Archive for the ‘Thunderbird’ Category

Forbes sums up our panel on higher education at Techonomy yesterday in Tucson.  In a word, the gap between well established, traditional universities and up-and-coming for profit players does not seem to be narrowing.  Most of my colleagues on the traditional side, especially those with healthy endowments and selectivity ratios, believe things are fine, thank you, and are focusing and how to further improve their offerings for the small number of students they serve.  Meanwhile for profits continue to explore ways to drive scale without sacrificing quality.  If (or when) for profits figure out a way to strengthen their brands, traditional universities which do not act, are up for an interesting shake up.

AACSB’s magazine BizEd asked ten long-serving heads of business schools to reflect on the evolution of business education since it was founded ten years ago.  In my piece I argue that the last decade has seen some of the worst damages bad management can cause.  But I’m also hopeful that business schools are showing signs that they are taking responsibility and action, including the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), and The Oath Project.

How much things can change in a decade! In October 2001, we learned that executives of the energy darling Enron had hidden billions in debt through accounting engineering and dishonest financial reporting. The scandal wiped out thousands of jobs and tens of billions of dollars in shareholder value, including the retirement assets of thousands of employees. It handed a death sentence to legendary accounting firm Arthur Andersen and led to the largest bankruptcy case in U.S. history.

Continue reading at BizEdmagazine.com.

On Thursday night, Campaign Chairs Barbara & Craig Barrett announced the successful completion of the Thunderbird Campaign: an effort to raise $65M in gifts and pledges by 2011 (our 65th anniversary) to support Thunderbird’s mission.   In a little over five years, thousands of alumni and friends around the world came together around a shared desire to invest in Thunderbird, to help this pioneering institution created in the heart of Arizona 65 years ago, to continue to educate global leaders who can bring about peace and prosperity around the world.

Like the rest of trustees attending the small, private celebration, I was humbled and moved.  This campaign means much more than $65M for all of us: it means 65 million expressions of commitment to our mission, of recognition of the daily work of our faculty and staff, of encouragement to keep finding new ways to change more lives around the world through education and thought leadership.

I can’t possibly document all that was said over the last three days, the tears, the gratitude, the generosity.  But I will leave you with one story, provided by one of our thousands of donors, an octogenarian, World War II veteran who, without any expectation of personal recognition, signed the biggest check we received.  We asked him why he chose to support Thunderbird.  This is his answer:

When I was a freshman in college, a young man enjoying life, I was asked to join the army to help my country and the world.  And so I did.  I was trained as a pilot in a place just like the Thunderbird field where we’re sitting today.  I flew, I fought and I was proud to make a difference.  As an old man, I want to keep helping my country and the world.  And what better way to do that than by helping Thunderbird train thousands of leaders from around the world who will help build a more secure, more peaceful and more prosperous world?  As an old man, I cannot fly anymore.  So I decided to let Thunderbird fly for me, to let Thunderbird fly forever.

I was once again inspired by Shai Reshef during our panel discussion at The Economist “Ideas Economy” conference in New York, where he presented  of The University of the People concept and the progress they are making. Incredibly innovative approach to lower costs, increase reach and achieve inclusion.

My arguments had to do with the potential of technology to transform the education process, not only in terms of reach but quality, and most importantly, the need for a profound transformation of the traditional campus.  Perhaps the least valuable thing we can do in a lecture hall is to lecture.  There are many better (cheaper, more effective, more convenient) ways to convey knowledge.  And time on campus ought to be dedicated to activities that can best take place in person: applying knowledge, collaborating, discussing, building relationships.  Are we ready to meet these challenges?

I really enjoyed our panel at last week Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting on the design of technologies for economic empowerment, moderated by Chelsea Clinton.

- Oscar winning actress Geena Davis presented data on how media contributes to perpetuating gender stereotypes in the U.S. and around the world.  Her Geena Davis Institute has found, for example, that male roles in Hollywood movies outnumber female roles by 3:1.

- Neil Bellefeuille, of The Paradigm Project, explained their approach to use market-based approaches to introduce clean stove technology in very low-income communities were traditional cooking techniques are responsible for thousands of smoke-related deaths and heath problems, millions of wasted hours in wood recollection and transportation, and vast deforestation.

- Toshi Nakamura, founder of The Kopernik, described their innovation/aid/market place approach to designing and distributing new technology solutions to meet energy, lighting, or water challenges in underdeveloped environments.  He also praised Thunderbird TEM Lab students for their recent consulting work in Indonesia for his organization!

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Bloomberg Businessweek runs a story this week about Thunderbird’s new mobile app.  The app is not an isolated initiative, but part of our efforts to deliver on one of the four pillars of Vision 2020: to build a professional community of learning and practice.

Thunderbird’s model of effective global leadership includes the notion of Global Social Capital as a core competence.  Successful global leaders, we have found through research and decades of experience, are not so just because of what they know, but of who they know.  They have built relationships across the world that help them deepen their understanding of multiple cultural, institutional and economic environments and open the right doors when needed.

But operating on a global scale makes the development of effective relationships much more difficult, sometimes because of plain  difficulties in crossing paths with the right people but also because differences in cultural backgrounds often become an obstacle to building trust.

Our various master and executive education programs, help participants build this crucial component of their global leadership capabilities by carefully constructing co-horts, learning environments and experiences that induce to the creation and nurturing of global relationships.  But building social capital is a life-long endeavor.  While a Thunderbird program can help many people get started, it takes time and effort to develop a rich global set of relationships that can serve as learning ground and open new opportunities.

Thus our effort to work with our award winning global alumni network to strengthen the opportunities for professional interaction.  And our efforts to leverage the full power of mobile and social networking capabilities to support that work.

US & Foreign Commercial Service Chief and Thunderbird friend Suresh Kumar tells graduating class: “Those who seek a global career do so at a time of incredible opportunity and change”.  Don’t obsess over your career and overplan, just pursue your passion and great things will ensue. “If I were to satisfy my parents I would have been a doctor; if I followed my grades I would have been a finance major; and if I stuck to the advice of teachers , bosses and search consultants I would not have strayed off the beaten track.  [...] Going with the flow has helped me perform better as an executive, leader, and public servant. Without a doubt, it has made me the person I am.

Some pieces of advice:

Live a Life of Purpose and Passion, and Embrace Change

Know what you seek, have a plan of action, but be willing to adapt and improvise

Trust your instinct, and go with the flow

There is a world of opportunity out there to win the future.

Plan a future but be willing to adapt and improvise.

Thank you Suresh for a memorable commencement address and for being such committed ambassador of the Thunderbird mission!

Full text follows:

Commencement Address
By The Honorable Suresh Kumar
Assistant Secretary of Commerce & Director General US & Foreign Commercial Service Thunderbird, Graduate School of Global Management Glendale, AZ April 29,2011

The Thunderbird class of 2011; proud parents; President Cabrera; members of the Board of Trustees, administration and faculty; distinguished guests and friends. I am deeply honored to be here with you today.  Thank you for allowing me to participate in your very special day.

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Thunderbird Vision 2020, Global Leadership-Global Impact, asks that we focus outward, not inward and that we find new and better ways to change lives, to empower individuals to bring about opportunities around the world by building good businesses.  Here’s one example.

By Wynona Heim, Program Manager, Thunderbird for Good

The Vital Voices award ceremony was a wonderful event, and Fatema Akbari and her daughter Shahla did a beautiful job at the acceptance speech, and as Ambassadors for the 10,000 Women program, Project Artemis, and their native Afghanistan.  Fatema stole the show when she got up to the microphone at the end of the speech that her daughter had translated for her and said in English: “I want to make a special thank you to Vital Voices, the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women program, and Thunderbird for all of their support of Afghan women.  Next time I come to the United States, I will speak only English.”  She was the ONLY awardee to get a standing ovation at the END of her speech.

Her Vital Voices video, which includes the interview with you, is on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt6I_KNXUZ0

By J. Oseas Ramírez Assad ‘11

Estimado Angel,
…
I wanted to share with you that this Sunday I just got back from Cambodia where I was participating in a TEM lab for the last five weeks. We worked on a project for DDD (Digital Divide Data), a social enterprise that hires disadvantaged Cambodian youth (from very poor families, landmine victims, etc.) and trains them on basic IT skills to provide digitization services. At the same time, DDD gives them a scholarship to study a university degree so that they can get a better job when they graduate, thus breaking the cycle of poverty they were in. Our project consisted in helping DDD determine whether and how they could offer their digitization services locally in the healthcare and financial services sectors. In the end, we were able to present the client with valuable insight about their organization as well as concrete, actionable items as they required. This will help them strengthen their business model in order to continue furthering their social mission

The reason why I wanted to share this with you is that since I started my studies in Thunderbird a year and a half ago, this is the first time in which I have experimented what it means to enact our mission of creating sustainable prosperity worldwide. The mission is what made me choose Thunderbird above other programs and it was fundamental for me to live it before graduating. This took place greatly in part thanks to the support you provided to me through Mr. Scott to address the IIE to allow a Fulbright to participate in such a program, so I wanted to thank you for your support.

Estimado Angel, gracias: esta experiencia ha tenido un gran impacto en mi vida.

Nos vemos pronto – ¡saludos!

It seems impossible to disassociate Arizona from immigration debates after the most (in)famous law in the State’s history–SB1070–was passed last year.  The AACSB’s Deans Conference in Phoenix this week couldn’t be an exception, and I was given the honor of moderating the panel on immigration and business schools featuring also Kenneth R. Keeley of the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University and Dean Michael Luger of the Manchester Business School at the University of Manchester.

Here’s a summary of my thoughts:

• Immigration can be and has been a driver of innovation and economic growth in the US economy.
• According to data from the Kauffman Foundation (see my posting Connectivity means Competitiveness) immigrant-founded companies generated $52B in revenues and 450K jobs in 2005. Over half of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs were born outside the US. And more than a quarter of all engineering and technology companies created in the US between 1995 and 2005 had one foreign-born founder.
• According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, non-citizen inventors generated 24.2% of all patent applications in 2006 (up from 7.3% in 1998).
• More than half of the immigrants that go on to create businesses in the US originally came to the US to study.
• The #1 discipline of study among foreign students coming to the US is business (21.1% in 2009/10).  Business plus STEM fields account for 67.2% of all foreign students in the US.
• Mainland China, India and South Korea are the main sources of foreign students, each accounting for more than twice as many students as any other country.  Canada, Taiwan, Japan, and Saudi Arabia come next. China and Saudi Arabia have shown the highest growth last year (30% and 25% each).
• Immigration debates tend to center around how to best keep immigrants out, but the future of the American economy requires policies that proactively attract the right types of immigrants, and universities (and business schools) are the best vehicle to do that.
• H1B Visas granted by the US went down dramatically after 9/11, from 163,000 in 2001 to less than 80,000 in 2002, 03 and 04, and not back to 85,000. Not surprisingly, the percentage of foreign students at Thunderbird peaked in 2001 (67%) and declined to around 44% in 2008. Total number of foreign students declined in the US between 2002 and 2006 (and is recovering now).

I asked my colleague Kip Harrell to share his thoughts on this matter and here are some highlights:

• Rankings tend to penalize schools with high national diversity because employment difficulties of foreign students hurt “employed at graduation” and “3 months after graduation” metrics.
• International student employment is not only more difficult in the US market, but also in finding employment at home
• Helping international students develop networks, both in US and their home country is critical for employment success
• International diversity is critical in educating true global leaders, but the complexities of attracting the right students and helping them find employment should not be underestimated