization who were up for promotions, and I wanted to experience the classes before recommending them to others. I quickly saw how beneficial this class would be for a new manager –– I also learned some useful tips in the program as well!  I recommended the course to the new managers and they came back full of excitement and eager to test their new-found knowledge. I believe this course helped them move effectively into that next phase of their careers. It’s rewarding to help others succeed, and to have the tools to make it a reality. 

Even though I’ve been in finance my entire career, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I learned in the ... read more