Fall 2011 Communique

DANIELS COLLEGE OF BUSINESS | UNIVERSITY OF DENVER

NEWS ABOUT THE NETWORK: IMBA PIONEERS AROUND THE WORLD

IMBA Inside |

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Announcements................................. pg 2 The Faces of the IMBA Program........... pg 3 Celebrating 10 Years......................... pg 4 Behind The Scenes............................. pg 6 Alumni Notes.................................... pg 7 Engage............................................. pg 8

Why the International MBA?

Announcements

In the 21st century, almost all business involves crossing borders and cultures, and the Daniels International MBA (IMBA) provides a powerful preparation for careers in this highly complex and integrated business environment. Accredited as one of the Daniels MBA degrees, the IMBA offers a solid business foundation, sharing many of the Compass and core courses required in the Daniels MBA. With a rich set of international business courses, as well as offerings from the highly ranked Korbel School of International Studies, the IMBA provides practical international management skills and broad global perspectives. Required international travel courses to locations such as Tanzania, Brazil or China, an internationally-focused student body and faculty, and a second language proficiency requirement combine to differentiate the IMBA as a special preparation for leadership positions in 21st-century organizations.

Kiersti Bird, Younes Brahim, Matthew Cole, Ashley DiGiacomo, Ian Doubleday, Andrew Douglas, Austin Flynn, Craig Forster, Benjamin Fouty, David Groth, Jacob Hancock, Matthew Hayden, Steven Holland, Christine Hotard Rosenfeld, MacNeil Jaehnert, David Kenrick, Gwendolyn Kernan, Denjamin Klieve, Helene Kwong, Ruohan Mao, Sean McCarthy, Katie McKenna, Bradley McNew, Alexander Podany, Shelley Popke, Stephen Schlieman, Carrie Shrader, Nori Siemers, Jared Stone, Rixin Zhang

Thirty-five years ago, the Daniels College of Business began offering master’s level training in international business. Today, almost 900 Daniels International MBA and Masters in International Management alumni can be found throughout the world— in global and domestic business positions—always benefiting from the global perspective, business skills and cross-cultural acumen gained in this popular program.

IMBA Board of Advisors Ms. Myrna Ann Adkins, Dr. Douglas Allen, Mr. Paul Bergman, Mr. Roy Becker, Mr. Ian Bird, Mrs. Leslie Carter, Mr. Dennis Chrisbaum, Dr. David M. Hopkins, Mr. Trip Mackintosh, Dr. Ved Nanda, Mr. Tom Ritter, Ms. Sally Covington, Dr. Lloyd Lewan, Mr. Tim McCune and Mr. Jim Reis.

Special Thanks Image credits: Dave Hopkins Contributing Writers: Katie Strickland

The fall 2011 incoming International MBA (IMBA) class is an academically gifted group representing a variety of backgrounds. Join us in welcoming these outstanding individuals as they launch their internationally-focused academic education at the Daniels College of Business:

In addition, we extend our congratulations to the following IMBA alumni who completed their degrees in August 2011 and November 2011.

Xenia Belousova Sara Capra Matthew Davis

Catarina Farrow Ryan Howsam Sarah Lemorande

Upcoming GO-IMBA Destinations: Spring 2012 – China Fall 2012 – Tanzania

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IMBA Communiqué Is Now Online Visit: daniels.du.edu/IMBAnews

Letter to Alumni

Dear Friends, This Communiqué celebrates 10 years since the re-launch of the Master’s in International Management (MIM) as the International MBA. It also celebrates the tenth anniversary of the implementation of our overseas travel experience originally known as the CIAO (Cultural Investigation and Observation) travel course. We hope you will enjoy the opportunity to reflect on the rather remarkable range of destinations and experiences to which the IMBA overseas experience courses have taken our International MBA students.

As you will see, our overseas course continues to evolve, with a new name emphasizing an even stronger emphasis on experiential learning where teams of students now execute field-based projects on behalf of actual clients.

The world has changed tremendously over the past decade. Globalization—a buzzword 10 years ago—is now a reality affecting our daily lives. In these challenging times, we are all trying to make sense of current events as interdependent phenomena. We feel confident that the perspective, theory and skills offered by the Daniels International MBA has built your capacity to navigate successfully this globalized terrain as you lead businesses and other organizations to higher levels of achievement.

With warmest greetings from Denver,

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Jennifer Stanford Yeling Wang

Upcoming GO-MBA Destinations: Fall 2011 – Israel Winter 2012 – Philippines Spring 2012 – Norway

The opinions expressed in the International Business Communiqué are those of the writers and do not necessarily represent official positions of the Daniels College of Business or the University of Denver.

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Anjali Nanda Eric Patterson Andrew Ray

Doug Allen Director, International MBA Program

The Faces of the IMBA Program

Meet Our Current IMBAs Our IMBA students are diverse with different areas of interests and professional aspirations. While these elements vary, one thing that remains constant is the mutual understanding on the importance of learning how to do business internationally. Read about our current students who make the Daniels Pioneer community unique.

CHRISTY HOTARD ROSENFELD Since the start of my work experience in Washington, D.C. over nine years ago I have worked in the nonprofit field. Ultimately, I wanted to live and work abroad, so I decided to join the U.S. Peace Corps. I served two years in the Republic of South Africa and worked with a local nongovernmental organization (NGO) that focused on caring for orphans and vulnerable children. I loved the country and decided to stay for another two years, eventually moving north to Zimbabwe. Now I am a first-year IMBA candidate at Daniels and a member of various clubs, including the International Business Association, Net Impact, Graduate Student Ambassadors and Daniels Graduate Women in Business.

MAC JAEHNERT My professional background is in outdoor education/leadership development as a facilitator and counselor, as well as tech support.

I currently work on campus for DU as an event technology assistant, and for Vail Resorts as a member of their SnowSquad. I chose Daniels to further my career because of its sterling reputation for ethics and focus on sustainable business practices, and the IMBA program specifically to give me a global perspective in my business curriculum. I feel like the IMBA from Daniels will help me shine a light inward to clarify my career goals and develop my business skills, as well as outward to find culturally rich, rewarding and productive work in the global community.

HELENE KWONG I am a first-year IMBA student with a background in administrative and food service duties. During my undergraduate career, I studied abroad in Tokyo, Japan. Previously, I lived and worked with international students as an administrative assistant at the English Language Institute (ELI) in San Francisco.

The English Language Institute’s student body included many Japanese, Thai, Spanish and Brazilian students. With the experience from ELI and Daniels, I plan to create a company involving Asian language instruction. Currently, I participate in the International Business Association and Latin American Studies Association at DU.

SEBASTIAN ROESINGER I am a second-year IMBA student. I previously lived in Beijing, PRC, and worked for an international American high school and am a Semester at Sea alumnus. Those experiences were eye-opening and challenging, exciting and draining. I wanted to come back home and pursue a master’s degree in business. The IMBA program at Daniels is perfect as it incorporates many different areas of business (from finance to business law to IT strategy) and keeps a global focus—an invaluable tool today. I am a member of IBA and LASA, two international interest, student-run groups. I hope that when I am finished with my IMBA, I am able to explore the world even more and make a difference in my own, unique way.

DEBI SHUPE I am fortunate to have worked in over 10 countries, where I held several leadership positions in consulting and training within the IT, financial services and telecommunications industries. This international experience developed my passion for studying effective change management strategies across cultures. I decided to pursue my IMBA with Daniels given its global focus and the program’s flexibility. I am the proud mother of two boys and I look forward to providing them with a strong global outlook and the opportunity to travel internationally. I am fortunate that Daniels has provided me with useful skills, great connections and the challenge to pursue a dream career.

BO STOROZUK I chose Daniels for a combination of the IMBA program and its strong focus on sustainability and ethics. My most amazing experiences at Daniels have come from international travel to the Republic of Georgia and Istanbul, Turkey.

I’m about to embark on a five-week adventure through South America. My favorite thing about travelling is experiencing new cultures and the refreshing perspective it brings to my life. I am also very involved in the Denver and Daniels communities, interning at CH2M HILL in Global Talent Acquisition Operations, as well as goalie coaching for the DU Jr. Pioneer youth hockey program. At Daniels, I am executive vice-president of the Graduate Business Student Association (GBSA), co-president of Net Impact, on the leadership board of the International Business Association, a Daniels student ambassador, member of the Career Services student advisory board, and a presentation/ communications coach for the College.

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Celebrating 10 Years of the 2001: A New IMBA Class is Born (and Reborn in 2011) Ten years ago we added a required overseas component to the International MBA program. Called Cultural Investigation and Observation (CAIO), the objective of the new course was to add value to the IMBA curriculum by giving students an in-depth international immersion experience that would prepare them to operate successfully in global business environments. Key components of the overseas CIAO experience were substantive cultural, political, economic, business and legal engagements.

This new CIAO class combined five weeks of in-depth study of cultural dimensions and managing across cultures, a second five weeks of research and project work focused on the country to be visited, followed by 10–14 days on location. The on-site

experience involved a visit to an emerging market location with trips to local and multinational organizations and an experiential cultural activity.

During the 10-year span from fall 2001 to fall 2011, 26 groups of IMBA students participated in the course. With destinations ranging from Cuba to China, IMBA students have traveled to 22 different countries and gained the powerful insights, hands-on experience, and skills to become tomorrow’s global business leaders.

The IMBA CIAO overseas experience, created by former Director of International Programs Dave Hopkins, is now celebrating its 10-year anniversary under the leadership of

Please join us for a walk through a timeline of the program…

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2001: Our students David Elkan (red hat), Craig Sims, Sharlene Sidhu and Phiphat Vorapipat visited a rural school in Cuba.

Were you a DU IMBA or MIM student and missed the overseas experience? If so, would you be interested in participating in a DU MIM/IMBA alumni overseas trip? If yes, let us know of your interest and where you would like to go. For more details, contact Leslie Carter at leslie.carter@du.edu.

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2007: Alex Bjork, Marianne Morgan, Alice Muir and Kaley Williams enjoyed a zip line excursion while in Argentina.

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2009: Katie Buckley and Marie Pierson give us a hint as to which industry they visited while in Croatia.

2005: Here Yu-Hsiang Lee posed with a local woman selling bananas at one of our bus stops while in Ghana.

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IMBA Overseas Experience Doug Allen, director of the IMBA program, and Leslie Carter, associate director of the IMBA program.

Just as the world of international business has changed over the past years, so too has the IMBA overseas course. Reflecting important changes in the format and deliverables of the class, CIAO was recently renamed and is now GO-IMBA, International Theory in Practice. While the original components of the course remain intact, the students now draw on their IMBA course work to do team-based, live consulting projects for companies doing business in the destination country. This change allows IMBA students to apply the theory they study to real-world challenges facing global companies.

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The core mission of the IMBA program is to provide the skills, knowledge and resources that set graduates apart in the global marketplace. It prepares students for success in 21st-century organizations operating in the global economy building a global mindset and special capacity for cross-cultural leadership and cross-border initiative. For 10 years, the international component of the IMBA curriculum has supported and advanced this mission.

With its new focus and energy, the GO-IMBA, International Theory in Practice course will continue to enrich the education of Daniels students well into the future.

Alumni, we would love to meet with you as we travel with GO-IMBA. Please let us know if your company might be interested in working with an IMBA student consulting team on a business issue or challenge you may be experiencing.

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2003: In Albania, our students helped to distribute clothes to poor and orphaned children who lived in small, one-room shacks in the nearby hills.

2010: At the end of their trip to Tanzania, our students flew the DU banner at the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

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2010: Karim Souki and Peter Knox enjoy the Forbidden City during their trip to China.

2002: Our students enjoyed and survived an afternoon bicycle ride through Hanoi, Vietnam.

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Behind the Scenes

10 Years of Memorable Trips With 10 years of travels, there have certainly been bumps along the way—some more memorable than others. We asked the people who make it all possible about some of their favorite experiences abroad. Former IMBA Director Dave Hopkins, current IMBA Director Doug Allen and Associate Director Leslie Carter share their memorable moments.

LESLIE CARTER The Ghana program in June 2005 was made unique by the leadership of a Ghanaian alumnus of Daniels, Edwin Vanotoo (upper left-hand corner in photo), who arranged our meetings and logistics on the ground. Through Edwin’s connections, some of the students in the class were thrilled to be interviewed on live television; the students (left to right in the photo) are Natasha Biegert, Daniel Craddock and Sheridan Waller. Due to Edwin’s local network, another unique feature the class had was to meet with a tribal chief in western Ghana—what an amazing learning experience in tribal culture and protocol! No one is allowed to address the chief directly but could speak to him through his tribal “speaker” who stood by his side. To enrich the experience further, we were joined on the program by one of our IMBA Advisory

Board members, Dennis Chrisbaum and his wife, Nancy, who was a videographer. They created a video of the whole IMBA4500 class, which focused on clips from the on-campus class sessions as well as the in-country program.

DAVE HOPKINS One of the most interesting things about the IMBA4500 overseas experiences was the ability to observe firsthand some of the industries that were important—historically, economically, politically and culturally—to the countries we were visiting. Our in-country visits and briefings focused on the tobacco/cigar industry in Cuba, the wine industry in Argentina, the shipbuilding industry in Croatia, the fresh flower industry in Ecuador, the design and construction industry in the UAE, the mining industry in Chile, and the cork industry in Portugal. The class visit into the largest underground copper mine in the world, El Teniente in Chile, was one such experience. For years no outsiders were allowed in the mine, and women were not allowed in until recently. The tunnels of El Teniente are over 1,500 miles in length, which would stretch more than halfway across the U.S. It was these types of visits that made the IMBA4500 experiences so relevant and gratifying for the students. Conversely, the industrial and government leaders we met were often gratified that a group of graduate students from a top-tier American university were interested in learning about their country by actually arranging such an academic travel program.

DOUG ALLEN

Share With Us Did you experience an IMBA overseas trip? If so, we want your memories. We are going to create a virtual photo album with images from over the years. Please send any images or stories you may have from a trip to leslie.carter@du.edu so we can create a scrapbook of these wonderful adventures.

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One of the important lessons associated with any IMBA overseas experience is the continuous need for patience, flexibility and creative problemsolving as conditions change unexpectedly.

On our spring 2009 trip to China, a flood in Guelin locked our bus in traffic and we were unable to move for hours. After learning of an informal noodle shop about a kilometer away, a group of us waded

Alumni Notes

SARAH CLEMMONS, IMBA 2006 Shortly after graduating from the IMBA program in August 2006, Sarah Clemmons left to serve in Peace Corps, Guatemala. She was assigned to the small-business development program, assisting a savings and loan cooperative. Her focus was on identifying delinquent accounts to develop and implement a recuperation strategy. Strong interpersonal relationships were crucial to Clemmons’ assimilation into the Guatemalan culture, both personally and professionally, and she relied heavily on her intracultural communication skills learned in her IMBA classes. Four years later, Clemmons maintains those relationships and is planning a trip for 2012. Today, she works for SDSE, LLC, as a contractor to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in Golden, Colorado. As a procurement specialist, Clemmons works in financial assistance for renewable energy grants, specifically geothermal and advanced manufacturing technologies.

She finds it rewarding knowing the DOE programs sponsor projects that stimulate

the workforce today while also contributing to innovation in the world’s future energy sources.

JARROD GIBBONS, IMBA 2011 Jarrod Gibbons graduated in 2011 with a dual International Business BSBA and International MBA degree. After traveling to Beijing, Chengdu and Shanghai with the IMBA program in June, he joined a Denver-based business consulting and internal audit firm. His current project is a margin assurance engagement at a multinational telecommunication company, emphasizing circuit profitability.

His experiences at Daniels and particularly within the IMBA program have provided a strong understanding of a holistic business process as well as the ability to identify breakdowns and provide insights for process improvements. In October of 2011, Gibbons was excited to have his undergraduate thesis focusing on China’s

economic transformation published in the Journal of Emerging Knowledge on Emerging Markets. He had the amazing opportunity of working with Professor Kishore Kulkarni of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, again highlighting the inherent benefits of the IMBA program that allows students to work with the outstanding professors within Daniels and Korbel.

JENNIFER STAMM , IMBA 2010 After graduating with an IMBA in November 2010, Jennifer Stamm took a position with BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the British Broadcasting Corporation. As director of affiliate marketing, Stamm heads up television partnership marketing in the United States for the BBC’s networks carried here, including BBC America and BBC World News. She now lives in New York City.

São Paulo July Alumni Gathering Prompts Opportunity for Fall GO-IMBA Brazil Class

Calling for Alumni Notes New career, new promotion, new spouse? We want to know. Log into alumni.du.edu using Facebook Connect to submit your update along with a photo.

through thigh-deep water to procure noodle bowls for 30 hungry travelers.

The good spirit and ingenuity demonstrated by our students bodes well for their future as global leaders.

At the same time, this incident allowed us to learn from the impressively collaborative spirit with which the people of Guelin handled this stormimposed challenge.

From left to right: Erick Domingues (MIM/MBA 1999), Leslie Carter, Doug Allen, Caio C. Marins (BSBA 2005, HRTM) As a result of a July 14, 2011, alumni meeting, Marins and his family agreed to host the GO-IMBA Brazil class on their ranch outside São Paulo for a Brazilian BBQ during the November/December overseas program. Marins, Domingues and Marins’ father also conducted a business panel discussion for the students.

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Alumni Notes continued from page 7 TROY STILES, IMBA 2010 Troy Stiles graduated from the IMBA program in June 2010 and recently accepted a job as director of business development and social media strategy for Cukjati Design & Advertising, a full-service ad agency headquartered in Colorado Springs. Stiles’ main responsibilities for the 22-year-old firm

include identifying and developing clients along Colorado’s Front Range and particularly in the Denver area.

He has also recently started a bicycle tour company, Crazy Spoke Cycling Adventures, specializing in road and mountain bike cycling tours in and around the Black Hills, SD. Prior to the position at Cukjati, Stiles spent time contracting for Pro Sport MVP as a tour manager taking various groups of athletes and sports personalities—including

WHO IS A DANIELS PIONEER? YOU ARE. WE ARE. Daniels Pioneers—the students, alumni, faculty and friends of DU and Daniels College of Business—create a positive difference in the Daniels Community and beyond. Visit danielspioneer.com.

the Minnesota Vikings Cheerleaders, X-Games athletes, Olympic Gold medalists and the Sacramento Kings Dance Team—to Kuwait and Iraq on entertainment tours for U.S. service men and women.

Stiles was a graduate assistant for the IMBA department and continues to stay involved with the IMBA program and Department of Globalization by occasionally doing freelance work.

If you no longer have access to your DU ID number, or you need to update your contact information, please contact Leslie Carter at leslie.carter@du.edu or 303.871.2037.

12.068.1211