For Krissy Estrada, a trip to Mexico last June was both a new experience and a homecoming.
As a Mexican American, Estrada had traveled to the country many times before, but never to Mexico City and never as a business student. “From a business perspective, when you take yourself out of your comfort zone, you just get a different viewpoint on whatever problem you’re trying to solve, and you just never know what that can unlock,” she said.
Estrada, EMBA 25, joined MBA students from around the world to discuss sustainability and climate resilience in business at the EGADE Business School at Tecnológico de Monterrey. Outside of class, the group explored different neighborhoods of Mexico City, sampled the local cuisine, and visited the Teotihuacan pyramids. Estrada, among a group spending a week learning about how to build and lead conscious enterprises, documented it all in a video blog.
The Mexico program is one of many organized through the Global Network for Advanced Management (GNAM), an international consortium of 33 business schools. The trip consisted of five days of immersive learning experiences, both inside and outside the classroom, that delved into the theme of conscious capitalism. Haas is one of only two U.S. business schools in the program, which was founded by the Yale School of Management in 2012.
During the Mexico trip, students explored how they could tap business as a force for good. The trip included a meeting with an executive from Grupo Ruz, which designs and distributes products for children and pets. He presented a problem the company encountered after moving its manufacturing plant outside of Mexico City. The company, prioritizing the needs of its employees, created its own bus system to help workers navigate the commute and improve their quality of life.
As head of marketing operations for the animation studio State, Estrada works with clients and artists from across the globe, one reason she values her experience with GNAM. Students taking part in GNAM study different topics at business schools in Asia, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Australia.
Delving into agribusiness
Across the Atlantic at the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School in Dublin, Scott Jones, EMBA 25, and his classmates learned about agribusiness. They visited farms in Ireland by day and dined at a 700-year-old pub by night. Jones, a retired Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy and a captain with United Airlines, said he chose Dublin because he had never visited the city. He also wanted to explore agribusiness because it was something completely new to him.
“The biggest takeaway for me is that there is this tension in the question: ‘What are we going to do to help save the planet?” Jones said. “We still need to transport people from A to B. We still need to feed people. There are 700,000 beef ranchers in the world right now who still need to feed people. It’s a big challenge to balance these needs with the need to save the planet. It can’t be an all-or-nothing proposition.”
An international business perspective
While many Haas students have traveled and lived abroad, students participating in GNAM find that the program offers them a unique perspective. Gathering students, professors, and business leaders from around the world in one room creates opportunities they often wouldn’t experience otherwise.
Edward Chan, EMBA 25, participated in the program in Australia, where he and his classmates studied leadership in crisis. Their class time included a role-playing scenario where they had to consider how company executives would manage internal and external communications after an oil spill.
Another opportunity arose for Chan just a few months later when he and another Haas student were invited to participate in the second annual Berlin Global Dialogue hosted by GNAM last October. The students, part of the BGD Young Voices program, met with world leaders, business leaders, and academics from more than 80 countries. Past speakers have included Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz, France’s President Emmanuel Macron, and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. Last year’s theme was “Building Common Ground.”
Aside from sharing the room with so many influential leaders, Chan and the other students also had the chance to ask questions and participate in discussions. During a conversation between finance ministers from Germany and Saudi Arabia, Chan asked how they would replicate innovation ecosystems, like those in Shenzhen, Silicon Valley, and Bangalore. The Saudi Arabian minister talked about government funding for innovation, and the German minister spoke about the threat of right-wing populism to attract the talent needed for an innovation ecosystem, Chan said.
Chan, who is pivoting from product management in robotics to a career in venture capital, said the experience was eye-opening. Along with the rest of his experiences at Haas, it has inspired him to do something bigger when he graduates.
“Whatever I do in the next phase of my career, there’s a certain bar that I’m setting for myself,” Chan says. “I don’t want to just settle for a lateral move. I feel like I should be doing something bigger, given the experiences that Haas has provided me.”
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