Vietnam Project Team

Nikhil Agarwal has been involved with couple of startups in the last decade in emerging economies, which include an Internet services provider firm in 2000, a movie promotions company in 2007 and a physical commodities trading firm in 2009.  He has also been closely associated with family business since 2002, which deals with steel raw materials trading and trade finance.  Due to his previous involvement with SMEs, he understand the challenges that are faced by these organizations and can bring in the perspective that would connect with development of strategies favored by the SMEs.

Nikhil has worked as an internal consultant for Tech Madhindra United Kingdom, the biggest services vendor for British Telecom improving their internal processes to avoid penalties and driving change management throughout the 600 people delivery unit spread over four cities in three countries.  Recently he worked for Honeywell Aerospace on a consulting project through Thunderbird School of Global Management benchmarking Honeywell’s global capacity development in terms of Knowledge Management and also consulting on how to improve their current Knowledge Management processes and strategies.

Nikhil also has studied at EGADE business school in Monterrey, Mexico and Peking University, Beijing China as a part of his education at Thunderbird.

Ben Balden is a second year MBA student at Thunderbird.  Ben has four years of international work experience in Australia.  He began his education at Brigham Young University where he studied International Studies.  Ben speaks Vietnamese fluently, and had studied Arabic for three years as part of his undergraduate degree.  He has participated in a study abroad program in Asia where he became acquainted with Asian regional business practices.  At the US Commercial Service at the American Consulate in Sydney Australia, Ben interned as a Commercial Specialist where he assisted US SMEs export to Australian businesses.

Ben has worked in the telecommunications industry, owned and operated his own business, worked in the public sector for an Australian state government, and has managed in the facilities management industry in the non-profit sector.  Ben’s experience in owning and operating his own business as well as assisting with the family Joinery business has given him practical experience in the small and medium business sector.

At Thunderbird, Ben has specialized in General Management Consulting.  He has participated in many campus activities including the recent Jordanian Business Women Program sponsored through the BDC Jordan and USAID.

Phillip Broyles is a professional with strong experience across the e-commerce and financial service industries. Phillip interned with American Express during the summer of 2009, during which time he led a strategic effort to revise partner-facing operational policies that impact over 120 financial institutions worldwide, in addition to developing benchmarks and score cards implemented to improve the firm’s overall data quality.

He served as an Analyst between 2006-2008 at GSI Commerce, a leading provider of e-commerce solutions for the world’s most prominent retailers, where he honed his relationship management and project management skills as he oversaw the operations and enhancements of multiple online stores.

Between 2004-2006, Broyles acted as the Business Development and Operations Manager for Academy123, a venture-funded start-up that provides online math homework help for students of all ages.  Less than two years into the company’s operations, Academy123 was acquired by Discovery Communications, the leading global real-world and knowledge-based media company.  Phillip earned his BA from the University of Southern California, and will earn his MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in May 2010.

Nithin Vinyak has worked as a senior IT analyst and consultant for IBM and Accenture.  His past professional experience has helped him acquire strong technical knowledge, cross-functional business understanding and excellent communication skills – the essential pre-requisites for a career in consulting.  Being certified in Six Sigma DMAIC and having been trained on Project Management by IBM, he has a deep understanding of the dynamics of operating a business.  Having worked in teams with people from different backgrounds and nationalities, he is well acquainted with multi-cultural settings and has acquired good interpersonal skills.

Additionally, Nithin’s past professional experiences involved analyzing IT related problems and designing IT solutions for clients.  Establishing ‘Service Oriented Architecture’ for efficient project management, he defined and executed project strategy, managed valuable resources and implemented solutions at the organizational level.

Nithin’s recent internship at Cerebrum Systems working with HAL, an aerospace client, helped him gain in-depth cross-functional business understanding to balance efficiency and effectiveness and build new organizational capabilities, including continual innovation.  He considers his life experiences to be his greatest strength and he believes that his diverse work experience, leadership and analytical skills will add value to this consulting assignment.