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Your next 100 days
Thursday, April 30th, 2009
By Steven Stralser, Thunderbird professor
For the past few weeks the media has been abuzz marking the first 100 days of the Obama presidency. This 100-day benchmark has been a staple of the journalistic lens on America for much of the past century, but it was FDR and the Great Depression that focused so much attention on what happens in 100 days. While entrepreneurial thought leaders, management gurus and especially lenders and investors are always promoting the value of strategic planning and scenario analysis with three-to-five-year horizons, with our economy — and no doubt your company, too — in an economic ditch, it seems naïve and arguably a luxury to be thinking about the long term, when the short term is so challenging. | Video: Steven Stralser answers the Thunderbird Question (0:38) |
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By Richard Ettenson, Thunderbird Professor
Marketers and finance professionals have a “famously fractious relationship” that sometimes resembles a sibling rivalry, Thunderbird Professor Richard Ettenson, Ph.D., told representatives of both sides April 21 at the Advertising Financial Management Conference hosted by the 
The economy hasn’t reached bottom yet, but now is the time to invest, Shamrock Capital Advisors President and CEO Stanley P. Gold said March 26 at the Thunderbird Global Private Equity Investing Conference in Glendale, Ariz. “There has never been a better time in my lifetime to be in private equity or alternatives,” said Gold, who represents the California-based investment arm of the Roy Disney family. Gold said the economy should hit bottom and start to recover in the first quarter of 2010, but opportunities abound today for smart investors. “Today you can take some risk, and the reward is gigantic,” he said. Watch a segment of his presentation at the 
By Ryan M. Akins
Many people label entrepreneurs as risk takers, but 2004 Thunderbird graduate Jim Small takes the opposite view. The president and founder of Parker Finch Management in Arizona tells his friends in the corporate world that they take a bigger risk by working for someone else who controls their destiny. “Don’t think of entrepreneurship as risky,” Small says. “Think of the corporate job as risky, especially if your passion isn’t there.” | 
Austrian business owner Karl Pisec grew up in a home with two global entrepreneurs for parents who reared him to take over the family business. The vision was always long term. Corporate leaders often have the opposite focus, and the results have been disastrous, Pisec said March 31 at the 
Corporate leaders looking for guidance in the prolonged economic crisis should check their rearview mirrors for fast-approaching global entrepreneurs, Thunderbird Professor 
With so many prospective countries available for expansion, one critical issue for the global entrepreneur is foreign market selection. Thunderbird Professor Robert D. Hisrich, Ph.D., shares a five-step approach to the problem in his new book, “
Financial shocks have become an increasingly pervasive feature of the global economic landscape. Perhaps the most devastating aspect of these events is something economists call “contagion.” Contagion occurs when an economic shock in one location reverberates in other countries, markets and sectors that have little apparent exposure to the initiating factors. The current global financial crisis and others, such as the bursting of the technology bubble in 2000, emphasize these linkages. But what starts this process is excessive liquidity.