Archive for April, 2010

Hong Kong has room for talented MBA graduates looking for work in the financial services sector, the region’s highest-ranking official in the United States told Thunderbird students April 12, 2010. “We have an increasingly large number of financial services companies and banks expanding their business in Hong Kong and setting up new offices in Hong Kong,” said Donald Tong, Commissioner of Hong Kong’s Economic and Trade Affairs in the United States. “Hong Kong, which has always been a good place for talented people, will be a magnet for MBA students.” Learn more in this Donald Tong interview (2:46).
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Thunderbird MBA student Luke Larson saw two sides of Ramadi, Iraq, during separate tours as a U.S. Marine Corps infantry officer. During his first tour in 2005, Larson supported a mission to seek out and kill insurgents. Larson lived on a large military base and had little interaction with Iraqi civilians. Overall, his battalion averaged nine contacts daily with the enemy. During his second tour in 2007, the strategy shifted from killing the enemy to protecting the civilians. “We moved out into the city to live intermingled with the populace,” Larson said. “If you focus on the people and secure your relationships with them, they will vet out the enemy.” Larson explores the shift from conventional fighting to counter-insurgency in his new novel, Senator’s Son: An Iraq War Novel. Learn more in this Senator’s Son video,  (3:38).
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Thunderbird Professor Gregory Unruh, Ph.D., first tackled the topic of sustainable business in 1974, when he wrote a report for his fourth-grade teacher on the upstart Environmental Protection Agency. Unruh’s passion for the topic continues in his new book, Earth, Inc.: Using Nature’s Rules to Build Sustainable Profits. Unruh shares five sustainable business rules from Planet Earth in this Earth Day student presentation on April 22, 2010. Click here to watch the video (58:07). For additional research and commentary, visit Unruh’s Huffington Post blog.
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By Oseas Ramirez Assad, Thunderbird MBA Student

A project to improve education in Mexico received the attention of scholars from all over the world March 26-29, 2010, when the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) invited me to present my enterprise at a Fulbright enrichment seminar in Rhode Island. This event allowed me to tie together the three most important aspects of my professional life: being an entrepreneur, a Thunderbird and a Fulbright Scholar.
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Excerpts from a discussion with Thunderbird Professor Gregory C. Unruh on Earth, Inc., which Harvard Business Press released this week to coincide with Earth Day 2010.

Q. The palette of raw materials that humans use in manufacturing keeps expanding, not shrinking. What will it take to reverse this trend?
A. We need to recognize that proliferation of materials — while it allows us to create new applications and technology — goes against one of the fundamental principles that makes the biosphere sustainable.
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By Gregory Unruh, Thunderbird Professor

Natural scientists define sustainability as the capacity of healthy ecosystems to continue functioning indefinitely. Maintaining this capacity has become a clarion call for business. Consider General Electric’s ambitious Ecomagination project, Coca-Cola’s efforts to protect water quality and Wal-Mart’s attempt to reduce packaging waste. These and other laudable efforts are steps on a road described by the aluminum giant Alcan in its 2002 corporate sustainability report: “Sustainability is not a destination. It is a continuing journey of learning and change.” Unfortunately, Alcan had it wrong. | Video: Earth, Inc. (1:57) | Podcast: Rethinking the design (0:58) | Podcast: Doing more with less (0:55)
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What keeps the CEO awake at night? For high-potential managers in the Thunderbird International Consortia, the conversation starts with a single word: China. The managers shared their biggest challenges and concerns April 19 in the opening session of the Consortia, a 10-day executive education program that brings together a diverse mix of companies and professionals in the same classroom. The latest Consortia program includes teams from eight multinational organizations: Delphi, Fluor Corporation, Henkel, Parker Hannifin, SK Group, Standard Bank, State Farm and Vitro. | Video: What Keeps the CEO Awake at Night? (2:49)
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Package delivery giant United Parcel Service has come a long way since David Abney arrived in 1974 as a part-time employee loading and unloading packages. At the time, the company was still struggling to reach all corners of the United States. Today, UPS has grown into a Fortune Global 150 company with 415,000 employees in about 200 countries and territories. Abney also has come a long way and now works as chief operating officer at UPS. He talked April 6 at Thunderbird about lessons learned along the way for creating sustainable prosperity through global trade. | Video: David Abney’s UPS journey (3:34) | Video: David Abney answers the Thunderbird Question (1:02)
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Thunderbird School of Global Management faculty members Amanda Bullough, Ph.D., and Mary Sully de Luque, Ph.D., joined Assistant Vice President and Executive Director of Thunderbird for Good Kellie Kreiser in a panel discussion April 1 at the Wyndham Hotel in downtown Phoenix. Emeritus Thunderbird Professor Llewellyn D. Howell, Ph.D., participated in a roundtable discussion on a separate panel. The three-day conference, Breaking Down the Walls, brought together thought leaders from the academic, government, business and nonprofit sectors to take part in a series of interactive panels and roundtable discussions intended to foster the exchange of ideas and collaboration among the various stakeholders in those groups.
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