Wharton’s EMBA program is known for having a global focus with its International Seminar; however the addition of global modular courses has taken this to a whole new level. Launched in 2010, the week-long  mini-courses offer students opportunities to learn about topics such as financial institutions in Abu  Dhabi, supply chain management in Shanghai, innovation in India, and leadership and conflict resolution in Rwanda.

Having recently returned from the course in Rwanda, we asked EMBA students Marla Bleavins and Bill Williams to tell us about their experience. Here’s what Marla, a second-year student at Wharton | San Francisco who is a special projects manager for Los Angeles World Airports, had to say:

“Most Americans know about Rwanda because of the tragedy of genocide that happened there in 1994, but we aren’t as familiar with the progress the country has made since then. It’s the fastest growing economy in Africa and one of the safest and least corrupt countries on that continent so I was intrigued to learn more about it through this course, which was taught by Prof. Katherine Klein and called, ‘Leadership, Conflict, and Change.’

When Brian Davis, a first-year EMBA student, signed up for a six-hour tour of the Gettysburg battlefield, it wasn’t because he’s a history buff. Rather, the director of communications for Allegiant Travel Company in Las Vegas, NV saw it as an opportunity to learn more about leadership and spend the day with classmates.  

“I’m still in awe at the opportunity to be here at Wharton and it’s such a short window that I want to say yes to any opportunity to learn that fits into my schedule,” says Davis, who recently spent a class weekend in Philadelphia with his fellow first-year classmates from Wharton | San Francisco. The Gettysburg tour was an optional Leadership Development Workshop offered to students from both coasts.

Congratulations to Sumant Ramachandra, WG’09, who was recently named one of the 100 most inspiring people by Pharma Voice. With an MD and PhD already under his belt, he entered Wharton’s EMBA program to gain a business education and transition from technologist to business leader. We asked Sumant, who is now the chief scientific officer of Hospira Inc. in Lake Forest, Ill., to tell us more about how his Wharton education has impacted his career. Here’s what he had to say:

Before coming to Wharton’s EMBA program, Hanson Wong, a principal consultant at Risk Management Solutions in New Jersey, had never swum in the waters of Antarctica, hiked across a desert or summited a volcano. In fact, he had never even gone camping much less rappelled down mountains or zip lined   across steep chasms. However, during his two years at Wharton, he did all of these things through the Wharton Leadership Ventures Program.

“My first venture was to Antarctica, which most people only ever see from a cruise. We not only camped there, but a few of us also decided to jump in the water twice. How many people can say they did that?” says Wong, noting that he added on a week of hiking in Patagonia after that venture.

Registrants from 30 states and 14 countries joined us last week for our first-ever Webcast event.  During the interactive presentation, streamed live from Philadelphia and San Francisco, participants heard from administrators, faculty, students, and alumni.  It was a great opportunity to learn more about Wharton’s MBA Program for Executives.  If you missed it, it’s not too late. You can watch the replay.

The interactive presentation began with Vice Dean Anjani Jain providing an overview of our program.  He was joined by Wharton Professors David Bell, Peggy Bishop Lane, and Witold Henisz who shared their experiences teaching in our program.  Students and alumni on both coasts then discussed the benefits of the Wharton MBA degree and how they handled the challenge of working while they earned it.

Although we covered a lot of topics during the Webcast, you still might have questions. If so, please contact us at either our San Francisco or Philadelphia Office. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

While the second-year Wharton EMBA students recently headed to China for their international seminar trips, first-year students had a unique weekend of their own when the Wharton | San Francisco students flew to Philadelphia to attend classes. The annual Philadelphia trip is a highlight of the program and a chance for first-year students on both coasts to meet each other and expand their networks.

The weekend’s activities kicked off with a speed networking event. First-year Wharton | San Francisco student Eric Sheng, who is operations general manager at Nvidia in Santa Clara, explains, “We got to request the background of the types of people we wanted to meet at that event. I spent most of my life on the West Coast so I was really interested to hear about industry issues from people on the East Coast,” he says. “It was kind of exhausting to condense all of that into five-minute conversations, but during the hour I got to meet 12 really interesting people.”

After that, there were plenty of other opportunities to network and bond at dinners and happy hours. Sheng says, “We even had a dance off between the two coasts and I’m happy to say that the West Coast won.  It was fun watching everyone break out of their shell and getting to know them in an informal setting.”

Sheng, who arrived on Tuesday and departed the following Monday, says that he also made sure to tour the campus and meet full-time MBA students as well. “There is a sense of belonging that you get from visiting the main campus. That weekend, there were plenty of student activities going on like a club expo and happy hours organized by the full-time MBA students so  I attended a couple of those and plan to build the bond with that group too.”

On his last day on the East Coast, Sheng also participated in a Leadership Trek for EMBA students to Gettysburg, led by Prof. Michael Useem.  “About 40 students from both coasts went on the trek and I got to know even more East Coast students as well as participate in great discussions about leadership,” he says.

First-year East Coast EMBA student Jennifer McGrew, vice president of Brandywine Global Investment Management in Philadelphia and the social coordinator for her class, helped organize many of the social events for the weekend. She says, “Beforehand, I got in touch with my counterpart on the West Coast to talk about what we could do to keep students engaged with more social activities.  On Friday, we had a school-sponsored event and then we continued networking at a happy hour.  Starting with the speed networking event all the way through to the Gettysburg Trek, the whole weekend was filled with opportunities to get to know each other.”

McGrew adds, “The program is like a three-legged stool with academics, career progression, and the network.  The relationships you build in the program will last a lifetime and the weekend was a great time to make more of those connections. It really adds to the overall experience to build this amazing network of really interesting people who work in all kinds of different industries and locations.”

As director of Leadership and Management Programs at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and a senior lecturer at Columbia University, Lt. Colonel Todd Henshaw has taught leadership for more than a decade. During that time, he started learning more about Wharton’s leadership programs by teaching Executive Education courses and participating in Leadership Center programs. He even spoke at Wharton’s annual Leadership Conference.

Fortunately, he was so impressed by what he saw at Wharton that he decided to come on board after he retired from the military. Now, as director of Wharton’s Executive Leadership Program, he’s assessing and enhancing many of the leadership offerings for our MBA Exec students. To learn more about what he has in store for us, we asked him to share his thoughts on Wharton’s Leadership Program and his plans for the coming year. Here’s what he said:

“I’ve always been interested in working with leadership programs that I consider to be cutting edge. The program at Wharton is probably the best leadership program associated with an MBA in the U.S. and I say that based on the way it engages students and teaches and embraces leadership in different ways. It’s a comprehensive approach that is more than just a single course or coaching.

That said, there is still room to grow and I find that exciting. The first thing I will do is a needs assessment and that means talking to faculty, administrators, students, and alumni about what leadership looks like at the executive level. Executive MBA students need to be prepared for their current roles as well as their future roles as senior-level leaders. And within the EMBA classes, students are quite diverse, ranging from CEOs and entrepreneurs to vice presidents and senior managers. I need to design a program that works for everyone, but also allows tailoring to meet individual needs.

Students in an executive MBA program are typically expected to lead, but leadership isn’t something they’ve necessarily had a lot of instruction in. So when they are at Wharton, we want to prepare them for higher levels of responsibility with a grounding in leadership education and theoretical knowledge that they can apply to their own experiences.

In conjunction with classes, a way to achieve that is through experiential learning opportunities that we call the Wharton Leadership Ventures. The power of the ventures is taking people out of their normal routine and dropping them into a different context where the focus is on learning without distractions. Most people say these are life changing types of experiences. If they have a good learning experience, people tend to leave thinking differently about themselves, their organizations, and their roles as leaders.

I want to find out what types of Leadership Ventures might be best suited for an executive audience. I just took a group of Wharton executive MBA alumni on the Normandy Leadership Experience where we visited battlefields like Omaha Beach and talked about what happened there -- actually seeing how it looked at low tide. I want to design more experiential learning programs for EMBA students and alumni that meet their specific goals and objectives.

There are many great things going on at Wharton and the School definitely has the most progressive leadership program that I’ve seen at a business school in the U.S. I don’t want to reinvent the wheel, but rather make positive changes to ensure that our executive MBA students have the best experience possible.”

We welcome Todd to Wharton’s MBA Program for Executives and look forward to new Leadership Ventures and Experiences!

Related blogs:

Wharton MBA Exec Alumni Learn about Leadership and WWII History during Trip to Normandy
"Remote" Learning: Wharton EMBA Students Talk about Leadership Venture in Antarctica

For alumni of Wharton’s MBA for Executives program who also happen to be students of history, the recent Leadership Experience in Normandy organized by Wharton’s Leadership Ventures and Academy Leadership was the perfect way to combine experiential learning about leadership and World War II. The Leadership Experience - led by retired U.S Army Lt. Colonel Todd Henshaw, director of Wharton’s Executive Leadership Program, Dennis Haley, founder and CEO of Academy Leadership, and author Ed Ruggero – took alumni on a very unique tour of Normandy, focusing on critical leadership lessons for today’s executives.

We asked three of our alumni who went on the trip, Roger Crandall, a 2002 graduate of our East Coast program who is now president and CEO of MassMutual (he will become chairman of the board in December) in Springfield, Mass., Dr. Leslie Shaff, a 2006 graduate of our East Coast Program who is now chief surgical services officer at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Mass., and Celine Wei, a 2009 graduate of Wharton | San Francisco who is vice president of business development at Florens Container Services Ltd., to share some of the highlights of what they saw and learned.

Here’s what Roger had to say: “I had just joined the School’s Leadership Advisory Board when I heard about this trip. Not only am I a history buff, but I’m a World War II history buff and had never been to Normandy so this trip was a good fit.

“Starting at Pegasus Bridge, we worked our way from one end of the region to the other, talking about war strategy and tactics and looking at each piece of a battle in bite-size chunks.  And then we turned it around and looked at the German side and compared their leadership to the American command.

“I’m a huge fan of experiential learning so I got a lot out of this trip. It not only reinforced my belief that leadership is an integral part of the business school curriculum, but that the same leadership issues have been around for thousands of years. Leaders have always had to think about whether there is good communication, whether their troops understand their intent, and whether their troops are empowered to make decisions. Those things transcend time.

“While the history lessons were amazing, what really made this a great trip were the people. Other than my mother and sisters who joined me on the trip – we left spouses and kids at home - and a director of Wharton’s EMBA program, I didn’t previously know any of the other members of our group. It turned out that there were about 15 alumni and guests from very diverse age groups and backgrounds.  Todd, Dennis and Ed did a great job of actively involving everyone in robust discussions and there were takeaways for everyone. One of my sisters even found leadership lessons for parenting her teenage girls.

“After you graduate from Wharton, you sometimes lose sight of how powerful it can be to get a group of people together to learn and discuss a common topic of interest. To be able to recapture that on this type of trip was great.”

Leslie Shaff says, “I was interested in this trip because my husband loves history and has always wanted to visit the Normandy beaches so this was a great opportunity for both of us. And based on my experience coming to Philadelphia every other weekend during school, I knew that every detail would be well organized and our time and effort would be spent learning and experiencing rather than worrying about how to get to the next place.

“The five-day trip was wonderful! Starting with dinner at our superb hotel on the first night in Paris to our talks on the beaches, the trip was everything I hoped it would be. In Normandy, one could really imagine what it was like to have landed during D-Day, what people were feeling, and what the generals were thinking. We talked about what they did right, what didn’t work, and why D-Day turned out to be such a crucial event in the war. The experience was educational as well as fun.

“In addition, we spent our evenings at a beautiful chateau in Normandy and had lovely dinners where we talked with everyone in our group. It was a great way to experience the countryside and what happened there with a diverse group of people who have a similar interest in history.

“I would absolutely recommend this type of trip to other alumni. I want to know when and where Wharton will organize the next trip for MBA Exec alumni!”

Celine adds, “When I heard about this trip, I knew I wanted to go. Not only is Wharton known for its Leadership Program, but it was an opportunity to go to France and reconnect with other alumni. And coming from China, I wanted to learn about WWII history from the U.S. and European perspectives so this trip was particularly interesting to me.

“One of the highlights of the trip was the chateau. It was in the countryside in a quiet setting so our group had dinners together more like a family and could really talk about the day’s events. Each evening, we’d have a discussion about what we learned and how that linked to our own organizational experiences.

“Once you graduate, there aren’t that many chances to get back together with a group like this to discuss common topics. Being on this trip reminded you that you belong to the Wharton community, which is a special group. Plus, not too many people have the chance to visit Normandy with experts like Todd, Dennis, and Ed telling you about the history, leading discussions, and teaching leadership lessons – you’d never get all that on another tour.”

We’ll be sure to keep everyone posted on upcoming trips! Thanks to Roger, Leslie, and Celine for sharing their experiences.

When Vicki Poponi was considering executive MBA programs, her primary goal was moving out of her operations position in a paper manufacturing plant – where her daily attire was jeans and steel-tip boots -- and into a business management role.  However, the chemical engineer knew that making this type of move would require an MBA from a top school so she applied to Wharton’s MBA for Executives Program.

“I had seen a bunch of people in manufacturing get MBAs, yet still couldn’t make that transition into the corporate side of the business.  But with Wharton’s reputation, I knew that my education would really open up doors for me – and it did many times,” she says.

After receiving approval from her employer to participate in career search opportunities, the first door opened toward the end of her time in Wharton’s EMBA program when she was going through the resume review process.  A classmate who worked at AlliedSignal saw her resume and thought she might be a good candidate for a management position there.  It turned out that she was a good fit and was hired after graduation in 1998 as director of worldwide operations for AlliedSignal’s Garrett Turbocharging business.

Once at AlliedSignal, she quickly moved into the position of director of acquisition integration thermal systems as well as general manager of thermal systems and vice president of strategic growth for the Garrett Turbocharging business. “Not only did I go from a local job to a global one, but I gained instant credibility. When people saw that I went to Wharton, I stood out and they viewed me as smart and capable.  Getting out of the paper plant would have been a lot harder and taken a lot more time without my Wharton degree and the connections I made in school,” says Poponi.

In 2005, her Wharton MBA helped open yet another door when she was hired by American Honda Motor Co., Inc. as senior manager of product planning in Torrance, CA.  She explains, “Honda took a risk on me because most people at Honda start right after college and never leave.  There is very little turnover and it’s rare for them hire from the outside for senior management.  But I think they recognized that I have a skill set that is transferable – my toolbox was extended because of my Wharton education and the tools I gained at Wharton can fit anywhere.”

Since then, her position has been expanded to assistant vice president of product planning with additional responsibilities for strategic planning, market research, and quality assurance.  Given her success at Honda, it’s not surprising that Poponi recently was selected as one of the top 100 leading women in the North American auto industry by Automotive News.

Poponi says that in addition to her ability to move across functions and up the corporate ladder, her MBA degree also has greatly increased her confidence. “Just knowing that I was able to get admitted and then succeed in such a rigorous program with all of the challenges that come with having a full-time job and family helped me realize that I can accomplish anything.”

For Wharton MBA Exec alumna Maxine Gowen, staying connected with the School is very important. Most recently, the founding president and CEO of Trevena, Inc., a privately held pharmaceutical company located in King of Prussia, Pa., came back to the Philadelphia campus as a judge in the final round of Wharton’s Business Plan Competition. We asked her to talk about her interactions with the School and why she stays involved. Here’s what she said:

For 20 years, Wharton Executive MBA alumnus Rick Rockelli had worked for leading Congressional-based publishers in the private sector. However, after reading an article in The Washington Post about the Close Up Foundation – an organization that helps students become informed and engaged citizens in the U.S. democracy -- the course of his career literally changed overnight.

The cover story of the of the Spring 2010 Wharton Magazine features Brian Murphy, WG'08, and the story of how his career has gone from energy trading to cake baking.  The article, Baking Up a Miracle, explains the challenges Murphy faces doing business on a an island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. 

A civil engineer by training, Nichole Jordan wanted to gain more business knowledge in order to further her management career at Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E).  However, with several promotions under her belt, she didn’t want to take two years off to pursue a full-time MBA -- not to mention she had a mortgage to pay.

Based in San Francisco, she was particularly interested in the MBA for Executives Program at Wharton | San Francisco, but she faced two significant challenges. The first was that no other PG&E employee had ever attended Wharton’s West Coast program so she was in new territory asking for every other Friday off to attend classes. The second hurdle was that there was no sponsorship program in place yet at her company.

Not one to shy away from challenges, Jordan not only approached her boss about needing a modified schedule for two years, but she also took it upon herself to help create a fellowship program for employees interested in pursuing their executive MBA degrees at top schools in the region.

“Overall, the company was very supportive of my attending Wharton’s EMBA program and very receptive to the idea of a fellowship program, which was officially created during my second year at Wharton,” she says.

Rand Rosenberg, who is a senior vice president of strategy and development for PG&E Corporation and oversees the fellowship program, says, “To start a program like that required a herculean effort at a big corporation like ours and it  took a high performer like Nichole to enable this to happen. An appealing aspect of this fellowship program is that we already know who these participating employees are and, more importantly, they know us and what they are getting into. That is a huge benefit. I’d like to see us do more fellowships as time goes by.”

The company’s expectation, he notes, is that sponsoring employees will help develop senior leaders. “The skills and insights that they gain through attending the Wharton program have direct applicability to running and leading our business.”

Jordan, who graduated from Wharton in 2008, says that the fellowship program reflects how committed the company is to leadership development and continuous education. “’I’ve been promoted three times since I began the MBA for Executives program at Wharton and now am director of contact center operations where I oversee all four of our contact centers in California.

”Tanya Moniz-Witten, who is currently in her second year at Wharton | San Francisco and sponsored by PG&E through the fellowship program, credits Jordan with paving the way for other employees. “The company was very supportive. They view the fellowship as an investment in human capital and a way to strengthen and build internal leadership,” she says.

As for why she wanted to attend Wharton, she explains that she wanted a program that would work for her schedule, but also maintain the rigor of a full-time MBA program.  And she wanted classmates with similar amounts of work experience to enable more knowledge sharing. She says, “Sitting in on a class, I loved the engagement of the students and the deep level of detail they went into as well as the applicability of the curriculum to what was going on in the world.”

Looking back, she says the Wharton Executive MBA program has been an “amazing” experience.  “I can bring concepts from my finance classes into discussions with my team or our CFO because my knowledge base is so much stronger now. My questions are more insightful and can help the company with business decisions.”

In her first year in Wharton’s EMBA Program, Sarah Sullivan, a program analyst at the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, DC, heard about the social impact projects in Wharton’s Global Consulting Practicum (GCP). They sounded like a good fit with her growing interest in social enterprises in developing countries, but she wanted to finish her core courses before signing up.

So after completing her first year courses as well as an independent study over the summer for a small beeswax producing company in Cameroon, she and five EMBA classmates signed up for the GCP. The course typically pairs teams of Wharton full-time and executive MBA students and faculty with teams from partner universities in countries such as China, India, Peru, and Israel to consult with a client company interested in entering or expanding its position in the U.S. market. However, their social impact project was a bit unique in that it involved working with a partnership between the University of Pennsylvania, government of Botswana, and the University of Botswana to build capacity in Botswana in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Having recently returned from a visit to Botswana for the GCP project, we asked Sullivan and her teammate William “Willy” McColgan to share some of the highlights of their trip with us. Here’s what Sullivan had to say:

“Since we left at the end of December, everything was still closed for the holidays in Botswana so we spent the first four days in South Africa and went on safari. It was a great opportunity to get to know my classmates even better and build a stronger foundation for our group.

When we went to Gaborone, Botswana, we first met the University of Botswana business students who were working with us on the project to hammer out our goals and what we would be doing for our client. We then met with a lot of people in Gaborone – doctors, people from the Center for Disease Control, the Ministry of Health, and a few business leaders and citizens. We even got a tour of the capital and a neighboring village, which was a chance to see more of the country and get a better feel for the culture.

We were blown away by how developed Botswana is compared to many other African countries. Yet despite their development and healthcare infrastructure, it has the highest prevalence of HIV with 25% of the population infected. There is not enough capacity in terms of beds, space, medicine, and number of hours with doctors and staff. Seeing that was really hard. And it made coordinating the work really challenging because you could spend hours on this fascinating project.

While there, we did identify a lot of issues that the partnership is facing. We’ll now conduct more research on the partnership and what needs to be done to sustain its funding with a long-term strategy. Our goal is to have specific recommendations in place by May.

This experience has confirmed my interest in doing business development and strategic planning for social enterprises in developing countries in the future. It also made me realize what an incredible opportunity I’ve had at Wharton that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I’ve travelled to new places, met a lot of great people, seen other organizations in different environments, and gotten a world view of society. This was a capstone experience for me!”

McColgan agrees that the GCP trip was a wonderful experience. Here’s what he said about the project:
“When I first heard about the GCP’s social impact projects, I thought that no matter what else I do in the EMBA program, this is something I would look back on years from now and say it was really worthwhile and made an impact.

Once we arrived in Botswana, we headed straight over the border into South Africa for a safari to get adjusted to the time difference and prepare for the week ahead. What I remember the most from those days was getting stuck in the mud as it started to get dark and imagining all the things moving around you as well as a toga party on the game reserve on New Year’s Eve.

When we got to Botswana, we spent a lot of time planning and discussing our project and meeting with hospital staff, government representatives, and our University of Botswana counterparts. Later in the week, we went on the medical wards and met with residents from Penn’s Medical School as well as a Penn School of Nursing faculty member doing research on sabbatical. The University of Pennsylvania has certainly made an impact in Botswana. Hopefully our Wharton EMBA GCP team can help this continue.

This will definitely be a highlight of my time at Wharton. And I certainly strengthened my relationships with my classmates during that time, which is lasting. We’ll always have Africa!”

Many thanks to Sarah and Willy for sharing their GCP experiences. Learn more about the GCP.

Related blog: Wharton's Global Consulting Practicum EMBA Students Build International Teams While Working and Having Fun

Chris Dickey had a Doctorate in Public Health, but his job as general manager of a health services company in Manhattan wasn’t fulfilling his goal of making a real impact on a large number of people’s lives. To change that, he enrolled in Wharton’s MBA for Executives Program in 2006 where he seized the opportunity to brainstorm with classmates whenever he could about possible business plans. Soon after he graduated, he and a partner had a plan in place to create Healthpoint Services, a market-based approach to meeting the health needs of consumers at the base of the economic pyramid. In addition to providing clean water, the business also provides medical clinics in remote villages that connect patients to doctors via videoconferencing technology and remote diagnostics.

It’s been about 18 months since he graduated so we asked Chris to share some of the highlights of his unique entrepreneurial experiences with us. In addition to sending us a video video from a recent trip to India, here’s what he had to say:

“Poor people in the developing world typically don’t have access to clean water and affordable, high-quality health care. We set out to change that through a village-based unit called a Healthpoint that combines a Reverse Osmosis plant attached to a raw water source with the latest in telemedicine technology, approved drugs, and 65 diagnostic tests (and counting) that cover a range of common illnesses.

My partner, Allen Hammond, and I are convinced that we are among the pioneers of this new market-based approach to meeting the health needs of this vast group of consumers making and spending less than about $3 per day. We believe that a commercial venture focused on delivering high-quality care at an affordable price will create efficiencies, economies of scale, and a profitable, scalable company that will transform health outcomes for millions of people.

We officially launched the first three Healthpoints in India last October to some fanfare – both the Punjab Governor and Finance Minister were there as well as the national media. The politicians were so impressed with the operation that they asked us to build 600 more units in the next three years!

I recently returned from a visit to the Healthpoints, which are in Mallan, Doda, and Kotbhai, and also to our new call center based in Bathinda. I’m delighted to say that the units are all thriving, even after such a short time. The waiting rooms are full, people are lining up with 20 liter jugs to purchase clean water, and the staff is thrilled to be part of a revolutionary effort to provide access to health care for rural villagers.

During that trip, I watched a follow-up visit to the Healthpoint in Mallan by a woman who had been treated by us for joint pain a week before. She came to review her progress on the prescribed medicines and to get further instructions. She appeared to be very content with her treatment, which cost her 30 rupees (about $0.65) plus the cost of the medicines. Her doctor, too, was happy with the outcome. The fact that the doctor and patient were looking at one another through video screens seemed not to register to either of them.

The next morning, we drove to Doda, a village of about 1,500 families, nearly all of whom make a living from the vast farmland that surrounds it. When we arrived at the Healthpoint, several men were packing their 20 liter jugs full of water (which cost them 2 rupees) on the backs of their bicycles. One of the amazing aspects of this company is that getting the water has become a man’s job in these towns, replacing a traditional woman’s chore. We think it’s because the Healthpoints are also high tech gathering places and getting the water is now a cool thing to do for the men!

Inside the Healthpoint, I joined a consultation in progress. A farm worker was suffering from pains in his shoulder and side. He had been to the local government clinic where he was given vitamins and a pain killer without any real discussion. Our clinical assistant took the man’s blood pressure, temperature, pulse, and weight, carefully entering it into his electronic medical record. During the examination, our doctor was present via a large screen monitor and was asking lots of questions. It turns out that the patient had experienced several episodes during his life that appeared to be epileptic seizures. The doctor ruled out an immediate threat to the man’s health and then asked whether the patient could afford 500 rupees to get an EEG in Bathinda to check for epilepsy. The patient said yes, he had saved enough over the past year to cover the expense.

Absent a referral by our doctor, who is known in Bathinda, that EEG might have cost the worker several thousand rupees, a sum that he would have to borrow from a local loan shark, thereby ensuring that neither he nor his young family would ever escape the economic and health consequences of his illness.

I saw several other patient visits that day, not only in Doda, but also in Mallan and Kotbhai, and I was impressed by the warmth and care provided by our staff and also by patients’ ease in being seen by a doctor on TV. It’s incredible that most of these individuals have never seen a real doctor before and now they interact with one as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. The video and sound quality is so high, the lighting is so good, and the care with which the employees treat these poor patients is so genuine that the exchange of information is excellent. I’d gladly trade some of my experiences with the medical system in New York for ones like this.

When I think back on all those hours spent at Wharton discussing business ideas that would  make a difference, we owe a significant debt of gratitude to my Wharton EMBA colleagues, including Sarabjit Singh, Vikas Khurana, Mike Parker, and Rittik Chakrabarti.  I really believe that there is a tremendous demand for services like ours, not just in Punjab but in many other Indian states and other developing countries.”

Thanks to Chris for sharing those highlights and good luck to Healthpoint Services in its future growth!

To learn more about Healthpoint Services, contact Chris Dickey at: chris.dickey@e-healthpoint.net

Hands-on learning is nothing new for Wharton EMBA students. After all, they go right back to their offices after weekends in the classroom to apply what they have learned. And they have ample opportunities for hands-on learning outside of work through International Seminars, the Global Consulting Practicum and Wharton’s Leadership Ventures to name a few.

Wharton l San Francisco students now have another option via the School’s Nonprofit Board Leadership Program (NPBLP) , which selects and trains Wharton MBA students to serve on the boards of directors of nonprofit organizations for one year using their high-level knowledge of areas such as accounting, finance, and marketing. Launched in 2005 to match Wharton MBA students in the Philadelphia area with nonprofit organizations, the NPBLP expanded this year to San Francisco.

“It was important to bring the program to Wharton|San Francisco to provide more leadership opportunities for students, to reach out to the local community, and to support local nonprofits by providing them with world-class business management knowledge,” says second-year EMBA student Caspar Horne, president of Provisi Experts in Santa Clara, CA, who helped establish the West Coast NPBLP program.

Horne says he was stunned by the enthusiastic responses from nonprofits in the San Francisco and Bay Area. In fact, there were more nonprofits interested in the program than available students so he hopes to expand the program next year.

While serving on a nonprofit board may sound like a lot to balance on top of work, family, and class commitments, Horne says it’s not as bad as it sounds. “It’s about  eight to 10 hours a month including the monthly board meetings and gives students a much richer experience during the Wharton MBA for Executives program because it’s not just reading a case and making decisions on paper. These are real organizations with real challenges,” he says.

Horne adds that since EMBA students tend to be farther along in their careers, many are interested in giving back through community leadership. “This program helps students prepare to take on those roles by working on causes they are passionate about. And it’s a great way to network beyond the student body!” he says.

Wharton|San Francisco second-year Executive MBA student Anand Hariharan, a manager at Cisco Systems in San Jose, was recently matched through the program to serve on the board of One Million Lights, a nonprofit seeking to distribute one million environmentally friendly, rechargeable solar lights to people around the world. “A deeper understanding of social entrepreneurship coupled with a goal of better education and quality of life for children and the under-privileged is the ultimate opportunity,” he says.
Other nonprofits participating in the Wharton|San Francisco NPBLP include the YMCA, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Junior Achievement, Education through Music, and Breath California.

Get more information on Wharton’s NPBLP.

In case you haven’t seen it yet, Wharton EMBA alumna Autumn Bayles is featured in a recent Knowledge@Wharton/Executive Education special report called Wharton on Women in Leadership. The report highlights how successful women in business have turned challenges into opportunities.

In the article about Bayles, who was the keynote speaker at the Wharton Women Conference, she discusses how she became the first CIO at Tasty Baking Company and subsequently took on the position of senior VP of strategic operations.

“Raise your hand … because that’s the way you’re going to get the opportunities you want. It’s not always going to be handed to you.” she said. After a supply chain executive left the company, “I raised my hand and said, ‘Why don’t you let me do this?’”

In the special section, Bayles also shares her thoughts on success: “Ultimately, there’s no magic. I think it’s very simple: Treat people with respect. Be good at what you do. Volunteer … I’m very grateful for where I have been able to get in my career. It wasn’t easy.”

She also advises: follow your passion because the money will follow; always be the best whether you are making copies or checking page numbers; and seek help from mentors and networking organizations. She says, “A lot of great men and women helped me achieve what I have achieved. I don’t forget that. … Seek help, and when you get to the point [that you can] give it back,” do so.

Bayles also stresses the importance of taking care of people. “It’s not just about what you need from them. It’s about actually caring about what’s going on in their lives, what’s going on in their careers. Sometimes that’s in direct conflict with what you need. You, as a leader, need to step back and think about what’s better for the person in question.”

Women and Leadership To read the full report about Bayles and other women business leaders, go to:
Women and Leadership