Holly Franklin

The pressure to upskill faster than the market moves is real, and it's not letting up. AI integration, skills obsolescence, hard-to-fill roles, and a workforce that expects learning to connect to actual career mobility: L&D leaders are being asked to solve complex organizational problems with limited time, tighter budgets, and an expectation of measurable ROI. Most organizations try to solve this alone. That's both expensive and unnecessary.

This masterclass makes the case for a fundamentally different approach: treating university partners not as vendors of off-the-shelf content, but as strategic talent development partners capable of co-designing learning that maps directly to your organization's real skills gaps, cultural context, and long-term workforce goals. Using Northeastern University's B2B partnership model as a live case study, we'll show how organizations can enter, scale, and sustain high-impact university partnerships through a stackable, tiered investment strategy. Start small, demonstrate value quickly, and build toward more customized programs over time. Whether you're exploring your first external learning partnership or ready to move beyond transactional tuition programs, this session will give you the language, the framework, and the confidence to take the next step.

 You'll leave with:

• A clear framework for evaluating and structuring university learning partnerships
• A tiered engagement model you can use to enter with minimal financial risk
• Real-world examples of what works, and what makes organizations ready to scale
• Strategies for scaling personalized learning across your workforce without sacrificing quality or relevance