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Global OneMBA® Executive Program Graduates Inaugural Class
The 2004 inaugural global OneMBA® class of 77 executives celebrated the completion of their program at The Chinese University of Hong Kong in May, after having begun the pioneering program together in Washington, D.C., in fall 2002.
OneMBA participants from UNC Kenan-Flagler spent time in both Washington, D.C., and Chapel Hill for the "local" portion of the program. They worked with their worldwide class from four other leading business schools via virtual teaming and through four global residencies in the United States; The Netherlands and Poland; Brazil and Mexico; and Shanghai and Hong Kong.
The 28 executives in the UNC contingent of the global class were a geographically diverse group, stretching as far north as Canada, as far west as California, as far south as Florida and as far east as Germany. Of the entire global OneMBA class, 66 percent live and work outside the United States and Canada.
Graduates spent time in the program learning and honing the skills they will apply in their global careers.
"OneMBA provides much more value than the 'immersion trips' often seen in programs of its type. Participants from each university integrate and learn from and with their counterparts around the world on virtual teams," said Kevin Scanlon, practice leader at BusinessEdge Solutions, a midsize management consulting firm based in New York. "This experience has been valuable to each member of the class, giving us direct experience with a broad set of cultures and business environments."
"Global virtual teaming is how businesses are getting work done today, and it's an important benefit of the program," said David Ravenscraft, associate dean of OneMBA and a UNC finance professor whose initial vision was key to the creation of the program.
"Executives in the program benefit from having multiple faculty project mentors from our partner schools around the world. In turn, we benefited as faculty by creating the OneMBA experience together."
"A lot of the learning comes from the interaction in the global teams, which change every trimester and are tasked with completing significant projects together," said Pete Stroud, managing director, central district, Canadian operations, for FedEx, based in Mississauga, Ontario.
Stroud partnered with a classmate on a strategy project.
"Alfredo Gonzalez is FedEx's managing director of marketing in Mexico. Alfredo was taking his OneMBA through the Monterrey campus," Stroud said. "Alfredo and I did a joint strategy project as part of our OneMBA curriculum, which also added value to FedEx."
"In the global groups, not only was it important to understand the basics of team dynamics, but there were the added intricacies of cultural differences and remoteness. These are real issues in global management, and we experienced an impactful, firsthand appreciation of the challenges that managing globally creates," Stroud said.
T.J. Singla, a supply-chain executive with Exel Inc. in Singapore, was working at her company's North American headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, when she began OneMBA. Eleven months into the program, she was on global residency at RSM in The Netherlands when her husband was offered a job in Shanghai. That same week, Singla's boss asked her if she'd like to work in Singapore.
For the last 10 months of the program, Singla flew from Asia back to Washington, D.C., once a month to join the UNC contingent.
"As classmates, you're separated by thousands and thousands of miles, and it's difficult and extremely frustrating at times," she said. "But when you complete a team project deliverable together, it's very worthwhile."
Graduates say the business connections and network that they have established with their classmates around the world have created friendships and professional bonds that will endure beyond their time in the program.
"Our alumni network has allowed us to draw on each other's experience. In one case, one of my classmates restructured his department at the same time I did. By sharing our approaches and experiences as well as the underlying motivations, we could both benefit by regularly exchanging our views," said Stefan Hoffmann, engineering director at Siemens Power Generation in Muelheim, Germany.
Scanlon added, "During every global residency, each class has made a point to coordinate time together before and after. In our recent visit to China, Wayne Bovier and I opted to trek off the 'beaten path' to further immerse ourselves in Chinese culture. Wayne and I were joined by a few of our global classmates from RSM. The group decided to spend a day hiking one of China's five sacred peaks, Mount Hau Shan."
Katrin Rosenberg and her husband, Dominique Caillet, went through the program together while living in Charlotte, N.C. She said OneMBA fit with her present and future career and personal goals.
"I've worked in a global company before, with a global network and in very international positions, so a purely 'American' program wouldn't have made a lot of sense," said Rosenberg, a native of Germany, who is vice president of the American subsidiary of European manufacturer Rosenberg USA. "I wanted to do a global, international program, because I continue to see my future there."
OneMBA is a radical new model that takes a page from business to provide an exceptional educational experience with real value for global executives and their companies.
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Alum Named Entrepreneur of the Year by the Tampa Bay Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
His knowledge of the Hispanic real estate market has made him a source and subject for USA Today, the Tampa Tribune and Kiplinger.com. The Tampa Bay Hispanic Chamber of Commerce named him its 2004 Entrepreneur of the Year. The recognition is no surprise given the reach of his Florida-based AVENTA Real Estate Services, with 50 employees and four offices. The surprise is that Omar Garcia (MBA '99) has been in business just over a year.
"We opened our doors July 27, 2003, starting with just one office in Tampa," said Garcia, a Tampa native. "My goal for the first year was pretty ambitious - to open two more offices, one in Clearwater and one in Orlando." Garcia opened those offices and one more in Bradenton, attributing the quick growth to a strong marketing plan, the foundation of which was laid in business school.
"I'm a civil engineer. I love building stuff and thought an MBA would prepare me to open my own development or real estate company. I took courses in real estate, international business and Internet marketing. But I graduated in the dot.com era and the offer I got from Nortel Networks was too sweet to pass up."
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| Omar Garcia |
Garcia tucked his real estate ambitions away and found Nortel Networks was good preparation for AVENTA. He created and launched the online Partner Business Center, transforming the way Nortel managed relationships with its distributors, from paper and voice to the Internet.
"We've integrated that technology into AVENTA's operations," Garcia said. "Our employees can coordinate every phase of a transaction online - from reserving a conference room to meet with a client, to ordering signs, to ordering a title search and warranties."
Garcia had climbed to director of business operations for Nortel's eBusiness Solutions division in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. But when the company sold the division in 2001, Garcia, his wife, Nataly, and infant daughter, Isabella, took the opportunity to return home. "My high-tech career options were limited in the Tampa Bay Area, so it was the perfect time to pursue real estate.
"I didn't want to be just another real estate company. I wanted something bigger that would grow throughout the Southeast and beyond." Garcia combined his knowledge with research to find a niche.
"There was a woefully underserved Hispanic population, primarily in the Southeast." Garcia said. "A national real estate study showed that by 2010, 40 percent of first-time homebuyers are expected to be Hispanic. In the next 10 years, 77 million people are going to be retiring; that, too, will push migration toward the Southeast." After targeting his market, Garcia developed an innovative strategy.
"Customers are now able to do research online and create professional-looking brochures in their own homes. So, traditional brokerage companies aren't seen as providing a great deal of value particularly in such a hot real estate market. However, in the Hispanic market, everyone from the realtor to the loan officer adds value as the buyers or sellers need a significant amount of assistance with the transaction."
Garcia saw a loss in value in working to land customers only to see them move on to mortgage and title companies. "We put all three services under one roof, so we derive three revenue streams from a single customer acquisition." That model has proven to be a competitive advantage versus his competition.
With a business plan in place, Garcia focused on branding. "I wanted a name that had meaning in Spanish, but sounded modern in English, so we wouldn't box ourselves into one market."
"AVENTA" is a play on the Spanish "a la venta," which means "for sale." A well-known Mexican phrase "avientate" means "go for it." Garcia modified that to form the slogan "Aventate with AVENTA."
Garcia has no problem taking his own go-for-it advice. He's looking for venture capital to expand beyond Florida, perhaps developing franchises. His 2005 plans include offices in Raleigh or Charlotte, Charleston and Atlanta. He has already received requests from prospective franchisees to open up in two of these markets.
His newest venture includes working with developers and builders to better meet the needs of Hispanics. And at just 37, Garcia sees a lot of time ahead to answer his passion for "building stuff," maybe with a development company.
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