Message from the Director
What a challenging time to be involved in international business. The confluence of international business with its political, economic, and cultural context has rarely been greater. Each morning newspaper brings examples of the “collision of the front page with the business page.” Geopolitical turmoil and uneven economic growth; resource price volatility, environmental impact and ownership; sovereign wealth funds’ or state-owned firms’ global investments; blocked acquisitions of ‘national champions’; the impact on global markets of excess or inadequate liquidity; and disputes over intellectual property rights are but a few situations where context may trump or advantage business strategy depending on how effectively it is managed.
Fletcher’s launch of the Master of International Business (MIB) degree and the Center for Emerging Market Enterprises (CEME) was a statement that past models of business education, particularly for global companies or those aspiring to be so, are incomplete. These new programs draw on Fletcher’s 75-year heritage as the world’s oldest graduate school of international affairs and 30-year-old International Business and Finance programs. Along with significant new resources, Fletcher has produced a unique hybrid international business and international relations degree and the world’s first academic center dedicated exclusively to the practitioners and students of enterprise in the emerging markets.
The MIB degree combines a core of rigorous quantitative and management courses in business strategy, finance, organization, business law, governance, with critical international relations courses such as crisis management, international negotiation, and political economy. CEME focuses on core programs in Capital Markets, Energy and Environment, Emerging Markets Corporate Strategy, and, underlying all of this, Corporate Governance. Each program is linked to faculty and existing course material, colloquia, roundtables, conferences, research, and publications as well as to the School’s extraordinary network of senior practitioners who bring perspectives from the highest levels of business, government, and NGOs.
This is truly the global business foundation for the 21st century.
Regards,
Charles Bralver
Senior Associate Dean of International Business and Finance
Executive Director of the Center for Emerging Market Enterprises