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Thunderbird School

International business school teaches students how to think globally

Since it was founded in 1946, Thunderbird, the Garvin School of International Management in Glendale has been dedicated to training international business managers.

The school is known nationally and international for its high standards of excellence. This year U.S. News & World Report magazine named Thunderbird No. 1 in international business training. Last year, The Wall Street Journal designated the school No. 1 in academic excellence in international business.

Thunderbird administrators say the school’s mission has increased in importance as the United States economy has meshed with businesses in countries throughout the world.

Angel Cabrera, Spanish-born president of Thunderbird, says Thunderbird’s mission at its training sites worldwide is to educate students who can “thrive in a world of cultural differences.” The school now has 1,047 students.

In the past decade, the U.S. Latino business community, in particular, has seen its role grow with the opening of markets in Mexico because of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA.

With the recent passage by Congress of the U.S.-Central America Free Trade Agreement, trade liberalization will open even more markets among five Central American countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. 

Modeled after NAFTA, CAFTA is widely considered to be a stepping stone to the larger Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) that would encompass 34 economies.

The new CAFTA agreement offers Latino businesspeople and managers more opportunities than ever to become a profitable part of the global economy.

“I think U.S. Latinos are in a really good position because they live bicultural lives and can exploit that,” he says. “They are already doing business in one of the biggest international markets in the world, and gives the Latino people an edge when it comes to international business. That’s a great asset.”

One student, Genevieve Houle Gutierrez, says she knew since she was a young girl in Nogales, Ariz., that she would one day be in international business.

“Really, it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be in business in the global marketplace. I grew up in a border town so day-to-day interactions were, for the most part, international. It’s what I’ve always known,” she says.

Gutierrez says that international business presents challenges that match her personal talents. She hopes one day to work in international marketing for the music industry or in international brand management for consumer goods.

“I like the variability of working in a changing environment, with different cultures and in unpredictable situations,” she says. “I have certain strengths, primarily in communication and adaptability, which I think can be well applied in an international environment. I’m at my best when I can apply my strengths, and I can do that in an international forum.”

The Global MBA Program for Latin American managers is one of the school’s fastest growing and most popular courses.

GMBA students are taught by world-renowned faculty at Thunderbird and Tecnologico de Monterrey, who offer courses on basic and advanced global business topics, cross-cultural negotiation and communications, and a wide variety of case studies focused on Latin America. There are 185 students from throughout Latin America in the current class.

Students earn their Global MBA degree through a combination of local class facilitation, distance-learning technology and live state-of-the art satellite broadcasting from Thunderbird’s Glendale and Tecnológico de Monterrey’s Mexico City and Monterrey campuses to numerous classroom locations in six countries: the United States, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, El Salvador and Panama.

In addition, Thunderbird soon will launch a primarily Web-based masters of business administration program called Global MBA on Demand. The program allows the school to enroll working managers worldwide. Two weeks of the 21-month program will be held in Glendale. Two other weeks will be spent in China and France.

Gonzalo de la Melena Jr.is a T-Bird international MBA graduate, founder of the consulting firm Emerging Domestic Market Ventures in Phoenix and a Thunderbird trustee.

De la Melena says that the school provides its students a “world class education.”

“There’s a rich class discussion and international case studies,” he says. “It provides what you need to succeed in today’s global context.”

He adds that T-Bird grads bond and form lifelong personal and professional networks. There are Thunderbird alumni clubs throughout the world, he says.

Cabrera notes that the next area of growth for the international business school is small business.

“We are investing resources in the entrepreneurship area, understanding that most of the economies around the world are fueled and run by small businesses,” he says. Key administrators and faculty are being hired to shore up Thunderbird’s small business curriculum.

“We hope to reach out to the community. We have a number of programs where small business owners can get the knowledge to branch out into the international marketplace,” he says. “They can also use us as a great resource of talent or information.”