Fund the Program — Repricing an Executive-Education Portfolio

A four-round, intermediate finance-and-strategy simulation set inside Escuela de Alta Gerencia del Pacífico (EAGP), the executive-education unit of a leading Lima business school in San Isidro, Peru. Annual revenue is S/ 24,000,000 (roughly 55% open-enrollment certificates, 45% custom in-company programs), but classroom and faculty capacity is the binding constraint: six classrooms run at a 62% fill rate and the two most-requested faculty are booked nine months out. In March 2026 the rector freezes the central subsidy and raises the contribution-margin floor from 32% to 35%; last year EAGP closed at just 31%, a four-point gap worth about S/ 1,000,000 of contribution that the unit must now self-fund. Miss the floor two years running and the unit is merged into the MBA office and the director role disappears. Playing the Director of Executive Education and the leadership team, you treat an academic unit as a P&L across the 100-day decision window. Round 1: read a program-level P&L and classify the portfolio — separate the genuinely loss-making from the merely low-margin, and decide how to read the zero-contribution PAD flagship, which is also the alumni and custom-demand engine. Round 2: reprice the 14 open-enrollment programs using price elasticity (a 10% price rise historically cuts enrollment 6-8%) and segmentation rather than across-the-board hikes, protecting fill rate and the brand. Round 3: allocate scarce faculty between higher-margin custom work and steadier open-enrollment, and counter a mining client demanding a 12% rate cut (S/ 470,000 of contribution at risk) without simply conceding a logo. Round 4: build the capacity-investment case for the adjacent floor (+33% capacity) — do nothing, lease at S/ 1,400,000/year, or own for S/ 5,200,000 capex — computing ROI, payback and the break-even fill rate under three demand scenarios. The math rewards segmented pricing, capacity discipline, negotiated counter-value and scenario-tested investment; it punishes the five classic errors: killing the flagship on contribution alone, uniform price hikes, conceding the client cut for nothing, over-investing on an optimistic fill ramp, and slashing variable spend until quality (and NPS) collapses. Final KPIs track blended contribution margin (%), capacity fill rate (%), annual contribution (S/) and a strategic-health index covering brand, pipeline, talent and quality.