Experiential Learning

Management Game / CEO Simulation

Participants run the organisation, then answer for the decisions

An intensive decision simulation in which teams take the senior executive role, make interdependent decisions under time pressure, and defend them in a board-style setting. It runs in two distinct versions: a football-industry format, and a non-football format set in real Asian companies delivered with Arcus Education.

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The challenge

What this programme addresses

Managers are routinely taught frameworks they never have to use under pressure. The Management Game closes that gap. Participants are placed in the executive seat, given incomplete information and competing priorities, and required to decide, commit and account for the consequences. The learning comes from the decisions and the debrief, not from the slides.

Audience

Who it is for

MBA, EMBA and executive-education cohorts
Emerging leaders and high-potential management groups
Cross-functional teams that need to work as one leadership group
Universities and business schools looking for a capstone experiential module

Outcomes

What participants can do afterwards

01
Make and own interdependent decisions across strategy, finance, operations and people
02
Work with incomplete information and visible trade-offs
03
Read the consequences of earlier decisions and adjust course
04
Operate effectively inside a leadership team under time pressure
05
Present and defend decisions to a board-style panel
06
Reflect on personal decision-making habits and biases

Two versions

The same discipline, two very different settings

Football-industry version

Crisis communication, event management and pressurised decision-making, with the football industry as the backdrop

This version uses a football club as the setting, but it is not a programme about football. The industry is used as a backdrop because it compresses reputational risk, live events, intense media scrutiny, volatile stakeholders and immovable deadlines into a single organisation, a set of conditions aspiring executives from any sector rarely get to rehearse. Participants take senior roles in the club and work through matchday operations, incidents and public scrutiny in real time.

Crisis communication under live media and stakeholder pressure
Event and matchday operations planning and recovery
Leadership and role clarity inside a senior team
Pressurised decision-making with incomplete information
Transferable to any industry: the club is the setting, not the subject

Originally developed at the University of Liverpool Management School, including delivery at Norwich City Football Club. Currently being developed further with Praxis Sports College, an initiative Dr Levermore co-founded.

Arcus Education Asia version

Real companies and real decisions, not football-based, set across Asia

Delivered in partnership with Arcus Education Limited (Hong Kong), this version places students in actual C-suite roles inside real companies across Asian markets. Participants receive a CEO-level briefing on a live business challenge, develop strategy alongside C-suite mentors, and present real recommendations to a board. Because the questioning happens live, the assessment cannot be produced by AI tools.

Real company challenges and actual financial statements, not fictional data
CEO-level briefing on a live business issue
Strategy development with C-suite mentors
Board presentation assessed by serving executives
Local delivery through regional partners, international immersion or hybrid

Delivered with: Andrew MacIntosh — Arcus Education · executive partner; Chroong Kanjchanapoomi — Arcus Education · executive partner

The Management Game has been delivered in partnership with Arcus Education Limited, Hong Kong. Enquiries about this version can be routed through Dr Levermore.

Learning experience

How it is taught

The programme runs as a multi-round simulation. Each round demands a set of linked decisions, produces consequences, and is followed by structured challenge. A board-style review closes the exercise, with debrief focused on reasoning quality rather than outcome alone.

Teams take the senior executive role for a defined organisation
Multiple decision rounds with interdependent consequences
Time-pressured deliberation and mandatory commitment to a decision
Board-style presentation and challenge session
Structured debrief on reasoning, evidence and group dynamics
Individual reflective output linking the experience to the participant's own role

Possible formats

Five-day intensive
Two modules of two and a half days
Three-day intensive (the original football-industry format)
Capstone module inside an MBA, EMBA or professional masters programme
Up to 80% delivered on site with the host organisation
In-house version built around a client organisation's own context

Evidence & examples

Where this has been delivered

Originally developed and run by Dr Levermore at the University of Liverpool Management School as an experiential assessment within its MBA provision, including the Football Industries MBA; the associated teaching work contributed to a University Teaching Excellence Award in 2007. The football-industry version is being developed further as a commercial executive-education product through Praxis Sports College, co-founded with senior football-industry and higher-education partners. The non-football version is delivered in partnership with Arcus Education Limited (Hong Kong), which reports the format has run globally since 2007 with a satisfaction rate above 90%.

“Roger was also the creator of the Management Game, a 3-day module based on decision making simulations at Norwich City Football Club. Roger built a unique experience, designed to hand the students with a special insight behind the scenes of daily operations of a football club.”

Arigay Bergher, former MBA participant, LinkedIn recommendation

“His development and management of the Management Game module showed great creativity and energy in a program that did not appear to encourage such a fresh approach.”

Graham Anderson, former MBA student, LinkedIn recommendation

“The Management Game was the high point of my MBA. It's where it all came together for me, and it all made sense”

Tony L, MBA participant · Arcus Education programme material

“The students were engaged like I haven't seen before, and their final pitch gave us lots to think about. More effective than an internship!”

Jeff A, CEO · Arcus Education programme material

Faculty

Who delivers it

Designed and facilitated by Dr Roger Levermore. For the football-industry version, delivery partners and industry contributors are drawn from the Praxis Sports College network. For the Asia-based version, delivery is in partnership with Arcus Education Limited alongside Andrew MacIntosh and Chroong Kanjchanapoomi, with host-company executives acting as mentors and assessors. Contributors are agreed with the client in advance.

Full profile

Enquire about Management Game / CEO Simulation

Tell us the audience, the format you have in mind and the questions you want participants to leave able to answer.

Make an enquiry rlevermore71@gmail.com