The School of Management (SOM) this fall has unveiled an Emerging Markets Program, which offers students a new roster of courses taught by faculty who are experts on some of the world's most rapidly growing economies.
The program -- part of SOM's two-year Master of Public and Private Management (M.P.P.M.) degree program -- is among a series of initiatives that have been introduced in the past two years by Dean Jeffrey E. Garten to bring together students with real-world practitioners from around the campus, the country and the globe.
Dean Garten believes that intensifying the international component of the M.P.P.M. program is invigorating SOM's entire curriculum. "Instruction in all the core areas -- finance, business strategy, marketing, to name a few -- is not just geared to show how business operates in New York or San Francisco, but also in Brasilia and Shanghai and must draw from case studies from all parts of the world," explains Dean Garten, a former U.S. undersecretary for international trade and commerce. "A third of our students come from abroad, and our faculty is increasingly international in composition."
Emerging Markets Program. Five courses are being offered in the Emerging Markets Program this fall, and four new faculty have joined SOM's ranks of international business experts: Joseph Blasi, a former senior adviser to the Russian Federation, who is discussing Russia's emerging capitalism in one class; foreign exchange trade expert Walter Molano, who is co-teaching a course on international finance with current Yale faculty member Sylvia Maxfield, associate professor of political science; Albert Fishlow, former deputy assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, who is analyzing the interplay of finance, trade and investment in Latin America; and Nicholas Lardy, a leading authority on the Chinese economy, who is teaching students about the rigors of operating in Asian markets.
Tapping Yale expertise. While the Emerging Markets Program is chiefly housed at SOM, a course on "Legal and Financial Aspects of Investing in Emerging Markets" is both cosponsored by and held at the Law School. The class explores which legal and economic structures are optimal for countries in transition; it is taught by Kenneth French, the Edwin J. Beinecke Professor of Management Studies and Finance, and Alan Schwartz, Sterling Professor of Law.
In addition, Dean Garten is bringing campus business leaders and distinguished Yale graduates to SOM classrooms. This fall David Swenson, Yale's chief investment officer and a former president and chief executive officer of J.P. Morgan Capital Corporation, is sharing his hands-on knowledge about investing with SOM students, while Richard Shreve, a former investment banker and Divinity School graduate, is helping the school's students create a framework for evaluating ethical dilemmas encountered in business.
Global leaders. The president of Toyota and the head of the World Bank are among the global business leaders who will be speaking at SOM this year. Shortly after coming to Yale in 1995, Dean Garten created the International Business Roundtable, a series of talks on international management topics that is free and open to the public. SOM will kick off this year's International Business Roundtable Series with a presentation on Tuesday, Sept. 16, by media mogul Michael R. Bloomberg on "Building the World's Leading Global Information Network." (See "Visiting on Campus," page X.) Other featured speakers this fall will include Rebecca Mark, chief executive officer of Enron Development Corporation, on Oct. 28; James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, on Oct. 29; Hiroshi Okuda, president of Toyota Motor Corporation, on Nov. 11; and Jeff Sagansky, co-president of SONY, on Nov. 18. Watch future issues of the Yale Bulletin & Calendar for further information.
SOM-On-The-Road. In addition to bringing global leaders on campus, Dean Garten is taking SOM students off campus for field trips to such diverse business operations as Credit Suisse First Boston, the New York Stock Exchange, the American Museum of Natural History and IBM Corporation. During each field trip 20 to 30 students, as well as the SOM Dean, faculty and staff, meet with senior executives on-site. The program is designed both to expose SOM students to the insights and decision-making challenges of the business world and to build stronger ties between the sponsoring organizations and the school.
Career development. This year, 100 percent of the SOM Class of 1998 was placed in summer internships. In addition, over the past two years, on-campus recruitment is up 26.4 percent and the average starting salary for SOM alumni increased by $10,000. Dean Garten credits these statistics in part to last year's tripling of Career Development Office staff, the creation of a formalized Professional Strategies Program to help students achieve their career objectives and a new, nine-room interview center for recruiters.