Meet Alex Gabbi

Gabbi strives to customize his courses with relevant, real-life lessons. His general methodology is three-tiered:

1. Let me teach you something. 
2. Let me give you an example from my career that will help you relate to it. 
3. Let’s apply the example to something from your day-to-day business.

Through Extended Campus, Gabbi has designed and taught courses for professionals in industries ranging from hospital administration to renewable energy to law enforcement for state agencies, nonprofits and corporate clients. His broad expertise includes business strategy and operations, non-profit management, entrepreneurship, sales and marketing and supply chain management.

Students appreciate the value his rich experiences bring to every lesson, and his ability to balance theory with reality.

"I did startups. And I worked at large technology companies where almost every other kind of company that you could run across was my customer. I had the opportunity to learn about them. So, it's very rare for me to get myself into a situation where I don't have at least enough subject matter expertise to be able to have an intelligent conversation and ask the right questions to understand a company."

Gabbi starts every course by inviting each participant to discuss their motivation and needs. "That immediately calms people down and at the end I'll say, did you all see what I did? I made you feel comfortable. By injecting a little bit of humor and before I even told you about myself, you guys were running the conversation, you were telling me what you were about, why you were here. And immediately the barriers were gone because you guys started the conversation. So that's something that's very intentional that I do to immediately connect with the group."

He also appreciates the life lessons that professionals bring to his Extended Campus classes. "Whether they know the topic or not, they have enough experience that they're able to relate and learn. To bring scenarios to the table."

In the case of custom programs, he researches each organization and the employer’s goals and challenges. Even during class, he never stops fine-tuning. One time he cornered a CEO during a break to gather deeper context, asking him what keeps him awake at night. Then Gabbi was able to weave his priorities into the training.

Participants in a business foundation class for nonprofits appreciated the real-time feedback and connections Gabbi facilitated among diverse groups.

"Honestly, for nonprofits, sometimes it's a pretty lonely world and you think it's you against everybody. Not only could we give them tools, but they could build relationships and solve problems together. Now, they can continue to reach out to one another."