The Smeal Executive MBA Team Blog

As the number of people killed by swine flu in Mexico continues to climb, the health commissioner for the European Union has warned against non-essential travel to the United States and Mexico. Fariborz Ghadar, director of the Center for Global Business Studies and professor in the Smeal EMBA program in Philadelphia, says pandemics such as this will continue to present formidable challenges to world leaders in an age of globalization.

It is estimated that  it took 18 years for the bubonic plague to reach the shores of Europe from its origin in China and another 30  months to reach England from Venice. A couple years ago, when SARS hit Asia, it could have reached  Canada in 72 hours. Now, swine flu from Mexico is discovered in New Zealand before anyone knows what’s going on.

Some developed countries have systems to track, identify, and quarantine outbreaks such as this, but many developing countries simply cannot do it. Compounding the problem is the fact that very few national entities talk to one another. The current infrastructure leaves much to be desired.  To manage potential pandemics, we need  global mechanisms in place beforehand to handle situations like this as they arise, not after.

Ghadar is the co-author of “Global Tectonics: Underlying Trends Shaping the Future of Business.” The book identifies the 12 trends in technology, nature, and society that will present the most formidable challenges in the next 30 years.

I’ve always told people considering an MBA that it is the faculty that counts.  Not just one or two members of the faculty that have written books, or spend time lecturing on a very limited circuit – but total faculty. 

Why? 

Well, one reason is that when the global economy undergoes a major shift as it has in the past weeks the business world, and EMBA students in particular, look for answers and perspective.  As Wall Street struggled through its worst ever time, members of the Smeal EMBA faculty shared their thoughts about the genesis of the crisis and an uncertain financial future. Find out who weighed in, and hear what they had to say in videos in this month’s Smeal Report. 

As you watch the video’s and read the bio’s of the professors consider this:  At the Smeal EMBA you will be taught by the 8th best MBA faculty in the US (Economist 2008).  As a Smeal EMBA you join the country’s second largest business school, and a community that has the resources to respond and inform not only to this current crisis, but future ones as well.