Volume 43 winter 2009- 2010
Eye on the Crisis: FLEX Global Villagers Share Eurasian Perspectives on the Global Crisis Elvira Nurgalieva ’04 Ulan Ude, Russia/Hershey, PA enurgalieva@gmail.com Where would you go to get an inside look at how FLEX alumni are dealing with the global financial crisis? For me, the Iacocca Institute’s Global Village for Future Leaders of Business and Industry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania turned out to be an ideal location. As one of 15 FLEX alumni honored to receive an ECA/Iaccoca scholarship to attend this six-week intensive educational training program, I had a wonderful opportunity to feel the spirit of cultural diversity, true leadership and entrepreneurship interacting with 106 other young leaders from 54 countries. Academically the program consisted of three major parts: courses, meetings with executives and highlevel position managers from various industries, and work on a project. The program offered a wide range of courses, everything from leadership skills enhancing courses to ones solely concentrated on entrepreneurship or best business practices in certain specific fields, such as advertising or finance, from which one could choose from what sounded most appealing. It reminded me of the electives we all enjoyed at our American high schools. The executives we met came from different fields of business to share their knowledge, as well as professional and personal experience. These were not ordinary lectures where we just sat and listened, but, instead, these were interactive seminars, where we could ask all sorts of questions. We met true leaders in their fields; they sincerely shared stories of their successes, as well as failures. We met Mark Gumz, the CEO of Olympus, Susan Baer, a top manager at New York – New Jersey Port Authority,
Deborah Lovell, the Ambassador of Antigua and Barbuda, and many other inspiring people. The project component offered great opportunities to acquire leadership and team-work skills - skills that are a “must” in today’s world. Most importantly, we learned about the influence of culture on work and team dynamics. The Global Village program experience is unique in large part because of the people. As ambassadors of our countries, we shared our cultures in numerous ways, from formal country presentations to informal weekly culture nights, where we cooked our traditional meals to share with others, sang songs and danced, and played games of other countries. After six weeks together we have become friends forever, with no regard to our countries of origin. We saw the incredible unions of people whose countries have historically opposed one another. We’ve become one big family, which will continue to inspire and support each other as well as help others to do so in their home communities. Everyone who comes to Global Village will find there something for themselves. So there is no single way to describe this experience, and each intern will present it in a different way. But as the old saying goes: it is better to see it once, than hear about it a hundred times. Learning the stories of other interns is a separate experience worth mentioning. I met people who had striking careers in the corporate world or had an inspiring commitment to community work. Each intern had a unique story to tell, which could not leave one indifferent. I took the opportunity to quiz fellow alumni about the crisis: how it is affecting their industries, their countries, and them personally.
1. How did the financial crisis affect the company you work for or industry you work in? Anna (banking): “The financial crisis had a direct impact on my company. People are losing their jobs, so they can’t pay their debts, mortgage or consumer loans, so there is a lot of bad debt in the banking sector. As a result the bank had to cut its operations and reduce staff.” While some banks are experiencing the negative impact of the crisis, others have noted almost no negative effect, as was the case for a local bank in Armenia, where another alumna, Karine, works. As she put it, “Despite some other banks and our country overall being really affected by the crisis, our company hasn’t been affected much: we did Elvira Nurgalieva ’04 (R) poses in a Tatar national dress with Nazar not have to cut staff or reduce our operations Cherkezov ’97 and Maria Netaeva ’02 at the Lehigh University dramatically.” Global Village Institute.
FUTURE LEADERS E X C H AN G E ALUMNI NEWSLETTER
Contents: 110
Theme of the issue: Global Economic Crisis Eye on the Crisis: FLEX Global Villagers Share Eurasian Perspectives Letter from the Editor Creating E- Works Michelle Obama’s Visit to the Orthodox Christian Sisterhood in Moscow Placing My Bet on Construction Business for More than Profit Picnic in Kyiv Interview with Bliss Browne, founder of Imagine Chicago Financial Crisis Affecting Youth in U.S. and Ukraine
11
Crisis Times: So Tough... So Good... Now What? FLEX Alumni Grant Projects Make Long- term Change
1213 FLEX Family News Planning for the FLEX 20th Anniversary 1416 Bradley Bits Career Development: 17 Principle of the Hourglass 18 19
In Memorium Profiles
Vusal Khanlarov ’02 Sona Apbasova ’08 Elnura Osmonova ’94