Grandfather of Temple International Business receives CUIBE Service Award

Dr. Arvind Phatak, widely regarded as the Fox School’s “grandfather of International Business,” was honored recently with a Distinguished Service Award from CUIBE, the Consortium for Undergraduate International Business Education.

CUIBE President Mark Ballam recognized Phatak both for his long-standing and outstanding contributions, and fellow CUIBE members spoke of Phatak’s championship of international business education.

CUIBE is an international consortium of schools and universities with undergraduate international business programs. The organization provides its members with opportunities to benchmark their programs against other member schools and share best practices in international business education.

“I’m so happy to have received this award, especially from CUIBE, an organization that is so close to my heart,” Phatak said.

Phatak moved to the United States from India in 1960 to earn his MBA at Temple University. After earning his PhD at UCLA, Phatak returned to Temple, where he built the Fox School’s international business program into one of the university’s most prized assets. He retires this year after 45 years of service.

During his career, Phatak obtained a highly competitive grant from the U.S. Department of Education to establish one of only 33 Centers for International Business Education and Research (CIBER), bringing more than $4 million to the Fox School.

Phatak was instrumental in getting the international business program ranked nationally. U.S. News & World Report ranks Fox’s undergraduate international business program in the Top 10 year after year. It is currently ranked sixth in the country.

He helped launch Fox’s AACSB-accredited Executive MBA (EMBA) program in Colombia, earned a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship – one of just two awards given to India-based research that year – established an endowed undergraduate student travel fund and authored six books. He plans to continue his seventh after he retires.

Phatak has received numerous honors including recognition as the Laura H. Carnell Professor of Management and International Business, a Distinguished Faculty Award, an MBA Professor of the Year Award, a Musser Award for Excellence in Service and more. He was a pioneer recipient of the Great Teacher Award, the highest honor a professor can receive from Temple, and he regards this as one of his proudest achievements.

Phatak has held multiple critical leadership roles at Temple. He directed the international business program for nearly 20 years, served as executive director of Temple CIBER and Fox’s Institute of Global Management Studies, and chaired Fox’s Strategic Management Department from 1978-1981 and from 1987-1990.

“My interest has always been making the Fox School of Business a global enterprise,” Phatak said.

– Christine Fisher

Passport Night
Passport Night and student blogs encourage Fox students to take studies overseas

In Gloria Angel’s opinion, everyone in the United States should have a passport.

“The minute you get a passport, all you want to do is use it,” she said.  But when she began working at the Temple Center of International Business Education and Research (CIBER), based at the Fox School, she learned how many students didn’t even know how to go about getting one.

As the assistant director of Fox International Programs and Temple CIBER, Angel’s main concern was that not enough students were studying abroad. So Angel became a certified passport acceptance agent and hosted the Fox School’s first Passport Night in Spring 2008 with colleague Martyn J. Miller, senior director for International Student and Scholar Services at Temple.

Held once each semester, Passport Night is a one-stop shop for anyone in need of a passport, and it puts students one step closer to taking their studies overseas.

As a passport acceptance agent, Angel is entitled to a $25 execution fee from each passport applicant. Instead of using the money for herself, she created a fund that would go directly back to students.

Angel created the Passport Night Award, which aids two students per semester with travel expenses. To date, the Fox School has given more than $10,000 to students studying abroad.

Cassie Carbaugh, a senior international business major, received the award for her studies in Lyon, France, during the Spring 2011 semester. “Not only did this award pay for my passport and visa, but it also covered the cost of my flight,” she said. “This award gave me the ability to minimize my costs, and that was so important to me.”

Because of Passport Night’s success, Angel raised enough funds to purchase several handheld video cameras. She offered them to students going abroad in exchange for weekly blog posts detailing their experiences and providing a resource for students considering going abroad themselves.

Edward Leiber, an international business and economics student, blogged about his experience at Temple Rome during in Fall 2010. He credits his blog with his smooth transition to Italian life.

When he was eager to call or video chat his friends and family at home, he turned to his camera, treating it like a personal phone call, explaining the obstacles of his new lifestyle and how he managed to resolve them.

“It’s nice because it’s kind of like a historical perspective on everything that I went through,” he said.

All student blogs are hosted on the Temple CIBER website and detail the experiences of students studying in more than 15 countries.

“Students are getting excited,” she said. “The message is getting out there.”

“The turnout for January’s Passport Night was one of the highest we’ve ever had. Students were happy to wait for the opportunity and we hope to continue this initiative for many semesters to come,” said Nicole Riley, associate director of International Programs, CIBER/IGMS.

For more information on Passport Nights, visit http://www.fox.temple.edu/ciber/passport.html

– Michele Aweeky

CEFAM Partnership
Fox celebrates cultural exchange with French business school CEFAM

For three years, he studied entrepreneurship as a CEFAM undergraduate in Lyon, just two hours from her business school in Paris. But he didn’t cross paths with her until he studied abroad at the Fox School of Business.

He proposed a year later, 30,000 feet above the Sahara, on a flight to his home country, Benin. He had the pilot announce the proposal to the whole cabin. She shouted, “Yes!” back at the intercom.

“He made just the sort of bold, entrepreneurial move we hope to teach our CEFAM students at Fox,” said Philomena Trinidad, Fox’s associate director of academic advising and study abroad.

Trinidad has seen many bold moves during the 12 years she has spent guiding the Fox School’s partnership with CEFAM, a French business school whose acronym means “Center for the study of French-American Business Management.”

About 25 CEFAM students come to Temple each year. They are CEFAM’s top performers, with an average GPA of 3.5. One student used his Fox education to improve the living standards of Malian rice farmers. Another won a $25,000 entrepreneurship scholarship.

CEFAM celebrated its 25th anniversary in August 2011. Hundreds of CEFAM students have graduated with Fox degrees and many Fox students have spent a semester at CEFAM.

“Students and professors love the international perspective CEFAM students bring  – and the French accents,” Trinidad said.

CEFAM has partnerships with other American universities, including Pace, Northeastern, Siena and Rider. But out of CEFAM’s 150 undergraduate students, 35 apply to Fox each year.

“A Temple degree carries tremendous weight in France,” Trinidad said. “Students and employers see pictures of the ticker tape in Alter Hall, projector screens displaying business news from around the world and roomfuls of cutting-edge technology. To them, we represent what an American business school should be.”

For Fox students such as Cassie Carbaugh, a senior international business major, CEFAM represents something equally powerful: Lyon. The gastronomical capital of France is a quaint, friendly city the size of Philadelphia and is only two hours from Paris by high-speed rail.

Carbaugh was the only American student at CEFAM during her semester abroad. Most Fox students studying in France attend ABS, a business school in Paris.

Lyon’s allure has helped Temple CIBER and the Institute of Global Management Studies steadily increase the number of Fox students studying at CEFAM during the past year. For Carbaugh, in 2011, studying at CEFAM meant total cultural immersion.

“The students at CEFAM love American students and go out of their way to include them in their lives,” Carbaugh said. “The four months I spent there immersed me in a new environment filled with a rich culture of arts, music and cuisine. I learned business from a new perspective and was able to deepen my analysis of international issues.”

Carbaugh also built lasting relationships, including a transatlantic romance still going strong and friendships with CEFAM students who are now studying at Fox.

Carbaugh has since become an advocate for Fox’s relationship with CEFAM. She spoke alongside CEFAM’s vice dean during the university’s 25th anniversary. Her message: studying abroad helped her discover her own career calling and is an indispensable part of today’s college experience.

“Business is going global at an increasingly rapid pace,” Trinidad said. “The college experience needs to keep up. College always meant exchanging ideas with people from across the national spectrum. But today, it must mean interacting with people from across the world.”

  – Carl O’Donnell

IMBA France Consultants
Parisian technology startups consult Fox IMBAs through Le Camping program

Peter Strugala described the space as “one of those dotcom offices people see in the movies.”

A student in the Fox School’s International MBA program, Strugala recently spent a day in a studio at the Palais Brongniart in central Paris, working with an online startup called Skimm!, which markets itself as “the pocket revolution.”

Along with two teammates, his mission was to figure out a way to bridge the divide among the Parisian university student population and successfully market the company’s smartphone app. Launched in November by a University of Pennsylvania graduate, Skimm! is a mobile payment system that allows users to redeem promotional coupons in participating stores.

Strugala and his classmates were taking part in Le Camping, a six-month accelerator program created by French nonprofit Silicon Sentier for tech startups. Le Camping provides an opportunity for 12 startups to develop a prototype, pitch to investors and take on the beginning stages of company growth. Le Camping is now in its third cycle, or “Season 3.”

Fox IMBA students were among the first to spend a day working alongside these innovative companies, providing international insight through an intense brainstorming session. One of the Fox School’s international partners, ENPC School of International Management, provided the opportunity. Fox IMBAs begin their one-year, tri-continent program by spending their first semester at ENPC.

“Students spend the fall semester in Paris attending classes as well as participating in corporate visits and hands-on workshops such as this one with the goal of a total immersion experience into the culture, the life and the business environment in France,” said Rebecca Geffner, director of International Programs, CIBER/IGMS. 

The day began with a mentor session about pitching startup ventures to potential investors. The students then broke into small groups and were told what issue their assigned company needed help approaching. All companies participating in Le Camping at the time took on the student consultants to tackle issues such as market and launch strategies.

The day concluded with students presenting their solutions.

“It was inspiring,” Strugala said. “Just the way the studio was laid out provided for so much interaction. And the fact that they were so willing to engage us with where they were and were also interested in our feedback—it was exceptional.”

– Michele Aweeky

Global Connections
University of Ghana EMBAs earn international business certificates at Fox School

Through a unique, international partnership, Executive MBA students from the University of Ghana earned certificates in international business at a two-day conference hosted by the Fox School this February.

Eighty-one students and faculty from the University of Ghana heard from world-class Fox faculty and renowned guest speakers who spoke on everything from understanding cultural differences to international supply chain management and the global financial crisis. Speakers included the founder and president of the U.S.-Kenya Chamber of Commerce, the chairman of the Mayor’s Commission on African and Caribbean Immigrant Affairs, a senior analyst of energy acquisition at PECO Energy, and more.

Organizers hoped that the theoretical mixed with the practical would provide attendees with useful tools they can implement when they return to Ghana, said Nicole Riley, the Fox School’s associate director of International Programs, CIBER/IGMS.

The University of Ghana EMBA students, “see themselves as really on the precipice of developing beyond what they have now, and they really see their current situation as an opportunity to maybe take lessons from India or China and apply that to their own economies,” Riley said.

She said what the students do with their international business certificates will be as varied as the wide range of industries, experiences and career tracts they represent – from private-sector positions to public service, finance, media and more.

“Coming from where we come from, we are only in one country, but you get here and you get information from all different parts of the world,” said Mary Anane, an EMBA student from Ghana. “We are learning about the United States, Kenya, Japan. And you can apply all that you learn to business you are doing in your own country.”

Bilson Jahdab Atagba, a revenue collector with the Ghana Revenue Authority customs division, said he was happy to be exposed to new ideas.

“We are now seeing what the world is thinking,” said Fred Abeku Arkorisul, another Ghana Revenue Authority collector.

This is the third year Fox has hosted University of Ghana EMBA students for the international business certificate program – a venture made possible by the Fox School’s Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) and MBA International Programs division.

– Christine Fisher

Temple CIBER executive director delivers keynote speech at UK conference

Ram Mudambi, executive director of the Temple Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER), will present a keynote speech at the 39th Academy of International Business Conference at the University of Liverpool Management School this month.

The conference, New Global Developments and the Changing Geography of International Business, will explore the changing geography of international business and economic geography.

Mudambi, a professor of strategic management at the Fox School of Business, was invited to the conference as a foremost authority on the geography of innovation and a leading author of many key international business texts. His keynote speech will focus on new directions in economic geography and international business.

The conference is scheduled for March 29 through March 31.

– Christine Fisher

Fox feeds international business talent into Philadelphia firm that coordinates global trade

When Nick Pivovarnik first met Gloria Angel, assistant director of the Fox School’s Institute of Global Management Studies, in 2009, he was certain of one thing. He wanted to study abroad.

The Fox international business major wasn’t sure of much else: not his career ambitions nor, really, himself. But he was soon convinced that adapting to a foreign country could be transformative. Ultimately, Pivovarnik traveled to Chile for a semester abroad, where he became the Universidad Adolfo Ibanez’s only American student.

After spending a semester teaching economics and English to Chileans, Pivovarnik returned to Angel’s office. She hardly recognized him. He spoke with confidence and expressed clear ambitions. He became one of the Temple study abroad office’s most articulate advocates. Then he undertook a 14-month internship with the U.S. Commercial Service, where he excelled.

So when Richard Lucas, the recruiting manager at Philadelphia customs broker and international freight forwarder Samuel Shapiro & Co., asked Angel if she knew of any students possessing the drive and international savvy sought by the firm’s internship program, she had the perfect man for the job.

“Our employees master some of the most complex transactions in the world: imports and exports into the United States,” Lucas said. “If you are fascinated by international business – how companies are run, how regulations influence trade, how commodities are actually moved – if you’re excited by shipping fleets, airlines and trucks, you’ll fit in at Samuel Shapiro & Co.”

Pivovarnik fit in. After his three-month internship, Samuel Shapiro & Co. hired him as a transportation service representative.

This wasn’t the first time a Fox student was connected to Samuel Shapiro & Co. The firm has generated opportunities for six Fox School graduates and dozens of interns, making Fox the largest source of its Philadelphia office’s staff.

Regional Manager Marina Barbalios Tasiopoulos has climbed the firm’s ranks for 14 years. Import Manager Garrett Frankford has been on staff for five. Import account coordinators Ross Johnson and Kayla Travaglione, like Pivovarnik, both began as interns. All of them majored in international business at Fox, and all are driven by the fast-paced thrill of coordinating international commerce. 

“If you are that smart person who craves constant mental engagement and stimulation, you might be sitting in the office adjacent to mine,” Lucas said. “We’re fast paced. Our employees help manage 80 to 90 shipments per month. Each of those shipments has its own hard deadline and each must be navigated through a series of unpredictable logistical challenges.”

It’s not always easy for Lucas to find students who thrive in this environment. He searches for critical thinkers who can follow a business process, be interrupted, devise a creative solution and then get back on track. When he’s seeking new hires who meet these standards, Fox is at the top of his list.

“Fox students know the real world,” Lucas said. “They’ve worked. They’ve held internships. They already understand customer service. They’ve already adapted to working under the pressure of real-world transactions. Honestly, I find Fox’s grads are often better fits for Samuel Shapiro & Co. than even those with Ivy League degrees.”

Pivovarnik is living up to Lucas’ high expectations. He’s learning Samuel Shapiro & Co.’s process in its entirety. He’s speaking Spanish, which he learned in Chile, to occasional non-English-fluent clients. And he’s drawing on his experience as a study abroad advocate to build relationships with a wide array of accounts.

Pivovarnik thanks Fox’s faculty and staff for making this happen. But Angel takes a different perspective.

“Fox grads like Nick succeed because their hunger drives them to seek new opportunities and take chances. His major and study abroad component are only a small step,” Angel said. “Nick is thriving because, like many of our grads, he knows how to push full throttle like none other.”

–Carl O’Donnell

Second model G-20 Summit attracts nearly 300 high school students to Alter Hall

For the second year in a row, the Fox School of Business hosted the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia’s model G-20 Summit for high school students.

Two hundred seventy students from across the Philadelphia region gathered March 9 in Alter Hall to discuss global issues with a focus on youth unemployment and food security.

"Temple’s CIBER was proud to sponsor the World Affairs Council event again this year. Part of the CIBER mandate includes support for K-12 education and we believe this summit is a wonderful way to promote the development of international skills, awareness, and expertise for high school students as they prepare to become our next international leaders,” said Rebecca Geffner, director of International Programs, CIBER/IGMS.

Ten Fox School undergraduates and two graduate students volunteered, during Spring Break, to work with the delegations and assist with their breakout sessions.

High school student leaders went through an intensive interview selection process in order to represent a delegation at the summit of leading rich and developing nations. Students were assigned to one of the world’s 20 major economies and asked to seek resolutions for the issues at hand. 

After deliberating over which issues were most important from the perspective of their particular nation, each delegation produced a policy proposal, which was later debated by the entire G-20. At the end of the day, one final, integrated communiqué was decided upon in the best interest of the greater global community.

The council’s partnership with Fox contributed immensely to the evolution of the G-20 Summit.

“Fox in fact became a critical and core sponsor by offering the space for free,” said Dana Devon, vice president of education for the World Affairs Council. “Beyond that, the space was state of the art. Students saw the ticker tape and felt like they hit the big time. Everyone had to step up their game coming into Alter Hall. It inspired them.”

Alter Hall’s technology also added to the program. Video conferencing equipment enabled summit leaders to conference in students from Pittsburgh, Slovenia and Pakistan. “We could not do that without Temple,” Devon said.

The council chose to turn its annual model United Nations program into a mock G-20 Summit in 2011 because of its contemporary approach of looking at long-term sustainable global issues and resolutions. 

“I cannot overstate how our partnership with the Fox School has immeasurably added to the caliber of program we offer to students,” Devon said.

– Michele Aweeky

Temple CIBER board member named White House Champion of Change

This winter the White House named Dr. Christine Martey-Ochola one of 14 Champions of Change working with American Diaspora communities with roots in the Horn of Africa.

Martey-Ochola, a Temple Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) advisory board member, is co-founder and president of the Sub-Saharan Africa Chamber of Commerce.

Under her direction, the Sub-Saharan Africa Chamber of Commerce has facilitated U.S. business entry into multiple African countries and presented at many international business forums on African trade and investment.

Martey-Ochola, a native of Kenya, advises women’s organizations in the U.S. and Africa, HIV-AIDS intervention organizations and youth entrepreneurship groups, and she has also supported the establishment of computer labs in rural Kenyan schools. She has worked to increase partnerships between U.S. and African universities and assisted college students in securing internships with high-growth companies in Africa.

The Sub-Saharan Africa Chamber of Commerce commended Martey-Ochola for her outstanding leadership, selfless dedication, exemplary public service, creativity and strategic planning.

“From academe to health to accelerating private sector development, she is a Champion of Change who is leaving indelible footprints of progress in the lives of families—from the Horn of Africa to the streets of Philadelphia,” said Vuyo T. Dunjwa, executive chairman of the chamber’s board.

Martey-Ochola has also had a successful career conducting cancer research and teaching biochemistry and pharmaceutical chemistry.

– Christine Fisher

Susan Feinberg joins international business faculty

Dr. Susan Elizabeth Feinberg has joined the Fox School of Business as an associate professor of international business in the Department of Strategic Management.

Feinberg joins the Fox School after serving as an associate professor of international business at Rutgers Business School. Feinberg has also taught at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, and she is currently serving as program chair of the 2012 Academy of International Business Conference in Washington, D.C. 

Feinberg’s research focuses on how changes in countries’ economic and policy environments affect the location and operating decisions of U.S. multinational firms and on intra-firm trade of U.S. multinational firms. She has published nine journal articles, presented at more than 20 conferences and attended 30 invited seminars.

Feinberg is a member of the Academy of Management and the American Economic Association, and she served as an informal advisor to the Kerry-Edwards campaign and the Obama-Biden 2008 campaign.

Feinberg earned her bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, where she graduated cum laude. She earned her PhD in business administration from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota after working in advertising in France for several years.

– Christine Fisher

Message from Dean M. Moshe Porat

Based in Philadelphia. Connected to the world.

The Fox School’s global influence and international business programs are highlighted in this edition of Fox Update. From alumni who are working across the globe to current students who are doing the same through our unique programs, Fox’s influence can be found in all corners of the world.

A chief architect of our worldwide presence is Dr. Arvind Phatak. After 45 years of service, Arvind is retiring, and he recently received a very fitting tribute: a Distinguished Service Award from CUIBE, the Consortium for Undergraduate International Business Education.

In addition to highlighting Dr. Phatak’s career, we showcase our ongoing Passport Night to encourage students to study abroad and the Passport Night Awards, which help a pair of students each semester with travel expenses. To date, we have given over $10,000 to students studying abroad.

I have said that we bring the world to Fox and send Fox into the world. This edition illustrates that point. Our successful partnership with CEFAM in Lyon and International MBAs working with innovative companies in central Paris both show how we dispatch our students into the world.

We also bring the world to Alter Hall. These initiatives include a two-day international business certificate program for University of Ghana Executive MBAs and a model G-20 Summit, organized by the World Affairs Council of Greater Philadelphia, for hundreds of high school students.

Dr. Phatak has said that his interest “has always been making the Fox School of Business a global enterprise.” With international business programs that are consistently ranked among the nation’s best, deep global connections and world-class faculty, the Fox School has achieved just that. We are by no means finished.

M. Moshe Porat, PhD, CPCU
Dean
Fox School of Business
School of Tourism and Hospitality Management
Laura H. Carnell Professor