ALUMNI SUCCESSES

The Ohio State University
The Fisher College of Business Executive MBA Program at The Ohio State University added a new dimension in its efforts to involve alumni.

Based on feedback from alumni, the program identified a need for continuous learning and in 2007 developed the “Keeping Your Competitive Edge” session for alumni to refresh their skills.
 
In May 2007, Fisher faculty offered three half-day seminars for alumni to share new research and cutting-edge practice ideas. Faculty who do not teach in the Executive MBA Program led this first offering, allowing alumni to meet other faculty members. The seminars also encouraged alumni to mingle with current students during meals as a social and networking opportunity. The program scheduled the “Keeping Your Competitive Edge” session the day after the annual golf outing, a popular event that attracts both alumni and students.

GLOBAL NEWS

Washington University
The Executive MBA-Shanghai Program, a partnership of Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis and Fudan University in Shanghai, China, graduated its fifth class last December.

Fifty students travelled from Shanghai to St. Louis to complete their last two weeks of classes, which included several days of joint study with St. Louis-based Executive MBA students. They toured the city and celebrated the culmination of the 18-month program.

Professors of both schools teach classes once each month in English at Fudan University.  More than 30 percent of Executive MBA-Shanghai students come from outside of China, including Europe and North America.  The program admits one new class each May and will begin its seventh class this year. Executive MBA-Shanghai graduates receive an MBA degree from Washington University and an Education Certificate from Fudan University, and are alumni of both universities. 

The Olin EMBA-Shanghai Program is ranked seventh in the world by the Financial Times and has been ranked first in mainland China for two consecutive years.

MILESTONES

EADA
Marjolein Overmars recently joined EADA as the new director of the school’s Executive MBA.

Overmars received her bachelor of business administration from Nyenrode Business Universiteit in Breukelen, the Netherlands, and her MBA from EADA in Barcelona. She previously worked as a supply chain manager with Sealed Air, an American multinational in the packaging sector for the food industry in Barcelona, managing customer service, and logistics and graphic arts in the Iberian Peninsula.

Her career experiences also include directing the financial department of Royal Nedlloyd, now DHL, a Dutch logistics multinational, first in Madrid and then in the Czech Republic, and managing the business development department in Barcelona.

Earlier in her career, she developed various projects in the field of finance, market analysis, and consulting in nine different countries, including Indonesia, the six countries of Central America, the Netherlands, and Spain.

Georgetown University
Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and Walsh School of Foreign Service are partnering with ESADE Business School in Spain to launch a new Global Executive MBA Program. 

Scheduled to start in June 2008, the Georgetown-ESADE GEMBA Program will be delivered in six 11-day modules over 16 months, and will be taught in seven leading commercial cities, including Washington D.C., Bangalore, Moscow, Barcelona, Sao Paolo, Buenos Aires, and New York. 

“This program will give accomplished executives a chance to both crystallize their professional experience and better understand the complexities of global business in a world-class program that is adapted to their schedule,” says George Daly, dean of the McDonough School of Business. “I am excited about this new Global Executive MBA Program, the result of our collaboration with ESADE Business School.”

Georgetown University also welcomed the following staff members:

• Michelle Botha assumed a new role as associate director of the Global Executive MBA Program. Botha previously served as director of MBA Programs at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, as well as working for the Stock Exchange Euronext in both London and Paris.
  
  
• Kirsty Hosea assumed a new role as director of program development. Hosea previously served as director of corporate relations for Temple University’s Executive MBA Program in Philadelphia. She also spent five years in Hong Kong in a regional marketing role for Tourism Australia where her team launched the renewed ‘Brand Australia’ campaign across 10 countries in the Asian region.
  
  
• Katerina Kulagina joined the Executive Education Office with responsibilities for recruiting and admissions, as well as for providing academic services to current International Executive MBA students. Previously, she worked in the Office of Advancement at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill and served as assistant director for development activities at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.
  
  
• Gordon Swartz joined the school as associate dean for executive education. He previously served as a management consultant specializing in go-to-market strategy and organizational change, and as a professor of marketing and deputy dean of the MBA Program at London Business School.
  
  
• Mary Anne Waikart joined the school as assistant dean for executive degree programs. She previously served as associate dean of the MBA Program at London Business School, director of the MBA Program at University of Maryland, director of St. Albans School of Public Service, and vice president at the Morino Institute.

Kellogg-WHU Executive MBA
The Financial Times ranked all four schools of the global Kellogg Executive MBA alliance in the top 20 in the world, with Kellogg-HKUST holding the top spot.

The Financial Times recognized Kellogg for its strong emphasis on teamwork and its superb international collaborations, "This whole idea of collaboration and cooperation is what made us what we are today,” says Dean Dipak Jain.

Kellogg-WHU in Germany rose to the number 12 spot in the Financial Times Global Executive MBA Rankings. The Kellogg-WHU program scored particularly highly in the career progress category, representing the high satisfaction levels among alumni. Kellogg-WHU data also supports that conclusion. On average, salaries increased by 81 percent after program completion, and a large majority of graduates agreed that their aims had been achieved. 

“Our progress in this year’s ranking represents the hard work the Executive MBA team, our alumni, and students have put into the program,” says Bernadette Conraths, director of Executive Education at WHU. “This success reflects the growth in global recognition of the Kellogg-WHU brand.”

Politecnico di Milano
The Executive MBA of MIP, the School of Management of Politecnico di Milano, recently received two accreditations.

• In June 2007, EQUIS, the European Quality Improvement System, accredited MIP, only the second school in Italy that has received this accreditation.
  
  
• ASFOR, the Italian Association for Managerial Education accredited the eLearning part of the Executive MBA, part-time format, as eLearning Executive MBA. This accreditation further reinforces previous accreditation four years ago by ASFOR to the Executive MBA, evening format.

"We are proud of obtaining this recognition,” says MIP Dean and Professor Gianluca Spina. “EQUIS accreditation is the consequence of a process started in 2002-2003 with the Full Time internationalization, the introduction of international executive training programs for multinational and Italian companies that are expanding in the foreign markets, the growing presence of foreign teachers and students into our courses and, at the end, partnerships and exchange agreements with foreign business schools.

"The EQUIS accreditation is a stimulus toward new challenges, because MIP wants to be one of the most important players in the training and research areas not only in Italy, but also at the international level,” he says.

Purdue University
For the first time, the Krannert School of Management Weekend MBA Program at Purdue University is running simultaneous classes. Since the three-year program began in 1994, it previously had enrolled only one set of students at a time.

"This is a prime example of responding to market demand," said Chuck Johnson, director of master's and executive programs at Krannert. "The Weekend MBA Program was so popular, we had waiting lists of applicants who all had to wait until the current class graduated. This gives them more options and allows us to further develop an already successful program."

The weekend program is one of three Executive MBA Programs that Krannert designed to help professionals earn an MBA while maintaining full-time job responsibilities. The program enrolled 62 students in its 2007 entering class, and the entering class of 2008 also enrolled 62 students, who come primarily from the surrounding area. Students attend six semesters of Saturday classes in West Lafayette, except during the summer.

The demographics of the weekend students fall between those of full-time MBA students, with an average age of 28 and four years of experience, and the students in the Executive MBA Program, with an average age of 35 and 12 years of experience. The Krannert School plans to enter another weekend class in 2009.

San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University's Executive MBA Program reported the following updates:

• Director Aaron Anderson and his staff are working with the non-profit arm of Salesforce.com to implement a new customer relationship management (CRM) database that will improve the tracking of various performance metrics.
  
  
• The program expanded its ethics course to a three- rather than two-unit option, which helps weave a sustainable business course into the fixed Executive MBA curriculum.
  
  
• The first graduating class of the Executive MBA Program, founded in 2001, celebrated its fifth-year reunion in February.

Temple University
Temple University noted the following milestones:

• The 11th Annual Musser Awards Dinner took place Nov. 15 at the Great Court of Mitten Hall on the main campus of Temple University and featured leaders from the Greater Philadelphia business community. Sandra Sokol, director of the Fox Executive and Professional MBA Programs, received the Musser Award for Administrative Service.
  
  
• Maureen Cannon has joined Temple University's MBA Division as associate director of the Executive and Professional MBA and MS Programs. She previously served as special assistant to the executive director of Pennsylvania's University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities. Cannon received her undergraduate degree in therapeutic recreation from Temple and her master’s degree in education from Saint Joseph’s University. She taught in the Philadelphia school district before returning to what she describes as her "second home,” Temple University.

Thunderbird School of Global Management
Thunderbird School of Management noted the following milestones.

• The Economist Intelligence Unit named Thunderbird School of Global Management one of the top business schools worldwide for distance learning in its first ranking of distance learning MBA programs. Thunderbird’s Global MBA On-Demand landed the seventh spot overall, fourth for program content and fifth for quality of students. Thunderbird was one of only two U.S. schools to make the list.
  
  Now in its third year at Thunderbird, the 19-month Global MBA blends web-based learning with intensive onsite seminars at the school’s Glendale, Ariz., campus and abroad in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
  
  

• In recognition of the urgent need for action in the face of global climate change, Thunderbird begin the Carbon-Free Degree, an initiative to make the on-campus studies of all incoming classes climate neutral, in fall 2007.
  
  The on-campus Sustainable Innovation Challenge asks students to identify projects that shrink Thunderbird’s climate footprint in ways that pay for themselves and contribute to the school’s educational goals.
  
  The school will implement the winning strategy, “Zero Capital Solar Pub,” submitted by Ben Korsmo, Youngkuk Lim, Hiroshi Tojo, Kathy Yue,, and Chris Larkin. The team’s plan to install solar panels on campus will generate enough solar power and renewable energy to offset the amount of electricity consumption at Thunderbird’s Pub. Thunderbird will realize savings on its utility bill, and costs will be minimal due to a power purchase agreement. Through the agreement, the power provider owns, installs, operates, and maintains the solar panels; in turn, Thunderbird purchases the solar power at a fixed rate. With this proposed plan, Thunderbird will save almost $5,000 the first year on its utility bill, and the initiative will neutralize nearly all of the Pub’s emissions.  The team received $1,000 for their submission.

• Craig and Barbara Barrett will chair Campaign Thunderbird, a $65 million capital campaign, which will raise funds for scholarships, professorships, curricular innovation, and research, simultaneously improving facilities, technology, and operations.

An international business and aviation attorney, a corporate executive and a diplomat, Barbara Barrett is CEO of Triple Creek Guest Ranch in Montana, leads efforts in United States State and Defense Departments, serves on the corporate boards of Raytheon and Exponent, and is a trustee of The Aerospace Corporation, Mayo Clinic, and the Smithsonian Institution, in addition to Thunderbird. Thunderbird recognized her achievements and service to Thunderbird with an Honorary Doctorate in International Law.

Craig Barrett joined Intel Corporation in 1974, an emerging electronics firm. He rose through the engineering ranks to become Intel’s fourth president in 1997, chief executive officer in 1998, and board chair in 2005. He also chairs the United Nations Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development and the National Academy of Engineering.

• Thunderbird School of Global Management will host its Fourth Annual Global Private Equity Investing Conference April 3-4, 2008, at the Thunderbird campus in Glendale, Arizona.
  
  The conference features top industry speakers from around the world, including former Vice President Dan Quayle, now with Cerberus, who has been invited to discuss globalization and Japan’s private equity climate. Other speakers include Robert E. Grady, managing director, The Carlyle Group; Gil Forer, global director of venture capital and IPO initiatives at Ernst & Young; and Dr. Richard Swanson, president and chief technical officer, SunPower Corp.
  
  The event is expected to draw more than 250 institutional investors, general partners, corporate investors, fund of funds managers, industry advisors, investment and commercial bankers, academics, students, and representatives from global emerging growth companies. For more information, contact Omar M. Zaki, conference manager, 602-978-7503 or omz@global.t-bird.edu, or visit www.thunderbird.edu/TPEC-conference.
  
  
• A team of graduate students from Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies took the top prize of $20,000 and earned the title “Global Champions of Sustainable Innovation” Nov. 10 at the Thunderbird School of Global Management sustainable innovation competition.
  
  An MBA team from Thunderbird’s On Demand program won the second prize and $5,000, and a team from Thunderbird’s Global MBA for Latin American Managers, with members from Mexico and Peru, won third prize and $3,000.
  
  Students in the final round of the competition developed innovative and sustainable business concept plans that addressed the real-life challenges of global corporations Johnson & Johnson and Arizona Public Service.

University of Miami
The University of Miami School of Business Administration recently announced the appointment of Jeff Heebner as director of communications. Heebner previously served as managing director for marketing communications at the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business for six years.

University of South Florida
The University of South Florida (USF) noted the following milestones:

• Steven Baumgarten retired from his position as director of MBA Programs in December 2007.  Steven joined USF in 1976 and was the director of the Executive MBA Program since its inception in 1983.   He was director of MBA Programs, including executive, part-time, and full-time, from 1994 to 2007.
  
  
• Irene Hurst, formerly the director of the Small Business Development Center at USF, is the new director of MBA Programs.

University of Tennessee
The University of Tennessee noted the following milestones:

• Modern Healthcare/Modern Physician rated the University of Tennessee’s Physician Executive MBA Program number one for the fourth consecutive year. Rankings were based on five criteria: length of program, tuition cost, days on campus, number of years since program inception, and number of graduates.
  
  Since the program began in 1998, about 250 physicians have graduated, equipped with skills ranging from business plan creation to organizational change. They represent 38 states and an arc of international addresses, from countries as culturally diverse as Saudi Arabia and Korea. The curriculum includes planning, entrepreneurship, ethics, finance, information design, and leadership, and students are able to apply lean management principles immediately to their own workplace initiatives.
  
  “The University of Tennessee has pioneered a unique way to deliver a top-notch business education for globally based physician executives by using a combination of on-campus residences with Internet-based distance learning,” says Mike Stahl, program director. “The program is organized so that doctors can stay fully engaged in their careers while earning their degrees. Our consistency in the rankings confirms that we have designed a program that has responded to our students’ needs.”
  
  
• Andy White joins the college as director of the Aerospace MBA Program, a 12-month Executive MBA Program for professionals in the aerospace and defense industries. Before retiring as a lieutenant colonel, White served as a faculty member at Air University, public affairs director for Air Force Special Operations Command, and a squadron commander. He also deployed seven times, including deployments as lead public affairs planner for the air component at the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
  
  “I am thrilled to be continuing my relationship with America’s military and aerospace community,” says White, 1986 graduate of the University of Tennessee who also received a master’s degree in public administration from Central Michigan University and a Ph.D. in education leadership from the University of Southern California. “I get to work at a great university and support a team of senior faculty members with incredible expertise and a passion for aerospace issues.”   
  
  WOMEN 3.0 Magazine, a business, investing, and wealth-building resource for women, has ranked the University of Tennessee Executive MBA Program in the Top 50 in the U.S. The ranking was based on academic excellence, commitment to new businesses and ideas, and flexibility for working women. WOMEN 3.0 joins other sources, such as Business Week, U.S. News & World Report, Financial Times, Supply Chain Management Review, Public Accounting Report, Forbes, Princeton Review, and the Wall Street Journal, in ranking University of Tennessee Executive Programs among the nation's best.

Virginia Commonwealth University
Phase I of the largest construction project in Virginia Commonwealth University's (VCU) history reached a milestone in January when students attended classes for the first time in a 240,000-square-foot complex that houses Snead Hall, VCU's new School of Business, and East Hall, the second building for VCU's School of Engineering.

"This is the new VCU, with world-class facilities that compete with any in the country," said VCU President Eugene P. Trani. "The new campus is transformational for the Schools of Business and Engineering, for students, faculty, and staff and their self-perception.”

The four-story Snead and East Halls are joined and share some social and academic space. Business leaders suggested the physical connection to encourage students from the two disciplines to come together in their studies as they would in the workplace.

"Having our students working in teams from the business, engineering, and arts schools gives them a much broader experience and one that is going to make them much more valuable to any employers," says Michael Sesnowitz, dean of the VCU School of Business.

Snead Hall, the new home to the School of Business, is a 125,000-square-foot contemporary facility that along with traditional classrooms and faculty offices includes a fully functioning capital markets and trading room, collaborative learning rooms, central atrium with a student commons and café, career services center, center for corporate education, auditorium, tiered case study classrooms, and team-building breakout rooms.

PROGRAM INNOVATIONS

University of Amsterdam and Vlerick Leuven Gent
The University of Amsterdam and Vlerick Leuven Gent recently launched a new Independent Executive MBA, an 18-month program for participants who want a high international student ratio.

The first cohort of 20 students started their studies in January 2008 and will graduate in July 2009.  The students represent nine nationalities with an average age of 36 and 13 years of work experience.

Classes alternate between Leuven, Belgium and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Key teaching strengths of the institutions include development of soft skills, the traditional financial disciplines, exposure to the Flemish and Dutch entrepreneurial attitude, and access to the student and alumni networks of both institutions worldwide. The program also includes a weeklong international entrepreneurship study trip.

For information, contact Yolanda Habets at Vlerick (+32 16 24 88 86), Mervin Bakker at University of Amsterdam (+31 20 525 4764) or visit www.Vlerick.be/en/6272 or www.abs.uva.nl.

University of Denver
Daniels College of Business Executive MBA students are focusing on sustainability as a significant part of their Executive MBA experience.

The Action Leadership Project (ALP) integrates community service, cultural awareness, environmental responsibility, and economic prosperity. In 14 months, teams of four to five students envision, create, lead, and bring to fruition a project that contributes significant return on investment of $50,000 or $10,000 per person for an organization or a community of their choice. Teams are composed of students who represent different communication and personality styles, which becomes a valuable exercise in “team sustainability” as they work through various challenges to complete the project.  

Recent team proposals include:

• Students Living Green, a grassroots campus initiative to achieve a measurable decrease in University waste
  
  
• Multi-bank partnership to provide financial education and services in low-income neighborhoods
  
  
• Kid’s Through Culture, a partnership with Denver Public Schools to create an interactive program that increases a child’s world view and cross-cultural sensitivity
  
  
• Increased revenue generation for MiCasa, a local non-profit organization that promotes self-sufficiency among low-income Latinas and youth

Students select a board of directors comprised of business leaders, Executive MBA alumni, or faculty who oversee the team’s progress against project goals. Students also receive group and individual coaching throughout the 14 months by Daniels Executive MBA leadership faculty.  

University of Missouri-Kansas City
At the University of Missouri-Kansas City's Henry W. Bloch School of Business and Public Administration, faculty and staff of the Bloch Executive MBA Program continue to support women as emerging leaders.

The 21-month program, which consistently surpasses national averages for female Executive MBA enrollment, has developed a partnership with the Central Exchange, a 1,000-member organization that provides professional and personal development opportunities for women. The Bloch Executive MBA Program is sponsoring a workshop series for Central Exchange members entitled The Empowered Leader: Strategies for the 21st Century Professional.

Facilitated by Bloch School faculty, the four-part series provides state-of-the-art information and strategies for women on how to overcome barriers in the workplace and excel in leadership positions.  The series has been a huge success with sold-out events and requests for additional offerings.  For more information, contact Beverly Stewart at stewartbj@umkc.edu.

Copenhagen Business School
Copenhagen Business School (CBS) became the first university in Denmark to receive accreditation from the Association of MBAs (AMBA).
 
An independent international organization based in the United Kingdom, the Association of MBAs established global standards for the MBA education with a rigorous accreditation process that includes a self-audit and accreditation assessment team visit. The report recognizes the quality of the school’s faculty and research, as well as the internationalization process of CBS, and the quality of students and alumni.
 
“The accreditation by the Association of MBAs acknowledges that the MBA programs at CBS meet the highest standards on a worldwide scale,” says Professor Christer Karlsson, dean of CBS Executive. “There are many MBA programs offered in the world. The accreditation stamp of approval definitely enhances the international standing of the MBA degree at CBS and our attractiveness to top students and faculty from the globe.”