Brock University’s Goodman School of Business saw 18 more local municipal professionals graduate from the NextGen Municipal Leadership program this summer, marking the culmination of the sixth cohort of this successful program.

The program is run through Goodman’s Centre for Innovation, Management and Enterprise Education (CIMEE) which provides public and customized corporate business seminars for Niagara professionals.

Tailored to fit a training and development gap at the local municipalities, NextGen provides participants with the tools they need to be more effective at their jobs while developing them into business leaders.

Among the most recent cohort was Sarah Smith, acting clerk at the Township of Wainfleet, who found the NextGen sessions to be relevant and applicable to her job.

“Municipalities are constantly changing and for us to learn how to implement change and respond to it properly is invaluable to developing our management skills,” says Smith.

For Frank Fabiano, chief administrative officer at the City of Thorold, the effects on his managers have been immediate and recognizable.

“This program is changing the language at our organization in the way our managers communicate to their staff. There is more coaching, they are more open to their employees and their needs and they are more professional – they have a good understanding of budgeting and finance,” says Fabiano.

Fabiano was part of the NextGen program development in its early stages and has been instrumental in co-ordinating with the Goodman School of Business to shape the curriculum.

“We had a gap in leadership training and needed succession training for our junior employees to get them on their way,” he says.

“We wanted to work with the Goodman School of Business so that our employees could take part in a university experience and so that they could be proud that they graduated from a university of this calibre.”

The Centre for Innovation, Management and Enterprise Education (CIMEE) at the Goodman School of Business is set to launch another year of business seminars open to the public in September and will release its 2016-17 schedule later this summer.