Archive for the ‘ALUMNI SPEAKERS’ Category

As a leader, BP Group CEO Bob Dudley ‘79 spends most of his time listening. “Many leadership problems can be traced to poor communication,” he said Nov. 10, 2011, during the opening keynote at the inaugural Thunderbird Global Business Dialogue in Glendale, Arizona. “In BP we talk about listening to the quietest voice in the room.” He said BP managers must train themselves to pick up “weak signals” that come from people reluctant to shout when they have something important to say. “We must listen to people on the front lines,” said Dudley, who provided a behind-the-scenes look at BP’s response to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Download the full podcast here from Thunderbird School of Global Management. | Podcast: Leading in Times of Crisis (47:09)

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A classic Jane Austen story will get a modern Latino makeover with the first release from Pantelion Films, a new Hollywood studio launched by Thunderbird alumnus James McNamara and two big-name partners. Pantelion will premiere “From Prada to Nada” at theaters across the United States on Jan. 28, 2011. Additional movies will follow each month, creating momentum for a brand that McNamara envisions as the new face of Hispanic entertainment in the United States. “The objective is to create the first Hollywood studio focused specifically on the U.S. Hispanic audience,” McNamara said during a campus interview with ThunderRadio on Nov. 4, 2010. | Video: Thunder Radio interview (5:59) | Video: “From Prada to Nada” trailer (2:28) | Audio: Thunder Radio interview (5:44)

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Satjiv Chahil moved fast when he came to Hewlett-Packard in 2005 as Senior Vice President for Marketing. In less than 12 months, he helped the company reinvent its entire line of personal computers. “We started defining complete solutions and messages, segment by segment,” says Chahil, a 1976 Thunderbird graduate. He reached out to women with high-fashion personal computers designed by Vivienne Tam. He reached out to younger consumers with new eco-friendly products, including a $700 laptop packaged in nothing but a canvas bag. “Aim for the heart, and you will always get the wallet,” Chahil told Thunderbird students Oct. 7, 2010. Here is an excerpt from his presentation. | Podcast: Satjiv Chahil on making HP’s product line greener and softer (26:00)

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Hewlett-Packard was at a crossroads when Satjiv Chahil arrived in 2005 as Senior Vice President for Marketing. Industry analysts and others inside the company advised HP to exit the personal computer market, which was dominated by Dell. “In 2005 few people knew HP made PCs,” says Chahil, a 1976 Thunderbird graduate. “Everybody knew we made printers, but nobody knew we made PCs.” When Chahil researched the market, he saw an opportunity for HP to move fast and differentiate itself from other personal computer makers. “A personal computer had become just a PC — just a boring box or commodity,” Chahil says. Under his guidance, HP set out to make the PC personal again. He explains how during his presentation Oct. 7, 2010, at Thunderbird. | Podcast: Satjiv Chahil on making the PC personal again (26:58)

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Canadian entrepreneur Ken Valvur never tasted sushi until he arrived at Thunderbird in 1987 and decided to learn Japanese to boost his international career. “On pure commercial grounds, I picked Japanese,” says the Thunderbird graduate. The decision has paid off for Valvur, who eventually returned from an expatriate assignment in Tokyo with the inspiration for Bento Nouveau. The company, which Valvur founded in 1996, sells more than 10 million servings of sushi per year in Canada and parts of New York. Valvur sold control of the enterprise to a private equity group in 2007 and is now exploring other ventures, including a possible saké brewery in Ontario. Audio: Betting on sushi (12:16)

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Corporate leaders who put short-term profits ahead of global citizenship lose in the end, Thunderbird graduate Saad Abdul-Latif said during a campus visit March 16, 2010. The CEO of PepsiCo’s Asia, Middle East and Africa Division said the key to sustainable prosperity is to reach out to local communities and find ways to make the world a better place. In this podcast, he talks about corporate social responsibility and explains why access to education and women’s empowerment are top priorities in his own social agenda. Podcast: Global Citizenship at PepsiCo in Asia, Middle East and Africa (7:54)

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Thunderbird graduate Saad Abdul-Latif says a global mindset has helped propel him to the top of PepsiCo’s Asia, Middle East and Africa Division. He says managers sometimes succeed at home but stumble when their companies send them overseas because they overlook cultural differences and fail to develop a global mindset. Abdul-Latif talks March 16, 2010, about the development of his own global mindset and ways that PepsiCo adjusts in different markets. Podcast: Global Mindset Lessons from PepsiCo (6:32)

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Saad Abdul-Latif calls himself “a guy from the neighborhood.” The 1981 Thunderbird graduate grew up in East Jerusalem surrounded by poverty and violence. His Palestinian family was displaced after the Six-Day War in 1967, and he had little exposure to the outside world. The first time he stepped on a plane was after high school, when he flew to Lebanon to start college. Today, Abdul-Latif travels the world as CEO of PepsiCo’s Asia, Middle East and Africa Division. He talks about his path to the “C Suite” during a Thunderbird visit on March 16, 2010. Podcast: From Palestine to PepsiCo “C Suite” (10:45)

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Government bailout programs designed to soften the landing of a plunging economy will only delay the inevitable, Dallas entrepreneur Scott Walker says Jan. 12 at Thunderbird. “Everything we’re doing now, we’re going to pay for later,” says Walker, the namesake of Thunderbird’s Walker Center for Global Entrepreneurship.
Audio: Scott Walker on the economy (12:26)

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Private equity industry leaders gathered April 3-4, 2008, at Thunderbird for the fourth annual Global Private Equity Investing Conference. Susan Boedy, a 2002 Thunderbird graduate and director of the Thunderbird Global Private Equity Center, discusses conference highlights, which are featured in the November/ December 2008 issue of Thunderbird International Business Review. Audio: Private Equity’s New World (1:39)

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