Archive for October, 2009

Check out how some of the participants in the Thunderbird-Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women entrepreneuship program in Afghanistan are making a difference.  A constant source of inspiration for all of us.

Thunderbird Global Council member, executive education alum and former Executive-in-residence, Suresh Kumar was just nominated by President Obama as new Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Director General of the United States and Foreign Commercial Service, Department of Commerce (a position requiring Senate confirmation).

Anousheh Ansari always dreamed of going into space.  A pretty big dream for a little girl from a country without a space program of its own.   Three years ago, she beat the odds and became the first Iranian-born, and first female Muslim, to leave the Earth.

On her way back, having accomplished her lifelong dream, she struggled to find another purpose in life.  Then she decided that her unlikely story as a successful entrepreneur, space explorer and philanthropist could perhaps serve as an inspiration to other earthlings.  That would be her next big dream.

To tell by the reactions of all Thunderbird students (including the 20 Jordanian business women undergoing entrepreneurship training) who got to meet her yesterday, we can call that second dream also accomplished.

Anousheh shared with us some of the many lessons she’s learned.  The idea that all unlikely journeys begin with a big dream.  How one has to work hard and be prepared to seize opportunities when they come.   How the Earth, when seen from space has no borders, no races, no nations.  How we all share a small, fragile vessel in the universe which we must nurture and protect.

From Nicholas Stern book “The Global Deal“:

The two greatest problems of our time–overcoming poverty in the developing world and combating climate change–are inextricably linked.  Failure to tackle one will undermine efforts to deal with the other: ignoring climate change would result in an increasingly hostile environment for development and poverty reduction, but to try to deal with climate change by shackling growth and development would damage, probably fatally, the cooperation between developed and developing countries that is vital to success. Developing countries cannot ‘put development on hold’ while they reduce emissions and change technologies.  Rich and poor countries have to work together to achieve low-carbon growth; but we can create this growth and it can be strong and sustained.  And high-carbon growth will eventually destroy itself.  We confuse the issues if we try to create an artificial ‘horse race’ between development and climate responsibility.

It was great to host at Thunderbird today the community of Fulbright scholars in Arizona.  Individuals from Pakistan to Paraguay, from Ukraine to Uzbekistan, studying anything from neuroscience to medicine to engineering, linguistics or business at any of the three state universities and Thunderbird.  It reminded me of my own Fulbright experience almost 18 years ago (ouch!), arriving to Georgia Tech as a brand new graduate student in psychology.  Life would never be the same after that!

I was also reminded of Senator Fulbright’s quote:

In the long course of history, having people who understand your thought is much greater security than another submarine.

And its parallelism with the founding values of Thunderbird as articulated by our second president, William Schurtz:

Borders frequented by trade seldom need soldiers.

Amen.

Twenty women entrepreneurs from Jordan began their SEEDS program at Thunderbird yesterday.  The program (which stands for “Supporting Entrepreneurs and Enterprise Development Seminar”) is conducted in partnership with Jordan’s BDC and with funding from the US Government (USAID).  Since 2004, Thunderbird has made women entrepreneurship development a priority, as we believe that empowering women to create and grow businesses is one of the most effective ways to drive economic and human development.

Our programs have already reached hundreds of women in Afghanistan (thanks to funding from USAID, the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women initiative and a host of private donors) and will very soon reach several hundred more in Peru, through an ambitious  project funded by Goldman Sachs, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Australian Government.

The movement to establish a management code of conduct just reached Canada. University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management announced today that this year’s MBA graduating class has created an oath of professional conduct that they hope to take during their graduation proceedings this coming Sunday.  The new text makes explicit references to managerial professionalism, environmental sustainability and corruption “whether or not prohibited by local or international law”.

Congratulations Telfer class of 2009!

BusinessWeek  runs this week an op-ed piece I wrote (Why Management Needs a Code of Conduct) summarizing the recent efforts to establish a code of conduct for business managers.

Meanwhile the Forum of Young Global Leaders has created a website to register individual endorsements (see GlobalBusinessOath.org).  This adds to the MBA Oath initiative, created by MBA students and specifically targeting MBA graduates.

The Washington Post “On Leadership Panel” asked whether it might make sense to establish a Nobel Prize for leadership. I thought that could be a powerful (though controversial) idea: to reward CEOs of large impact corporations meeting the following criteria:

- Strong ethical values in word and deed

- A commitment to long-term value creation

-  Outstanding creativity, innovative spirit and execution capability

-  Global impact

- An active engagement in tackling some of the most pressing global challenges of our time

My full answer (and sample of candidates) is available online here.

In addition to our partner Tec de Monterrey (which I covered in an earlier posting), I visited last week Universidad de Monterrey: a beautiful, thriving university which is the Mexican version of the American liberal art college concept. It’s new president, Tony Dieck, is not only a good friend and a fellow graduate of Georgia Tech (Go Jackets!), but one of the founders of the joint Thunderbird-Tec de Monterrey Global MBA.  (By the way, Monterrey is one of the most dynamic business hubs, not only in Mexico, but according to some media rankings, in Latin America at large.  Monterrey is the home of some of Mexico’s largest companies and the Latin American hub of important multinationals.  It has a very strong family business tradition and great higher education institutions).

The University’s center for family business (UDEM – Centro de Empresas Familiares) organizes a series of programs and conferences serving the many family businesses in the area.  Thunderbird Professor Ernesto Poza, who heads Thunderbird’s Global Enterprise initiative helped me put together the presentation I delivered (and which is covered in Spanish by the local newspaper Milenio). 

Ernesto’s work with family businesses around the world has shown that family businesses can have significant advantages over management controlled ones, especially at times of uncertainty and crisis, when families can provide the type of “patient capital” that financial markets can’t.  Family patient capital will continue to invest if necessary during difficult times, owners will exercise true oversight, and management will be most likely to act with a long-term horizon.  Somehow the Wall Street meltdown would have seemed far less likely if the key players had operated under a family-controlled governance system… or at least under a similar value system.