Global Business Center News 

As a child, Elizabeth Smith developed a lifelong passion for building connections across borders when she befriended a refugee from Libya. Now, that same passion fuels Smith in her position as a program coordinator for the Whitmore Global Business Center (GBC) at the BYU Marriott School of Business, where she helps students take steps across borders.

When he thinks about his future goals, Wilson Moreno hopes to become a leader who makes an impact—in his family, his community, and his local congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Thankfully, Moreno's time spent in the Cardon International Sponsorship (CIS) program, run by the Whitmore Global Business Center (GBC) at the BYU Marriott School of Business, prepared him for these leadership roles.

As 2021 drew to a close, faculty members from colleges across the country boarded a plane and traveled to India, a country known not only for its history, vibrant culture, and beautiful architecture, but also for its role in global business. The trip, which was cosponsored by the Whitmore Global Business Center at the BYU Marriott School of Business, was designed to provide trip attendees with useful insights about international business.

On the first day of class every semester, Bruce Money shows his students one of his favorite quotes, a saying from Mark Twain: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrowmindedness." As the Fred Meyer Professor of Marketing and the executive director of the Whitmore Global Business Center (GBC) at the BYU Marriott School of Business, Money encourages his students to travel and further expand their views of the world.

Ten BYU Marriott School of Business MBA students were recently named 2022 Eccles Scholars by the school's Whitmore Global Business Center (GBC). The Eccles Scholars award program provides up to $9,000 in scholarship money to 10 first-year MBA students who are enrolled in the Global Business Certificate program and show a dedicated commitment to international business.

As Caleb Faber drove to Assisi, Italy, the sky was pouring rain. However, as soon as he arrived, the rain stopped, and a beautiful sunset broke through the clouds, creating a colorful backdrop as he and his wife walked through the town. This memory is one of the highlights of Faber's student exchange program at Bocconi University, which is run through the Whitmore Global Business Center at the BYU Marriott School of Business.

While growing up in the back country of Cody, Wyoming, Jerry Christensen never imagined he would one day travel to 65 countries across six continents. Now, Christensen draws from his international experience to teach about current issues happening in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria as an adjunct professor for the BYU Marriott School of Business. Christensen's class, MSB 596R: Business German, is part of the Global Business and Literacy minor offered through the Whitmore Global Business Center (GBC) at BYU Marriott.

When Carmela Bristain was 15 years old, she graduated from high school, which was normal in her home country of the Philippines. At such a young age, she wasn't sure what to study in college, but her mother, who noticed Bristain's knack for logic-based subjects such as math, suggested she pursue accounting. Bristain followed her mother's advice, which eventually led her to the Cardon International Sponsorship from the Whitmore Global Business Center at the BYU Marriott School of Business.

Eduardo Dallagnese's wedding day was memorable in more ways than one. Shortly after getting married in the Porto Alegre Brazil Temple, he received a long-awaited call from the admissions office of the BYU Marriott School of Business. The call informed him that he had received the Cardon International Scholarship (CIS) from the Whitmore Global Business Center (GBC) and that he was accepted into the school's MBA program.

In 2004, Shereen Salah and her husband, Ahmad, moved from Cairo to Provo where they both began attending BYU. After graduating with her master's degree in language acquisition and teaching, Salah accepted a position at BYU as an adjunct professor. Now she teaches a business Arabic class at the BYU Marriott School of Business, and she enjoys supporting her students as they participate in competitions hosted by the Whitmore Global Business Center.

As Lady Ikeya prepared to move from Nigeria to Provo in December 2020 with her husband and four children to pursue her MPA degree from the BYU Marriott School of Business, she was touched by the tender mercies from God and acts of kindness she received from complete strangers. One example was the Cardon International Scholarship (CIS) from BYU Marriott’s Whitmore Global Business Center, which made her journey to BYU possible in the first place.

Nearly sixty-five percent of BYU students speak a second language, and BYU ranks third in the nation for the most graduates with foreign language degrees. For bilingual students who want to couple their language skills with business knowledge, the global business and literacy minor offered by the Whitmore Global Business Center (GBC) at the BYU Marriott School of Business can help students accomplish that goal.

Every year, BYU students have the opportunity to enhance their international relations and business knowledge and skills by earning the global business certificate offered through the Whitmore Global Business Center (GBC) at the BYU Marriott School of Business. To earn the certificate, students are required to participate in an international travel experience. However, with COVID-19 canceling international travel throughout the world, Matt Sabey, a recent 2021 BYU MBA graduate from Littleton, Colorado, had to find another way to experience business internationally and earn his certificate.

The Whitmore Global Business Center at BYU Marriott announced that eleven MBA students were recently recognized as the 2021 Eccles Scholars.

For ninety students from high schools across the state of Utah, learning to combine language and business doesn’t start in college. On 1 April 2021, teams of students submitted their presentations and business plans to the 2021 Virtual High School Business Language Competition, hosted by the BYU Marriott School of Business’ Global Business Center (GBC) and funded by a grant through the Centers for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) program. The winning teams were announced over a live video awards ceremony on 2 April. First-place winners received $660; second- and third-place winners received $330 and $150, respectively.

BYU’s motto—the world is our campus—is embodied by a team of students participating in the InternationalHub at the BYU Marriott School of Business. These students hosted the Beyond Borders case competition in March 2021, an event that virtually brought together more than two hundred participants from twelve countries to find new diversity and inclusion solutions.

BYU Marriott fared well in the recently released U.S. News & World Report 2022 rankings for graduate programs. Both the MBA and MPA programs were ranked, as were four graduate program emphases.

Like the rest of the world, the spread of the COVID-19 virus was a shock to many BYU students. With the help of faculty and staff from the Global Business Center (GBC) who facilitate study abroad experiences through the BYU Marriott School of Business, students studying abroad received help in returning to the United States. Three students who were participating in international exchange programs shared what it was like to face uncertainty and adapt to online learning during the global pandemic.

Geert Hofstede, a Dutch social psychologist, defined culture as “the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from others.” This is one of the definitions Simon Greathead, professor at the BYU Marriott School of Business, uses to describe something he calls the Culture of Christ Framework. But, unlike frameworks developed by researchers such as Hofstede, the Culture of Christ Framework was developed by Greathead and his MSB 432 International Business Culture class.  

To Uros Stampe, operations manager for doTERRA, success is a journey that comes one step at a time. Each experience Stampe has had—from watching his father work in manufacturing to choosing to attend the BYU Marriott School of Business with fellow Cardon International Scholarship (CIS) students—helped him uncover his interests and gain confidence in the skills he worked diligently to develop.