NEWS •HILLTOP HIGHLIGHTS
interested in entering the senior housing market in China. Our strategy needed to incorporate both the demographic challenges that China faced in the sheer number of citizens needing care, as well as the cultural norms working against the standard senior housing model. We were lucky to receive glowing remarks about our presentation and stayed much longer than anticipated to discuss the possible impact of our idea on our client’s business model.
GLOBETROTTER
Surprising Shanghai By Liz Verhyden (MBA ’17) Each summer, Evening MBA students travel around the world for their Global Business Experience, delivering consulting project presentations in person to company leadership. This year, students traveled to Bologna, Italy; Lima, Peru; and Shanghai. Below are one student’s impressions from the latter.
followed by a tour of Shanghai Tower (which I came to learn is the secondtallest building in the world). If I had a bucket list, this would definitely have been on it. We took the fastest elevator in the world up to the 121st floor observatory deck (a 55-second ride) to view the city landscape. The experience was a real estate professional’s dream — the building incorporated an entire urban landscape, with multilevel sky gardens, residential apartments, hotel lodging, and museums, all within one building.
The Shanghai skyline greeted Evening MBA students in summer 2016.
other side of the world in Shanghai. After a day of travel, we were still jet-lagged but excited to explore our new city. We all met to begin a walking tour by locals through some nontourist sights to view the consequences of globalization and significant economic growth on standards of living. We learned that housing projects commonly have high-speed internet and cable TV but no indoor plumbing or sewage systems. This incredible learning experience was topped off with an equally incredible welcome dinner on the 64th level of our hotel.
July 11: Now that we were intro-
duced to the economic landscape in Shanghai, we spent the entire day refining our consultancy project 12 •
Fall 2016
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July 10: Our first full day on the
July 12: Today was the day we had
spent eight weeks preparing for — the consultancy client presentation! Our client was an international real estate operator, investor, and developer
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July 13: With our project
presentation completed, we set out bright and early for a group tour of Baosteel Factory — the fourthlargest steel factory in the world with a production volume of 80 million tons of steel per year, and growing. We discussed with the operations manager the strategy of minimizing employees to only 15 per shift and maximizing machine utility to exceed this volume in the coming year.
July 15: We began the day with a
tour of the largest private real estate development in Shanghai — an impressive design of hotel space, condos, gardens, and luxury shopping. We closed out our week with a dinner with our clients overlooking the Bund riverfront. The week absolutely flew by — it was an incredible experience in China that opened our eyes to how business translates culture to culture.
Liz Verhyden (MBA ’17), second from right, and her consulting project team show Georgetown pride on the day of their presentation.
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