Countdown to Dubai

It is less than five months until we open the doors to our new Dubai campus and for those involved these are very exciting times.

The Dubai team, which itself comes from over 11 nations, is working very hard to have everything ready for the opening. They are making great progress and we are looking forward to having by far the most international school in the Middle East.

Dubai is a great location for a business school. The economy continues to go from strength-to-strength and there is a clear need for management talent from local corporations across a wide range of industries.

The strength of the employment market has been a key factor in our success in recruiting students. We have already accepted well over 100 students from over 25 countries. Beyond applications from the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent, students from as far afield as Colombia, Venezuela, United States, Canada, Taiwan and China have applied.

Our unique campus rotation scheme will see a large number of students from the Boston campus study their electives in Dubai. This will further drive the diversity of the student body on campus.

The reasons individual students are choosing to study in Dubai are as varied as the countries from which the students hail. Some students are interested in entering the industries for which Dubai is famous – energy, real estate and travel & tourism. Some are interested in studying closer to home. Some are interested in exploring the entrepreneurial possibilities that a rapidly growing economy is generating. And some just want to graduate in an area where there are a variety of career options open to them.

What is also interesting to see is the variety of corporations from around the world that are willing to sponsor their students to study in Dubai. This willingness reflects the growing importance of the region to many multi-nationals.

As a result, the inaugural Dubai Class of 2009 looks great and I very much look forward to personally greeting everyone in September.

Why global?

We have now launched a satellite campus in Shanghai and will launch a full campus in Dubai in September 2008. We are also hoping to establish a full campus in London in September 2009.

In short, we at Hult are building a unique global campus footprint. The obvious question is why. The answer is simple: An understanding of the global economy is essential for all MBA graduates.

Firstly, the rapidly growing regions of the world are also providing MBA graduates with many interesting employment opportunities. China and the United Arab Emirates are great examples of this. Not only are MBA graduates in these regions typically given more responsibility from day one, increasingly the standard of living they can enjoy is far greater than in emerged markets.

Secondly, having operations in many countries is no longer the domain of mega corporations such as Proctor & Gamble. It is increasingly common to find mid-size companies that have sales offices in Singapore, London and New York, a call center in India and a manufacturing plant in Shenzhen. Managing such multinational companies brings unique challenges. Companies are demanding MBA talent that can move between locations, can overcome linguistic and cultural differences and therefore can effectively do business wherever it is required.

It is my belief that such knowledge cannot be learned in a classroom alone. We have just completed a pilot of operating elective classes in Shanghai. In this trial, 45 students spent six weeks studying and traveling in China. For many it was the first time in Asia and the first time they had experienced an environment where English is still not an everyday language. Witnessing the journey they went through over those six weeks was fascinating--from a strong culture shock, to growing acceptance, to a fascination and appreciation of China and how fast it is moving. For many I believe it was a truly life-changing experience and will certainly be their defining memory of Hult.

At Hult, we want to ensure that all our students not only graduate with an excellent business education but also understand the broader drivers of the economies outside of the United States and the opportunities that are afforded to them. This global perspective will benefit all students no matter where they end up working.

INCREDIBLE INDIA!

I love India.

I have always traveled extensively as part of my career. However, with globalization, the world looks increasingly familiar. Wherever I go, I see Starbucks, McDonalds, Nike, Reebok and TGI Fridays. I get in a taxi, which is normally a Toyota, and sit in a traffic jam (yes - every major city is congested) staring at cars which are the familiar BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Hondas you see all over the world. And I see people on the sidewalk dressed in dark suits or jeans and t-shirts. Of course, the language varies, but even there I can normally get around with English and a spirit of adventure. (It helps I eat anything and everything.)

But India is different. It is one of the few places to which I genuinely look forward to traveling. That’s because everything is different in India. Right from the time you arrive at the airport, you are met with a variety of colors and smells that you find nowhere else. The taxis are the black and yellow Ambassadors that are designed to withstand the rigors of Indian roads. Instead of Starbucks, I see CoffeeDay. And instead of staying at a Marriott or similar, I am normally staying at a Taj. India is the one place in the world that still feels like it is holding onto its heritage.

When I first came to India from London eight years ago to attend a friend’s wedding, I remember being overwhelmed by the chaos of Mumbai. I can also remember being under-whelmed when arriving in Bangalore, which I had been told was the Silicon Valley of India. It didn’t look anything like Silicon Valley (until I arrived at the outsourcing facility which admittedly was world-class). Compared to China, India’s infrastructure was way behind.

But now I notice that when I am going to Gurgaon from Delhi, I travel on a motorway. A journey that took 90 minutes now takes less than 30 minutes. When I travel from Mumbai to Pune, it is motorway all the way. And when I fly into Bangalore, I can see a huge highway under construction. Everywhere I go, I also see high-quality commercial real estate being constructed. Finally, it appears India’s economic development, instead of being hidden away behind the security fences of Infosys, TCS and Wipro, is evident everywhere.

I am an India bull. Knowing the entrepreneurial spirit of the Indian people, I can’t wait to see what they will make of these advances in the infrastructure. I am sure that if the government keeps its policy of opening India up, then India will be an economic force to be reckoned with. But as with many emerging markets, education will be important in enabling this opportunity to be captured. Evidence that demand for education is huge is everywhere. In every business newspaper, I see courses being offered and newspaper articles discussing the acceptance rate and exit salaries of the top MBA schools.

It is obvious to me that Hult can and should play a role in the development of India. Firstly, we must ensure that all Hult students have an opportunity to travel to India to understand firsthand the opportunities that the country affords as both a service provider as well as a rapidly growing market in its own right. Secondly, the Hult MBA program is tailor-made for the needs of the international managers that India needs in droves. Hult therefore should aim to play a major role in educating the many skilled managers that India clearly needs.

It would be ideal to establish a presence in India. However, as a foreign institution, the regulatory hurdles are way too high for an entrepreneurial organization such as Hult. However, I hope that the establishment of a campus in Dubai will allow us to serve the Indian population and provide a platform for introducing foreigners to the exciting developments in the country.

THE FASTEST GROWING CITY IN THE WORLD

After an eight hour flight from Hong Kong, I finally landed at Dubai, a city I hadn’t been to for nearly 10 years. The flight had been packed with a mixture of Chinese, Filipinos and Thais. At the airport, my fellow passengers and I mixed with a throng of Indians, Europeans and Americans. I noticed from the information screens that flights from Mumbai, Paris, New York, Shanghai and London had landed within the last 10 minutes.

Driving into the city, the only landmark I could recognize was Burj al Arab, the iconic seven-star hotel that has graced every advert for Dubai tourism over the past decade. Now the skyline reminds me more of Manhattan. Huge skyscrapers are everywhere, including one of the tallest buildings in the world, Burj Dubai, which is still under construction. A sign outside says 130 floors and still going!

From my hotel room, I could see the coastline and even though it is night, I could make out the outlines of the man-made palm trees and "world" that are under construction just off shore. I realized that the lights I could see were not street lights, but the high-power lights that are used to illuminate the building sites so that construction can take place 24 hours a day. No wonder the city has changed so much in a decade. It was not hard to see why Dubai has become one of the world’s most talked about cities in the world and why everyone is so impressed with its ambition and speed of evolution.

The purpose of my visit was as exciting as Dubai itself: I was here to explore the launch of our very own Hult Dubai campus. We are in the process of establishing a global footprint for Hult, since we believe it is essential for every MBA graduate to become acquainted with the developments around the world during their program. Why? Because economies such as Dubai afford fantastic career opportunities for young professionals and, even if graduates prefer to work in the United States or Europe, it is clear that with globalization an increasing amount of their time will be spent dealing with customers and suppliers in these emerging key markets.

My visit was a two-day trip packed with different meetings, trying to uncover as much as possible about Dubai. My priority was to learn what was driving the economy and how that was impacting demand for MBA graduates. To do this, I had arranged meetings with Dubai government officials and the senior managers of the consultancies and banks operating in the region. What I learned was fascinating. Dubai is a stable economy surrounded by rich but volatile nations. As a result, capital is flowing into the country at an unprecedented rate. Already twice the Foreign Direct Investment in China has invested in real estate in Dubai. This, coupled with the creation of "free zones," has led many companies to establish their regional headquarters in the city. Already Dubai has established itself as the financial capital for the Middle East.

Inevitably, talent has followed the capital flows. More than 90 percent of the population of Dubai is made up of expatriates attracted by the well-paid jobs on offer from a wide array of industries--from finance to tourism, from construction to oil production, from media to technology.

The business leaders I met explained how their growth was already constrained by their ability to attract management talent. Much of this was sourced from U.S. business schools directly. (The highest starting salary for a Hult graduate was recently set by a Dubai company recruiting directly from our Boston campus.) They foresaw that the economy would keep growing at around 15 percent for the next five years. This would require more than 250,000 additional workers to be imported. The employers I met made it clear that they would support a high-quality MBA program being established locally. Recruiting from the United States and Europe was expensive, but they were forced to do this because the quality of graduates from local schools was not yet comparable. This was obviously good news for Hult.

I left Dubai energized. The ambition of Dubai to drive quality growth reflects our own ambitions for Hult. Its international flavor and liberalism go hand-in-hand with our own attitudes. I therefore feel very confident and excited that establishing a campus in Dubai will offer a unique opportunity to all Hult students to experience the rapid development in the region.

WHAT MAKES HULT DIFFERENT?

I spend a lot of my time introducing people to Hult: to students considering which business school to apply to; to potential employees wondering whether to join us; and to employers looking for international management talent. All of these people ask me what makes Hult different from other leading business schools. In fact, I get asked this so much that I thought it was worth writing it down for the record.

I think there are three major things that make Hult different:

• Customer focus: We measure our success by the value that we add to our students. For me, there are two key measures of success: the difference between a student’s entrance and exit salary and his or her satisfaction with the program.
• Practical education: Hult instructors have both a strong academic background in their subject areas as well as practical real-world experience. More than half of the Hult faculty is composed of active consultants or business executives. This enables them to bring practice to their teaching.
• Truly International: Hult is truly international. Our student body is the most diverse of any school in the United States. Further, we are taking international education to the next level by offering all students the opportunity to study in Shanghai or Dubai (as of 2008) as part of their MBA. Why did we choose these locations? Because the demand for management talent in these markets is far outstripping that of the United States.

These differentiators make Hult a unique place to study. And I believe they are the key reasons why Hult is one of the fastest growing business schools in the world.