May 19, 2008
Competing and Leading in a Changing Business Environment
This week, Texas Executive Education welcomes a group of 17 executives from the Turku School of Economics in Finland. They are students in Turku’s executive MBA program and are here to participate in a week-long program entitled, Competing and Leading in a Changing Business Environment. For Executive Education and Turku School of Economics, this visit mark the eighth year of cooperation between the schools.
One of the important goals of the program is to give our students a greater understanding of the U.S. perspective to global economics and global markets, as well as business in Texas,” states Kirsi Kostia, Program Manager with the Turku School of Economics. “We have cooperated with Texas Executive Education for several years because they are customer-oriented and have the resources to meet our goals for our students.”
This year’s program focuses on business strategy, leading-edge leadership and communication practices, and the topics are brought to life through a series of lecture-discussions, industry speakers and company visits in Austin. The group visited Samsung and Dell. “While company visits are part of the curriculum at home, here they were given an inside view into American business operations,” says Kostia.
Professors Michael Brandl, Jim Fredrickson, John Daly, Jim Nolen, Raj Raghunathan, Gaylen Paulson and Tassu Shervani taught in the program. “The style, speed and energy in the classroom are very different in the U.S.,” said Maarit Merla, Director of Research & Development for Wallac Oy, which is part of PerkinElmer, Inc. a global Health Sciences and Photonics company. “The faculty presentations were very good. and I found advocacy and negotiation were two topics from which I benefited the most.”
“The opportunity to interact with professors, have an in depth exploration of a topic and get beyond the meaning of the printed words is invaluable,” said Jaakko Heikkilä, Vice President of Boliden Commercial AB, one of the world's leading mining and smelting companies.
“As far as the greatest benefit of a week-long program like this one, is that is a long intellectual break, away from the routine of the office. You’re not running the show but your job is to sit back, listen and learn new ideas you can take home,” says Heikkilä. “I’ve felt a connection to the University of Texas since I was 13 years old when I was given a school book bag with the university’s name on it, so it was gratifying to be able to spend a week here.”
Founded in 1950, the Turku School of Economics is one of the largest institutes in Finland for education in economic science, and the Executive Masters of Business Administration (eMBA) program has been officially accredited since June 1999.
