Home > Gazette > February 2007

Wisconsin MBA Offers Global Business Program to Chile, Dubai

All full-time Wisconsin MBA students have the opportunity to obtain international business experience through student-planned and led trips through the Wisconsin MBA Global Business Program. This year, the Global Business Program offered study tours to Chile and to Dubai, UAE during the first and second weeks of January.

Through personal meetings with senior business executives, governmental leaders, nonprofit directors and respected educators, Wisconsin MBA students prepared themselves for global business by enhancing their knowledge and professional skills. In addition, by supplementing the business meetings with cultural and social activities, students acquired a holistic understanding of a foreign country or region while gaining an appreciation for differences in foreign customs. The Global Business Program allows students to develop friendships with other first- and second-year students from a variety of career specializations.

The students on the Chile program began their study trip to Santiago with a visit to the Central Bank of Chile, where the students were briefed by a Chilean economist who had studied at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. At the U.S. embassy, they heard presentations on the political and economic environments of Chile. Participants visited premier investment banking and asset-management firms before concluding the week with meetings at Microsoft’s Chile branch. The students then spent a weekend exploring cultural offerings at Chile’s most fashionable beach town of Vina Del Mar. Activities including a tour of Nobel Prize-winner Pablo Neruda’s home, exploration of the labyrinth of streets and cobblestone alleyways in Valparaiso, and sampling of wines at numerous Chilean vineyards. The program then returned to Santiago, where the students participated in meetings with Procter & Gamble - Chile, the former head of the Chilean Environmental Protection Agency at his law firm, a leading consulting firm, the American Chamber of Commerce, the most influential business lobbying association an impressive entrepreneurship organization and high successful food processing company.

The students on the Dubai program experienced a diverse itinerary that exposed them to cultural, religious, economic, and social issues facing the most rapidly expanding emirate in the Middle East. Dubai, a melting pot of U.A.E. nationals and expats, presented an interesting juxtaposition: capitalism drives seemingly endless growth and tourism in a historically conservative Muslim region. The 10-day trip began with a tour of the Jumeirah Mosque. The students visited the Dubai Financial Market in the World Trade Center. A trip to the American Consulate offered students the opportunity to discuss the U.A.E. political environment and economic conditions with U.S. Consul General Paul Sutphin. Nakheel, the premier real estate group in Dubai, provided a presentation to the students that conveyed a vision for the future of development within Dubai. Students were whisked into the desert to visit a Bedouin camp, and participated in meetings at the American University in Dubai, the Emaar real estate group and the Jebel Ali Free Zone Authority in Dubai Ports World.