Archive for September, 2008

Let me indulge in some vanity… but the occasion deserves it: Thunderbird’s Executive MBA in Global Management was just ranked #3 in the world by The Wall Street Journal.

The Thunderbird EMBA is rather unique among its peers because it goes well beyond business administration.  The entire program, from academic content, to delivery format and locations, to participant profiles is designed to help individuals grow as global leaders.  The fact that students and corporations value this program so much is comforting:  the world seems to agree with us about the need of gloally minded business leaders who can make a positive and lasting difference in the world.

Kudos to all faculty and staff and to our EMBA students and graduates for leading the way!!!!

– Ángel

Fortunately, typhoons don’t last forever, and so I was able to fly out of Hong Kong finally and make it to Tianjin to attend the World Economic Forum and the Forum of Young Global Leaders. At the meeting we shared the results of the latest survey of global leadership, which gives me great hope for the future (ygl-global-citizenship).

When asked how important it is to you today as a leader to understand the causes and effects of the critical issues affecting the world at large (e.g. poverty, climate change, infectious diseases, access to water, etc.), to commit your organizational resources to make a positive difference, to incorporate perspectives of multiple stakeholders in making decisions, and to actively engage with other social and political actors to address complex social and environmental issues, the vast majority of respondents answered “important,” “very important” or “critical.”
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Come typhoon, wind or rain, nothing seems to stop Thunderbird alumni. Last Tuesday, Thunderbird Global Council members, Board Fellows and leading alumni met in Hong Kong to advise us on how Thunderbird can improve its presence in Asia.

In a meeting hosted by alum Tom Greer, we discussed our current executive education programs in China and South Korea, our plans to extend our relationship with Beida (Peking University) to offer new opportunities to our students, and the growing opportunities in South East Asia.
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When you Google “Thomas Crampton,” the first website that will show up is www.thomascrampton.com, his personal blog. What is so remarkable about this is that Tom has worked as New York Times and International Herald Tribune correspondent for years. He has written hundreds of stories from all over the world and reported on political events, social and economic issues and even from war zones. And yet, the first thing to pop up on the web about him is none of that work, but his own personal website (he left the NYT less than a year ago).
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Author and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman boldly declared in 2005 that the world is flat. In many ways he was right. Powerful communications networks, integration of products and services and the growing mobility of ideas and human talent have opened the door to anybody and any nation in the world to compete on a flattened playing field. But don’t throw away the globe in your office just yet. The world is still round. Growing interconnectivity has brought cultures closer, but the trend also has distinguished regional and national differences. As markets become more and more interdependent, we are compelled to pay closer attention than ever before to these differences.
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Thunderbird’s mission is to educate global leaders who create sustainable prosperity worldwide.  Since its founding in 1946, lots of things have changed over time at Thunderbird: its name (from American Institute of Foreign Trade to American Graduate School of International Management and other variations), its programs (from a Bachelors to a Masters in International Management, to today’s various degree and non-degree programs in Global Management), its faculty, its leadership, its campus layout…

Yet one thing has remained the same: the School’s dedication to educating globally minded leaders who can productively operate across cultural and national divides, who can appreciate the differences and nuances around the world and turn them into opportunities to create value, who can build bridges across borders and, as a consequence, make our world more prosperous and peaceful.

Thunderbird’s second president, Dr. William Lytle Schurz, articulated the School’s purpose very succinctly when he pronounced that “borders frequented by trade seldom need soldiers”.

For more than 60 years, thousands of students have graduated from Thunderbird and have gone to create and lead organizations in business, government and the social sector around the world: CEOs, entrepreneurs, diplomats, international development experts, bankers, advisers… Many of these individuals came to Thunderbird already thinking globally, having lived and worked in different countries and speaking multiple languages.  But many others did not.  For many, it was Thunderbird that gave them wings to explore the world.  In all cases, Thunderbird helped them launch global careers by combining the global outlook with a set of management tools and frameworks.

This collective experience tells us that  global leaders are not born, but made.  Many of us in fact were born in mono-lingual, mono-cultural households and yet found ways to build a global outlook and end up leading organizations with a global scope.

This blog is dedicated to exploring this idea, that global leaders can be made.  That regardless of one’s background, one can develop the attitudes and skills necessary to create and lead global organizations.

We will discuss many cases and propose ideas, and will be very receptive to comments and feedback from any readers who share our passion to educate global leaders.

A book is currently in the making about this subject, and we intend to incorporate many of the ideas discussed in this blog.  I encourage you to accompany us in this journey.

– Ángel