Robert Farthing, Brand Activist for the Thunderbird School of Global Management, sends his final report from Geneva.
Geneva in 2009, by Robert Farthing.
I have spent the last eight days in Geneva, Switzerland, on assignment photographing and interviewing forty Executive MBA students from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. As I sit to write my final report from Switzerland the sky is grey, the air chilly, and the sounds of mopeds, tram bells and pedestrians drift through my third floor hotel window. It has been a long week: exhausting, invigorating, compelling and thought provoking.
I began working with Thunderbird a year ago on a video that included portrait style interviews blending images of life on Thunderbird’s Glendale, Arizona campus with those of Thunderbird students traveling abroad. I interviewed faculty, staff, and undergraduate students at various stages of their education. During that project I first realized what Brand Activism means for me personally.
REISTER shares mutual values with Thunderbird: Each organization strives to activate and inspire people to be the best they can, within the personal and organizational missions that drive them. Thunderbird School of Global Management evokes a powerful spirit of thoughtfulness and compassion on a global scale and you can not help being swept up in what is often referred to as “the Thunderbird Mystique.” When you ask a student about this mystique or global mindset, which is at the core of a Thunderbird education, you will get many different responses that all recognize an empowering sensation that resonates within, creating the desire to work for a purpose greater than yourself.
Thunderbird Executive MBA students are successful professionals who have a wide range of life and work experiences, be they financial executives, entrepreneurs, managers, CEOs or CFOs. Some work for major national and international firms, while others are transitioning in their careers. They come from all over the world. They are striking in their individuality, yet Thunderbird instills in them a foundation of common principles and creates a collective identity. You can go anywhere in the world and find a T-Bird. Alumni honor the Thunderbird brand as exemplary global citizens.
No matter where they are from or how they aspire to apply their education, I find T-Birds to be strong- minded dreamers with a vision to transfer the knowledge and skills they are gaining in ways that aid others in the world. They want to create sustainable prosperity within their field of interest and expertise. They have a concrete value base built on being a global citizen in a changing world. Some will work in developing countries, with farmers or refugees, threading together powerful networks to serve the less fortunate in our societies. Others, representing a broad spectrum of corporate brands, have clearly expanded their views to embody a wider view of the way the world needs to do business, conscious of their impact on humanity.
I leave my adventure in the beautiful setting of Geneva transformed as I know these remarkable Thunderbird students have been. By sharing our mutual interests in activating people to rise above old ways of thinking, I am inspired to be a better activist for all the brands we represent at RIESTER. Behind the products, services and causes our clients represent is the power of human beings with a wealth of dreams, visions and desires we can help them harness. Serving as a Brand Activist for Thunderbird is an experience I will carry with me always.
Bon Jour.
Robert Farthing
Geneva, Switzerland
View of Lake Geneva from Thunderbird's campus, by Robert Farthing.
