Quest’s ELP is a cohort based, nine-month program delivered mostly virtually but with bookend in-person summits. It is designed to develop high-potential, mid-level leaders (technical and functional), to strengthen their leadership skills, grow their career, and progress to senior leadership. Each cohort consists of 15 – 20 participants from diverse companies and industries nationwide for an engaging learning experience.

The goals of The ELP are to:

• Develop stronger leadership skills, business acumen, and digital fluency in leaders.
• Create a more robust, more valuable brand for the participant’s department/function, attracting and retaining top talent.
• Provide a comprehensive and interactive learning experience custom built by customer members of the Quest Oracle Community.

Here are five key components:

• Self-Awareness: A participant begins The ELP by evaluating themselves against research-based leadership competencies and having their direct manager evaluate them as well. Through the assessment, a participant and their direct manager will develop a full picture of the participant’s strengths/areas of opportunity and a data-driven career discussion, receiving targeted feedback and identifying areas of focus. Then, before graduating from the program, the participant will re-assess themselves to discover where they have grown and where they still have opportunity for growth.
• Leadership Development: In October, participants will attend a two-day in-person Summit: Laying the Leadership Foundation. From there, participants will engage virtually every other month on key leadership capabilities: The Strategy, Delivering Results, and People and Projects, Each week of these virtual engagement months, the instructor will introduce topics related to the area of focus (a blog, a video, or maybe a recorded interview) that the participants can engage with asynchronously. Participants will be expected to engage with the content and provide reactions/thoughts with the group each week. At the end of the month, the instructor wrap the virtual engagement content up with a 60 minute video conference workshop.
• Peer Connections: In addition to informal networking opportunities, The ELP will take a very intentional approach to facilitating networking, the exchange of ideas, and building trusted relationships with peers from various companies and industries nationwide, with Oracle executives, with relevant solution providers and other community leaders. Every other month (the months in which there isn’t Leadership Development content being delivered) The ELP will facilitate an introduction to a relevant connection. Also, The ELP will dedicate time and energy helping cohort participants build their relationships through facilitated group exercises. Finally, each participate will receive a mentor.
• 1:1 Mentoring: Based on the results of the participant’s assessment, The ELP will assign a senior leader outside of the participant’s organization as their mentor. The mentee is expected to schedule the meetings, drive the relationship, and bring value to their mentor. This relationship benefits both individuals by providing an opportunity to build networks, learn outside perspectives, and receive feedback and advice.
• Capstone Project: Participants will be put into small groups to work together throughout the program on a joint Capstone Project. The Capstone Project is designed to help ELP participants apply concepts learned through the program into practice through a project. The groups will present the project for review and feedback to the Quest Board of Directors at the final in-person ELP gathering at BLUEPRINT 4D in June 2025.

You may know that Quest has been executing leadership development for years through events like Quest’s Executive Forum, which has consistently held an NPS score of 60 or higher (Excellent to World Class classification. What you might not know is that while the formal structure of the ELP is new, we’ve been executing very similar leadership development activities for the Quest Board of Directors since the inception of Quest. We have heard time and time again, from past Quest Board members, that their Quest board service was one of the most impactful and career enhancing experiences they’ve had. The ELP is Quest formalizing those principles and processes to scale this offering for our members-at-large.

The program has been designed for high-potential technology or functional leaders with technology responsibilities. We recommend participants with titles from manager-level to director-level, but this can also vary based on the size of the organization and the responsibilities of the participant. The program is for emerging leaders as well as seasoned veterans (looking to enhance their leadership competencies). While the program is open to participants regardless of Quest membership status or the ERP their company uses, Quest members will receive a significant price discount and Oracle users will benefit the most from some of the Oracle focused networking activities the program will facilitate.

There are three primary ways you can utilize this program:

• Enroll up to five of your up-and-coming team members to join a cohort.
• Become a mentor for one or two participants from another company.
• Serve as an industry expert for some of our focused content areas.

The program will run for approximately nine-months from September ’24 – June ’25.

• September – complete self-assessment and discuss with manager (60 minutes)
• September – attending the orientation (60 minutes)
• For the Leadership Summit (October ’24 in Lexington, KY) participants will travel to Lexington, KY and participate in a two-day meeting/Summit. Attendance is required for graduation due to the amount of material that will be covered during this event.
• The Executive Forum (June ’25 in Las Vegas, NV) will travel to a meeting location for a two-day meeting/event. Attendance is required for graduation due to the content delivered, the presentation of the group’s Capstone Project, and graduation ceremony occurring at this event.
• For one half of the months (November, January, March, May), the time commitment will be approximately 60 minutes per week.
  

  Week 1 – Peer Connection Call
  Week 2 – Mentoring Call
  Week 3 – Capstone Project Meeting
  Week 4 – Book Club Discussion

• For the other half of the months (December, February and April), the time commitment will also be approximately 60 minutes per week:
  

  Week 1 – Consume content delivered by instructor and react.
  Week 2 – Consume content delivered by instructor and react.
  Week 3 – Consume content delivered by instructor and react.
  Week 4 – Virtual workshop

Senior executives from within the Quest community serve as mentors for the Quest Emerging Leaders Program. Mentors are vetted by Quest’s Emerging Leaders Program Committee (which is also made up of senior executives in the community).

Being a mentor requires meeting with your mentee(s) a minimum of four times (about an hour each) over an approximately seven to eight-month period. You are always welcome to meet more often if that works for you and your mentee and it doesn’t’ conflict with other ELP programming.

We will provide a profile of each mentee you will be assigned that includes their current role, career goals, personal interests and the mentoring topics that they are hoping to cover. We will also provide you with their leadership self-assessment as well as their manager’s assessment of the participant’s leadership.

We will also provide you with a mentor guide that contains best practices for engaging with your mentee(s). We will connect you and your mentee via email. From there it will be the mentee’s responsibility to schedule the meetings.

Participants will be put into small groups to work together throughout the program on a joint Capstone Project. The Capstone Project is designed to help ELP participants apply concepts learned through the program into practice through a project. The groups will present the project for review and feedback to the Quest Board of Directors at the final in-person ELP gathering at BLUEPRINT 4D in June 2025.

Participants are required to complete the following to graduate:

• A self-assessment, reviewing the results with their direct manager, at the beginning and the end of the program.
• Attend and actively engage in the orientation, the two in-person workshops (October ‘24 and June ’25), actively engage in the virtual activities (peer networking and book club) and attend the virtual workshops at the end of the month (December, February and April).
• Participate in four or more mentoring conversations.
• Complete and present the Capstone Project with your small group.

Quest’s Emerging Leaders Program will utilize an online portal to house the program materials, activities and assignments.