Archive for May, 2010

Target: 750 alumni gifts
Deadline: June 30, 2010

How much do you love being #1? Once again Thunderbird was ranked No.1 school for international business in the United States by U.S. News & World Report magazine. This is the 15th consecutive year Thunderbird has earned this distinction, and it marks the school’s second No.1 ranking in international business by top business publications in the past four months. This is a point of pride for us, however, there is another ranking that falls short! Consecutively Thunderbird has ranked lower than its peers with regards to Alumni Participation! We are launching Mission Possible this year to change that! We would like to ask you to join us in showing our competitors that our alumni are truly #1.

To date, we are at 12% alumni participation which guarantees that we will be once again ranked below our peers such as Columbia Business School (15%) and Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley (18%). For Thunderbird to reach its goal of 15% alumni giving, 750 alumni still need to contribute. Any gift, no matter how small will help us towards the successful completion of this mission.

Business school alumni giving is also a factor considered by industry publications in regards to rankings. A higher percentage of alumni giving also serves as a key indicator that alumni are vested in the School and dedicated to helping keep Thunderbird the world leader in global management education. The goal of 15% alumni giving is the annual percentage of how many alumni give, regardless of the amount of their gift.

Donors can designate their specific gift to a variety of projects at the School including the Tower renovation project, scholarships, Project Artemis, which educates Afghan women, or Thunderbird Emerging Market Lab, which sends student consultancy groups to emerging markets throughout the world to solve critical problems in countries like Peru and Vietnam. Alumni gifts also play a key role in our ability to adequately fund school operations including alumni services and programs, curriculum development, faculty and research, and technology and facilities.

In an increased effort to inspire and re-engage our alumni, student campaign ambassadors have been reaching out to alumni for gifts. Already the Center has achieved its $200,000 donation goal with four weeks in the semester left. Keith Kerber, Assistant Director of Annual Giving, anticipates they will exceed their original cash goal by 10 to 20 percent. However, we cannot do this without your support.

Join us now and make this a Mission Possible! Please make your gift today at www.thunderbird.edu/mygift.

A number of our alumni have made headlines recently for their work around the world. Here’s a wrap up of a few notable recent stories.

Diego J Veitia ‘66 is Chairman of the Board and Founder of International Assets Holding Corp. (IAAC), which was recognized as a Fortune 500 company this year. IAAC moved up in rank to 140 from 512 in 2009. IAAC traded more than $40 billion worth of physical commodities in 2009 including grains, meets, dairy, energy, textiles and metals. IAAC and its subsidiary businesses which include FCStone Group, have 10,000 commercial customers worldwide in more than 100 countries through 27 offices around the world.

Murad Al-Katib’s legume and cereal business, Alliance Grain Traders Inc., was featured in The Globe and Mail this week. Dubbed “prince of the pulse crops,” Al-Katib, an ‘85 T-bird, aims to construct a global food powerhouse in the Canadian West based on lentils, chickpeas, peas and beans. His company, now the world’s biggest lentil processor and exporter, is expected to gross $700-million in revenue this year from buying, selling and processing pulses.

Kelly Eide, ‘97, and her business TRUE was recently spotlighted on the BBC World News’ Middle East Business Report. TRUE Leadership is a development program for individuals and organizations taught by horses, a horse whisperer and a business coach. It combines biofeedback from horses with new lessons from neuroscience which makes learning fast, permanently transformational and fun. TRUE Leadership will be delivered globally in USA, South Africa, United Arab Emirates and Australia through the close of 2010.

This story has a fabulous Thunderbird connection. Kelly met her horse whispering partner Koelle Simpson, through Dr. Martha Beck, a former T-Bird professor and now best selling author and columnist for O, the Oprah magazine. Kelly is also the Thunderbird UAE Alumni Chapter Leader.

Ron Greene ‘03, General Manager of FreightWatch International was featured on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric discussing prescription drug theft in the United States. FreightWatch International protects cargo from theft by providing security, risk management and surveillance. To watch the segment, click here.

Have you ordered a bento box  in Canada in the last 10 years? If so, chances are it was a product of Ken Valvur’s company, Bento Nouveau. Valvur, a class of ‘88 T-bird, first became interested in Japan, the Japanese language and the country’s cuisine when he came to Thunderbird as a young MBA student.

After several years in the corporate world working in Japan and in Europe, Valvur decided to take the jump into entrepreneurship. “I fell in love with sushi and Japanese-style box lunches,” Valvur says. “I decided then, at some point in time, this would be a great business to sell high-quality Japanese-style box lunches in Canada.” Now the company he founded sells more than 10 million servings of sushi per year in Canada and parts of New York.

Valvur recently came to campus to discuss how he got involved in the business. Check out our interview with him here.

Joel Montgomery, ‘08, has worked in 19 countries, lived in five, and speaks three languages. He has consulted firms around the world on sales, marketing, business development, change management, and operations.

Most recently he completed a one-year fellowship with Acumen Fund, a non-profit that utilizes market-based solutions to tackle some of the most critical social issues in the world. During his time as a fellow, Montgomery worked in Pakistan with one of Acumen Fund’s investees, Micro Drip, an irrigation solutions company that works to increase crops yields and conserve water usage for poor farmers.

He is staring in the upcoming feature documentary The New Recruits, a film about aspiring social entrepreneurs who believe capitalism can end global poverty. It airs nationally on PBS on June 15, 2010, at 10:00 PM (check local listings).

More from the film’s website…

“The New Recruits is a documentary about a battalion of jet-setting business students armed with a radical plan to end global poverty: charge poor people for goods and services. It takes an unflinching look at social entrepreneurship, a movement touted as the new alternative to charity–its ideals, practitioners, and realities. The result is a hilarious, evocative, edge-of-your-seat thrill ride along a road paved with good intentions.”

Joel Montgomery was the 2010 recipient of the Thunderbird Alumni Rising Star award, which is given to an alumnus or alumna who has graduated in the past 10 years and who has been making great progress. You can read more about him here.

Morgan Stanley Private Wealth manager Thomas Benedict ‘09 graduated from Thunderbird during the worst part of a global economic downturn. Yet he managed to find employment as a financial advisor shortly after graduation. In this interview, recorded during the 2010 Thunderbird Global Private Equity Investing Conference on campus,  Benedict shares his job search strategy and discusses the benefits of a Thunderbird MBA.

Entrepreneur Jay Boyle ‘93 reached a turning point in his career in the late 1980s, when he joined a friend on a mountain climb and found himself in a life-threatening situation. “I came off that mountain with a new perspective,” Boyle says. “I told myself, ‘I can get the same rush doing international business, and the worst that can happen to me if I fail is that I’ll go bankrupt.” Since then, Boyle has pursued his dreams with passion. After graduating from Thunderbird, he found work in China and now runs his own financial services consultancy in Shanghai called Eurasia-CFO Transaction Services. One of Boyle’s recent hires is Thunderbird graduate Matthew Winter ‘09. The two men visited campus in April for the 2010 Thunderbird Global Private Equity Investing Conference. In this video, they share advice for new Thunderbird graduates looking for work during an economic downturn.

Mario A. Zaldivar, ‘91, has been named CEO & President of Zaldivar Consulting Enterprise, an accounting and auditing firm based in Mexico City with operations in more than 5 states. Zaldivar has more than 20 years experience in taxes and financial consulting for international companies.

Harold Epps, ’93, has been appointed Chief Strategy Officer for RINO International Corp., provider of environmental protection equipment for the iron and steel industry in China. Epps has extensive experience in international merger and acquisitions, strategic planning, business development, and capital markets. He will be responsible for assisting with the architecture and implementation of RINO’s growth strategy both in the PRC and abroad.

Chris Dixon, ’00, has joined the Spend Management Group of Hathaway Partners, a professional services and project management firm specializing in spend management, contract management and staff augmentation. In the past Dixon has led project teams in the U.S and internationally, delivering superior results for Fortune 500 companies and Mid-Market organizations.

Yilun Jin, ’02, has been named to the board of directors of Weikang Bio-Technology Group Co., a developer, manufacturer and marketer of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), Western prescription pharmaceuticals and other health and nutritional products. Jin is a certified Chartered Financial Analyst and previously worked for Citigroup and American Lorain Corporation, an integrated food manufacturing company.

Alex McKean, ’04, has been promoted Chief Financial Officer of Encore Brands, Inc., a marketing company focused on building brands for the next generation of consumers. Before coming to Encore Brands, McKean was an independent management consultant for such varied clients as First California Bank, American Apparel and International Aluminum.

Do you have any updates to report? Let us know: alumni@thunderbird.edu

Peter Petrik is an ‘00 T-bird alumnus. He attended the Investing in Slovakia Seminar that was held between the Dallas Regional Chamber and the Embassy of the Slovak Republic to the United States earlier this month. Following are a few of his trip notes from the seminar.

Jake Slegers, Executive Director of The American Chamber of Commerce in the Slovak Republic introduced and moderated a panel titled “Why invest in Slovakia?” Mr. Slegers provided a comprehensive overview of the Slovak marketplace based on his experience of 16 years.

The panelists included Thomas Flannery, partner and location leader with Ernst & Young. The experience of his firm indicates that despite the global economic slowdown the opportunities in Slovakia are growing, as their employee ranks have increased by over 30%.

The experience of John Goodish, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of US Steel dates back to 1998 and the purchase of VSŽ, a large steel factory in Kosice. Mr. Goodish described the Slovak business partners “welcoming with suspicion”, and emphasized the educated and hard-working nature of the workforce. While the average worker was not worldly, by integrating the social and corporate culture many innovation projects ensued. Today, a full 1/3 of the international income for US Steel comes from their operations in Slovakia.

Kip Thompson, VP for Global Workplace Environment and Strategic Growth at Dell shared his “fantastic” experience. In 2001, Dell decided to look abroad for additional growth opportunities. The expansion team researched 8 potential countries. Beyond the stringent due diligence, Dell performed hands-on tests with workforce in each country, testing 200-500 prospective employees in assortment of skills that included technology, language, and critical thinking resulted in Dell focusing in on Slovakia.

In 2002 the division started with 300 employees providing technical support for Germany. The positive experience led to a fast expansion that now includes their own corporate building with 1,500 employees providing complete services in 8 difference languages. Mr. Thompson emphasized that the people of Slovakia are the true strategic advantage of any investment in the country, delivering an innovative approach and can-do attitude.

Peter Petrik, ‘00 is a business owner and professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. He is a native of Slovakia. More of his writing can be found at http://peterpetrik.com

Meet Chris Fussner, ‘82, the newest member of Thunderbird’s Million Dollar Hat Club.

The Million Dollar Hat Club is a special society of individuals who have donated $1 million or more to Campaign Thunderbird. Each member receives a custom hand-made Thunderbird cowboy hat as a thank you for their gift.

Fussner is the president of TransTechnology Pte Ltd, a high-technology equipment supplier. He started the company in 1989 after a small company he was working for in Asia let him go. Today, it is Southeast Asia’s leading independent supplier of surface-mount technology.

“Living and working in Asia changed my life, and Thunderbird changed my life,” said Fussner, a New York native who is now based in Singapore. “I wanted to give back in a way that acknowledges these influences.”

Fussner’s planned gift will fund a chair in Asian studies, ensuring that future generations of T-birds will benefit from truly global thought leadership.

Campaign Thunderbird is a drive to raise $65 million by the end of fiscal 2010-11. Fussner’s pledge raises the total gifts and pledges to more than $52 million with 14 months remaining in the campaign.

“Think about giving back to the school that influenced your life and changed other people’s lives,” he said. “Thunderbird will continue to change students’ lives for the better.”

Video: Chris Fussner on how he came to Thunderbird

By Susan Caolo, ‘08 EMBA T-bird

Hi from Greenwich, CT!

Just wanted to share this  photo from a very special “Apple & Bloomberg” event we had at the new Apple Store on Greenwich Avenue in Greenwich, CT. The local Thunderbird School of Global Management Alumni Chapter President, Marc Lotti ‘06 and I used this exclusive event as “2010 Super Tuesday.” It was an informative and eye-opening networking engagement – and of course, a great time for T-Bird camaraderie.

This was the launch of many great business workshops to come. I’m wearing my T-Bird hat when I say working with Apple is all about embracing diversity and a global mindset! I love my job!

Apple’s Ryan Baum graciously welcomed all T-birds and encouraged everyone to take advantage of Apple’s new Business Partner initiative, which is offered as a free service to business customers. Also, Victoria Goodrick of Bloomberg LP invited T-birds to visit their New York office anytime or for a special Thunderbird event! This would be great venue!

Susan Caolo, a ‘08 Thunderbird alumna, is a specialist at Apple, Inc.