e-Leadership is of crucial importance to companies, especially SMEs, start-ups and industry, as it allows them to excel at their business operation. The skills required for effective e-leadership are seen as those that enable talented information and communication technologies (ICT) professionals to lead qualified ICT and other staff towards identifying and designing business models and exploiting key innovation opportunities. e-Leadership success is defined as making best use of developments in ICT and delivering value to the organisation. There is an increasing demand throughout European industry to improve the quality of e-leadership, covering organisation leadership in ICT innovation to deliver business value. Research has confirmed a significant shortage of e-leadership skills across Europe; this represents a call for action.
The European Commission e-Leadership initiative, started in 2013, has focused on the leadership needs of top decision-makers and professional leaders at larger enterprises. These leaders oversee portfolios of both well-defined and emergent innovation opportunities. Successful design and implementation requires developing and engaging highly qualified staff to achieve the target value. With the further initiative on e-leadership skills for SMEs, which was started in 2014, the Commission is now targeting SMEs and start-ups.

The European Commission initiative found that closing the e-leadership skills gap requires a range of educational ecosystem actions. In particular, it needs strong collaboration of demand and supply stakeholders to create new educational offers. Pilot work shows that this leads to innovative and relevant content for e-leadership programmes and courses.
This event is one of five regional events organised by the European Commission across Europe. It is hosted and locally organised by the House of Lords, UK, and Henley Business School together with the Henley Accelerator Programme.

The objectives of the event are to:

• Inform SMEs and start-ups about newly developed training and higher and executive education offers on e-leadership supporting them exploiting innovation opportunities emerging through developments in ICT and in delivering value to their organisation.
• Communicate the e-leadership and the lessons learnt from these developments and the teaching of first cohorts of participants in different types of courses and in different countries to all stakeholders and keen to promote innovation through e-Leadership.
• Inform about the European higher and executive education landscape and further training offers in the areas of e-leadership and digital entrepreneurship.
• Demonstrate to institutions, universities and business schools e-leadership courses developed and piloted in different contexts and countries and for different target groups as well as lessons learnt and guide education and training institutions to develop e-leadership programmes.
• Encourage employers – especially SMEs and start-ups - to make use of e-leadership programme and course offerings and to team up with education and training institutions to develop these in line with their needs.
• Inform policy-makers and government representatives interested in promoting digital innovation and developing appropriate national policies and initiatives of different type and in different policy areas about already existing successful national policies and initiatives in this area which they may want to take as inspiration and for their own work.

This event is targeted at: innovative employers especially from SMEs and start-ups, entrepreneurs, current and aspiring e-leaders, professional associations, universities and business schools, as well as (especially the morning session) policy-makers interested in promoting digital innovation and developing appropriate national policies and initiatives of different types and in different policy areas.

Interested parties can register for one or both of the sessions listed below:

• Morning session: e-leadership policy and education and training landscape – mainly addressed to policy makers and those active and preparing decisions at policy and multi-stakeholder partnership level.
• Practical afternoon session: e-leadership for SMEs: success stories, training courses, programmes, MOOCs – addressed to representatives from SME and start-ups, and from higher and executive education and general training institutions.

There is no charge to attend the event. Anyone expressing an interest will be sent a link to the outputs of this event.
Due to the need to balance the stakeholder groups, final acceptance of participation is by personal invitation. Acceptance will be confirmed within two weeks of registration. Please register your interest at the following website: www.eskills-lead.eu.

Please register your interest at the following website: www.eskills-lead.eu
This event is targeted at innovative employers, current and aspiring e-leaders, professional associations, universities and business schools, as well as policy-makers interested in promoting digital innovation. Due to the need to balance the stakeholder groups, final acceptance of participation is by personal invitation. Acceptance will be confirmed within two weeks of registration. There is no charge to attend the event. Anyone expressing an interest will be sent a link to the outputs of this event.

MORNING SESSION:
e-Leadership policy and education and training landscape

Chairperson: Professor Kecheng Liu, Henley Business School, UK

Afternoon Session: e-Leadership for SMEs: Success Stories, Training Courses, Programmes, MOOCs

Chairperson: Professor Kecheng Liu, Henley Business School, UK

e-Leadership Flyer
You can obtain background research on the e-leadership topic by accessing a flyer at the following web site: http://eskills-guide.eu/documents/

Local organizer contacts:
Lauren Read:  l.read(at)henley.ac(dot)uk

Event Secretariat:
Prof. Kecheng Liu: k.liu(at)henley.ac(dot)uk
Prof. Andrew Godley: a.c.godley(at)henley.ac(dot)uk
Dr. Maksim Belitski: m.belitski(at)reading.ac(dot)uk
Dr. Weizi Li: weizi.li(at)henley.ac(dot)uk

empirica Gesellschaft für Kommunikations- und Technologieforschung mbH
Oxfordstr. 2
53111 Bonn
Germany
T: +49-228-98530-0
F: +49-228-98530-12
E: lead(at)empirica(dot)com
W: http://www.eskills-lead.eu

Event language
The conference language will be English
Venue
Europe House, 32 Smith Square, London SW1P 3EU, UK
(Churchill and Monnet Room)

This event is organised as part of the service contract ‘e-Leadership Skills for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises’, launched by the European Commission Directorate-General Enterprise and Industry (DG ENTR). The initiative is developing targeted actions for start-ups and fast-growing SMEs to provide them with relevant, transnationally recognised e-leadership skills and qualifications for entrepreneurs, managers and advanced ICT users.
The initiative is contributing to the ‘Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs’, to the Commission’s communication entitled ‘Towards a Job-rich Recovery’, and to the follow-up of the Commission’s communication on ‘e-Skills for the 21st Century’, which presents a long-term EU e-skills agenda and is entitled ‘The Digital Agenda for Europe’.
The main focus of this service contract is on e-leadership in SMEs and start-up firms. e-Leadership has been defined as the accomplishment of a goal that relies on ICT through the direction of human resources and uses of ICT. This type of leadership is thus distinguished by the type of goal that needs to be accomplished and by the type of resources a leader must coordinate and align: both the goal and the resources involve using ICT.

e-Leadership skills refers to the skills which an individual in the modern economy requires to initiate and achieve innovation utilising ICT:

• Business savvy: Innovate business and operating models, delivering value to their organisations.
• ICT savvy: Envision and drive change for business performance, exploiting digital trends as innovation opportunities.
• Strategic management capability: Lead inter‐disciplinary staff, and influence stakeholders across boundaries (functional, geographical).

For more information please visit: www.eskills-lead.eu  and www.eskills-guide.eu