Thunderbird consultingteams deliver resultsin emerging markets
InterimPresident
Ambassador Barrettto lead Thunderbird
Dialoguewisdom
111 leadership lessonsfrom historic event
FORADreborn
The hardest class you ever took gets a makeover
magazine
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To Mexicoand beyond
16 spring 2012
TEAMWORK ■ Listen to the quietest voice in the room—Bob Dudley ’79, CEO, BP Group ■
Hire the best-educated, most creative people you can fi nd and then get the hell out of the way—
Craig Barrett, retired CEO and Chairman, Intel ■ Hire the best talent into your organization,
empower them with what they need to move forward, and then let them lead—José María Figue-
res, former President, Costa Rica ■ Make sure that the heap you may be standing upon does
not comprise your own employees—Professor
Christine Pearson, Ph.D., Thunderbird
School of Global Management ■ Give pow-
er to your employees—Maha Shawareb, Vice
President, Business Development Center
■ They were smart enough to get past your in-
terview process. They earned a seat at the table,
so listen to them—Elizabeth Sullivan, Chief
Operating Offi cer, UBS Russia ■ Get the
right talent that is passionate about making a
difference, and let them do what they do best—
Mikan van Zanten, Head of Mainstream
Private Equity, Robeco ■ We need to replace B2B with P2P, people to people—Ekaterina
Walter ’08, Social Media Strategist, Intel ■ Labels are for jam jars, not people—Caroline
Casey, Founder, Kanchi ■ You’re only as good as the people you employ around you—Kath-
erine Garrett-Cox, CEO, Alliance Trust ■ You can never communicate enough—Michael
Zuieback ’91, Executive Vice President, Discount Tire ■ If you’re running a large, complex
organization, you’re not going to do it on your own. You need to develop others and be part of a
team—Jim Balaschak, Partner, Deloitte & Touche ■ The biggest mistake I ever made was
thinking I could do it all—Mar-
ty Evans, Rear Admiral (re-
tired), U.S. Navy ■ When we hire people in our organizations, we have an obligation to remove
the barriers to their success—Marty Evans PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT ■ Go toward your
fear—Gayle Lemmon, Author of “The Dressmaker of Khair Khana” ■ If you’re not passion-
ate about what you’re doing, you need to stop doing it—John Hope Bryant, Founder, Chairman
and CEO, Operation HOPE ■ Denial is the worst enemy in crisis management—Bob Dudley
’79 ■ Acknowledge when you’re wrong—Justin Fox, Editorial Director, Harvard Business
Review ■ Do or do not; there is no try—Brad Feld, Managing Director, Foundry Group (quot-
ing Yoda from “Star Wars”) ■ A small deed done is better than a big deed planned—Craig
Barrett (quoting a fortune cookie message) ■ No risk means no return—Katherine Garrett-
Cox ■ The most common mistake I have seen among leaders is when they believe they know it
all—José María Figueres ■ Listen a lot more than you talk—Shelly M. Esque, President,
Intel Foundation ■ Check your ego at the door so you can walk into a room and listen to every-
body’s opinion—Patricia Meier, CEO, HSM-U.S. ■ Sometimes you get so absorbed in running
your company that you forget to listen—Mia Haugen, Executive Producer, TheStreet ■
Panelists discuss sustainability Nov. 10, 2011, during the Thunderbird Global Business Dialogue in Glendale, Arizona. Participants, from left, include Alice Korngold, Suhas Apte, Tracy Bame, Laura Clise ’08, Jed Emerson and Carrie Norton ’03.
GO TOWARD YOUR FEAR
thunderbird magazine 17
nowledge fl owed from Glendale, Arizona, when more than 1,000 participants gathered to converse with 95 speakers from 79 organizations and 48 countries at the inaugural Thunderbird Global Business Dialogue. “The world needs global leaders,” Thunderbird School of Global Manage-
ment President Ángel Cabrera, Ph.D., said during his welcoming remarks at the Renaissance Glendale Hotel & Spa near campus. “We need people who can seize opportunities created by globalization, who can create value, and who can contribute to a more sustainable and more inclusive global economy—one that does not put at risk those who come behind us and does not leave people out.” Panelists and keynote speakers from government, business and social sector organizations shared ideas on everything from global fi nance to social media strategy during the two-day event Nov. 10-11, 2011.
K
Leadership lessons from theThunderbird Global Business
Dialogue on 11-11-11
Compiled by Daryl James / Photos by Tim Clarke
111
18 spring 2012
Be able to listen. Don’t just be a forceful pounder
of the table—Terry Newendorp, Chairman and
CEO, Taylor-DeJongh ■ We make mistakes
every day. We need to surround ourselves with
people who tell us when we’re wrong—Bruce
Grossman, Board Member, Arca-Contal ■
Ego can be a problem if you think you have all
the answers. On the other hand, indecisiveness
can be a problem. There is a difference between
ego and confi dence—Larry Thomas, CEO,
Fender Musical Instruments ■ You cannot
assume you will always hold the higher ground.
Partnerships are crucial—R. Paul Kinscherff,
Chief Financial Offi cer, Boeing Internation-
al ■ Let people see the person behind the pro-
fessional—Katharina Lichtner, Managing
Director, Capital Dynamics ■ Girls, “ambi-
tion” is not a dirty word. Don’t apologize for want-
ing to be out there—Gayle Lemmon VISION ■
Numbers plus creativity equals strategy—Mark
Penn, Global CEO, Burson-Marsteller ■
Don’t think about the present. Think about what
will exist in fi ve years and start planning for it
now, because it will happen in two years—Matt
Berg ’05, Millennium Villages Project, Co-
lumbia University’s Earth Institute ■ If you
don’t know your customers, you will not provide
vision for your organization—Kurt Geiger,
Chairman of Advisory Board, Alpha Associates ■ Totally focus on the customer you are serv-
ing—Merle Hinrichs ’65, Executive Chairman, Global Sources ■ Understand your customer.
That’s the most important thing—Parag Saxena, CEO and Founding Partner, New Silk Route
■ The most common leadership mistake I see is people relying on the past to defi ne the future—
Nico Posner ’00, Principal Product Manager, LinkedIn ■ Even great leaders fi ght the last
war—Stuart Holliday, President, Meridian International Center ■ You need a true north.
Otherwise, the world will whip you around from one crisis to the next, and the urgent will always
crowd out the important—John Hope Bryant ■ We need a North Star out there that illuminates
our short-term decision-making process—José María Figueres ■ Even when you’re under fi re,
you need a quiet sense of optimism that comes from having a clear direction—Bob Dudley ’79
FAILURE CAN BE A BADGE OF HONOR
thunderbird magazine 19
Thunderbird Global Business Dialogue participants attend a leadership panel that includes Thunderbird Trustee Merle Hinrichs ’65.
INNOVATION ■ Technology is not the barrier; imagination is—Shelly M. Esque ■ Solutions to
the complex problems of the 21st century will not be found in the mainstream, but rather in the
fringe—Jed Emerson, Executive Vice President of Strategic Development, ImpactAssets ■
Don’t punish failure—Michelle Guthrie, Director of Strategic Business Development, Google
Asia Pacifi c ■ Failure can be a badge of honor—Mark Heesen, President, National Venture
Capital Association ■ Let the employees know that it’s OK to make mistakes, and it’s OK to try
new things—Thor Hauge, Vice President of Business Development, Western Union ■ Failure
is not the worst thing. It’s how you wear your failure and how you learn from your failure that counts—
Caroline Casey ■ Let the ideas fl ow to the top—R. Paul Kinscherff ■ Create a culture of col-
laboration—Larry Thomas ■ Don’t overwork your team. Once you overload people, they will spend
all their time just getting their basic job done. They won’t have the bandwidth to innovate—Sunder
Kimatrai ’92, Senior Vice President for Asia Pacifi c, Twentieth Century Fox International
20 spring 2012
■ The best way to foster innovation is through education, education and some more education—
Paul Huibers ’90, General Manager for Central America, Caribbean, Andean Region and
Southern Cone, Eli Lilly & Co. ■ Challenge the old ideas; ask questions in a different way—
Tracy Bame, President, Freeport-McMoRan Foundation ■ You need to fi nd the synergy
between the public, private and social sectors—Wiebe Boer, Ph.D., CEO, The Tony Elumelu
Foundation ■ If you are the benchmark, you have to constantly improve what you have built to
keep others
from getting
ahead of you—Danny Ayala, Executive Vice President, Wells Fargo Bank ■ There are no
complex problems. There are simple problems that we make complex. If you break every problem
down into smaller and smaller pieces, you solve them one step at a time—Rashid Skaf ’93, Pres-
ident and CEO, AMX ■ I’m a big fan of history. You can’t reinvent the wheel every fi ve minutes.
You’ve got to look at some tried-and-true solutions to things—Lynn Sherr, former Correspon-
dent, ABC News GLOBAL MINDSET ■ A global mindset is the activity of reaching out, engag-
ing and being inclusive; it is not a destination—Merle Hinrichs ’65 ■ No leader today can afford
to be an ostrich—Mark Penn ■ Immerse yourself in other cultures—Yousuf A. Alireza, Director
and Partner, Xenel Industries ■ Be a continual learner—Felicia Fields, Vice President of
Human Resources, Ford Motor Co. ■ When you travel, do less of the touristy things and im-
merse yourself in the local culture—Sonita Lontoh, Head of Marketing, Trilliant ■ You have
to be able to deal with paradoxes—Milind Sathe ’91, CEO, Nidan Juices ■ Go beyond the
myopia of your own realm of affairs—Indu Shahani, Ph.D., Sheriff of Mumbai ■ A global
leader must function like a bridge. You must build connections between people, cultures, busi-
nesses and locations—Peter Yam, Chairman, Emerson Electric ■ Connect, create and con-
tribute—Ángel Cabrera, Ph.D., President, Thunderbird ■ A global mindset has never been
more important as the developed countries experience slower rates of growth—Joseph Quinlan,
Managing Director and Chief Market Strategist, U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private
Wealth Management ■ If you don’t speak a second language, you are falling behind—Kevin
Sellers, Vice President of Advertising and
Online Marketing, Intel ■ Languages open
universes—Athanasios Moulakis, President
and Provost, American University of Iraq, Su-
laimani ■ Even if you share the same passport,
there are many different cultures and socioeco-
nomic differences in any one place—Sherry
Cameron ’87, CEO, Bill Johnson’s Big Apple
Restaurants ■ Expose yourself to new ideas,
and do it again and again and again—Katharina
Lichtner, Managing Director Capital Dynam-
ics ■ Negotiation can be a discussion, but fi rst
you need to understand the frames of reference of Thunderbird Global Business Dialogue participants mark their home countries on a world map Nov. 10, 2011.
LANGUAGES OPEN UNIVERSES
thunderbird magazine 21
the people you’re having the discussion with—Terry Newendorp SOCIAL MEDIA ■ After China
and India, Facebook is the largest nation in the world—Ángel Cabrera, Ph.D. ■ The communication
platform is different today. You cannot take the loudspeaker and pretend you’re going to have one-way
communication—Manuel Sánchez, President and CEO BBVA U.S. ■ Naming and shaming in
social media brings the transparency necessary for us all to move forward—Suhas Apte, Vice Pres-
ident of Global Sustainability, Kimberly-Clark ■ People come up with good ideas all the time.
The trick is, can you connect that idea with someone who can make it evolve into something? Today
with the Internet and Skype, LinkedIn, Facebook and all the tools we have, you can have an idea that
immediately becomes reality—Ian McCluskey ’82, Principal, Thought Leadership International
■ Customers are now the content creators. They are defi ning your brand—Ekaterina Walter ’08 ■
You need to enable every employee within your company to engage online with your customers—
Ekaterina Walter ’08 ■ This world has been built on fi nancial leverage; now it will be built on social
leverage—Howard Lindzon ’91, CEO and Founder, StockTwits ■ There are no social media
experts—Howard Lindzon ’91 ■ Delete “personal branding” from your vocabulary. Just be authen-
tic—Brad Feld ■ Egypt was overthrown with Twitter—Brad Feld ■ We are no longer millions of
people. We are individuals—Michael Márquez, Partner, CODE Advisors ■ Do yourself a favor,
every single person here who spends 30 minutes a day watching television news or reading the news-
Retired Intel CEO and Chairman Craig Barrett, Ph.D., delivers the lunch keynote address Nov. 10, 2011, in Glendale, Arizona.
22 spring 2012
paper: Stop, you’re wasting your time—Brad Feld ■ The only place you
should read a magazine is in the bathroom—Brad Feld ■ Having to rely
on a little machine 24/7 is tough. It has taken out personal communica-
tion. It has taken out understanding amongst cultures—Bruce Gross-
man ■ Just to annoy the Twitter people, I brought a newspaper—Pro-
fessor Jarl Kallberg, Ph.D., Thunderbird EMERGING MARKETS ■
As the emerging economies begin to develop, you’re going to see ideas
coming at a more and more rapid pace—R. Paul Kinscherff ■ China is
a miracle—Professor Roe Goddard, Ph.D., Thunderbird ■ China has
been one of the most remarkable stories of economic development the
world has seen since a small colonial nation called the United States
emerged—Doug Guthrie, Dean, The George Washington University
School of Business ■ The divide between the haves and the have-nots
is increasing in India, but the whole base has moved up as well—Lalit
Ahuja, Chairman and President, Target Corp. India ■ Every six
months, Russia is a new country. You have to run to keep up—Sergey
Riabokobylko, Co-founder, Cushman & Wakefi eld ■ In Nigeria they joke about being on the
brink of the BRINC; some already call it BRICS to include South Africa—Wiebe Boer, Ph.D. ■
The entrepreneurs and value creators of the fu-
ture will come from all corners of the planet—
John Cook ’79, Chairman, Rock Lake As-
sociates ■ Ideas no longer fl ow from the
developed world into the developing world. Our
best ideas today come from places such as
Mexico or Turkey—Manuel Sánchez ■ Today,
venture capitalists have to follow entrepreneurs
not just in Silicon Valley, but around the world—
Mark Heesen SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY ■
Take as many people as you can on the jour-
ney—Katharina Lichtner ■ If we leave too
many people behind they will be lost, and lost
people are dangerous—Katharina Lichtner ■ If you do things the right way, life will pay you
back—José Antonio Rivero Larrea, CEO and Chairman, Grupo Ferrominero ■ If all you
focus on is the fi nancial return and don’t take into account the social impact, you probably will
have a less sustainable busi-
ness—Wiebe Boer, Ph.D.
■ Foster an environment where your employees can be socially responsible—Ted Sarandos,
Chief Content Offi cer, Netfl ix ■ If you’re coming out of business school today and you don’t
understand social entrepreneurship, you’re not really prepared to go into the workplace—Bill
Carter, Africa Diamond Leader, Ashoka ■ The greatest opportunity for leadership and talent
TAKE AS MANY PEOPLE AS Y
Burson-Marsteller Global CEO Mark Penn delivers the concluding keynote address Nov. 11, 2011, in Glendale, Arizona.
thunderbird magazine 23
development among corporate executives is serving on nonprofi t boards of directors—Alice Korn-
gold, President and CEO, Korngold Consulting ■ Do not rob us because you can—Indu Shah-
ani, Ph.D. (quoting an Occupy Wall Street sign) ■ The idea of blaming the poor when really it was
reckless risk-taking by the rich is outrageous. There needs to be engaging debate, not fi ghts between
the top 1 percent and the bottom 99 percent—Matthew Bishop, Chief Business Writer, The Econ-
omist ■ Financial literacy is the civil rights issue of our time. Without a bank account, you are an
economic slave—John Hope Bryant ■ If you build a compelling product and create value, the dol-
lars will follow—Larry Thomas ■ Sustainability has to equal profi tability—Professor Greg Unruh,
Ph.D., Thunderbird ■ There don’t have to be tradeoffs between people, planet and profi ts—Laura
Clise ’08, Director of Sustainable Development & Continuous Improvement, Areva ■ We
have to create the enterprises of tomorrow in ways that use resources differently and impact communi-
ties differently. We have to do so in ways that actually restore the economy, as opposed to depleting
it—Carrie Norton ’03,
Founder and President
Green Business BASE Camp ■ Business leaders today have to look broadly at what their obliga-
tions are. It’s one thing to make sure they are running a good business, that they’re innovative and that
they have quality products. But at the same time, they have to be good citizens. They have to be good
stewards of the planet—Mark Penn ■ There is no planet B—José María Figueres
S YOU CAN ON THE JOURNEY
Social media panelists, from left, include Howard Lindzon ’91, Brad Feld, Michael J. Marquez, Nico Posner ’00 and Ekaterina Walter ’08.
Save the dates ■ Global Business Dialogue Berlin: Beyond Uncertain Times, May 25, 2012, Germany (Thunderbird alumni reunion May 24-27)
■ Thunderbird Global Business Dialogue, April 11-12, 2012, Glendale, Arizona
More onlineWatch session videos, download podcasts and read more at www.thunderbird.edu/dialogue
