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Posts Tagged ‘Thunderbird School of Global Management’

Tom Ortega

Telling a Story of Global Good

Written on January 11th, 2012 | Posted by Tom Ortega

Today is day one of a very exciting project for the Thunderbird School of Global Management, a RIESTER client for the past eleven years. To tell Thunderbird’s story — the world’s #1 school for international business — RIESTER is sending a small crew around the world to film TBirds (graduates of the school) reciting the Thunderbird Oath of Honor. This oath is what guides TBirds throughout their careers; it is their promise to conduct business with respect to other cultures, their communities, and their environment. Our crew will be starting in New York, then heading off to London, Hong Kong and Rio de Janeiro. The end result will be two :30 commercials, a rich-media web campaign, and new video content for the web.

Every Thunderbird graduate signs the oath upon graduation.

Every Thunderbird graduate signs the oath upon graduation.

Thunderbird OATH of HONOR
As a Thunderbird and a Global citizen, I Promise
I will strive to act with honesty and integrity,
I will respect the rights and dignity of all people,
I will strive to create sustainable prosperity worldwide,
I will oppose all forms of corruption and exploitation and
I will take responsibility for actions. As I hold true to these principles,
It is my hope that i may enjoy an honorable reputation and peace of conscience.
This pledge I make freely and upon my honor.

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Robert Farthing

Robert Farthing, Brand Activist for the Thunderbird School of Global Management, sends his final report from Geneva.

Written on November 21st, 2009 | Posted by Robert Farthing
Geneva in 2009, by Robert Farthing.

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.

View of Lake Geneva from Thunderbird's campus, by Robert Farthing.

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Robert Farthing

Robert Farthing’s second report from Geneva where he is traveling with the Thunderbird School of Global Management.

Written on November 18th, 2009 | Posted by Robert Farthing
World Intellectual Property Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.

World Intellectual Property Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.

I am not an espresso drinker usually, so this must explain the fact that it is 2:30 in the morning here after a full day and evening and I am writing to share the day.  I think I found the cure for that mid afternoon wall I tend to hit at my desk when nothing sounds better to me than a power nap!

Today I was letting my mind wander around one of the consistent themes that come up when talking to Thunderbird MBA students and that is the idea of being a “global citizen.”  What does it mean exactly?  Am I a global citizen?  Do you have to aspire to run global organizations, or to travel extensively and speak multiple languages?  There is more for me to see and hear before I can offer anything deeper than the fact that I might actually be able to learn French if I really tried.

Tuesday in Geneva was unseasonably warm. It felt like a great winter day in Arizona – minus the brown cloud of smog.  Today was a day when our three person marketing production team headed out on our own to meet with an alumnus at his place of business in the morning and then bussed into the world renowned financial district of Geneva for photos that captured the essence of international business and finance here in this truly international city.  It was a lunchtime scene dotted with book fairs, vendors, cobblestone alleys, street musicians (some friendly, some not) and waves of elegantly dressed business folk maneuvering deftly through bicycles, trolleys, trams, buses and mopeds.  I don’t mean to poke at my hometown of Phoenix, but I wonder if a couple hundred years of business and culture in our downtown center would develop a similar richness and depth of character that you feel walking through this area?

Afterwards we rushed to the new satellite campus of Thunderbird here in Geneva. Historic Chateaus are used for classrooms. The student housing is in post-modern buildings. It all sits within a majestic public park at the edge of Lake Geneva. The snow-capped Alps were off in the distance.  I am sure a poet could find all the right words to describe the fall colors carpeting the grounds along with the young lovers that cooed at each other, perched on an old stone wall, while my photo partner Andrew and I ran around like crazy men capturing all the pictures we could in the limited hour of dying light that we had.

We closed our work day interviewing two students at the hotel.  One in particular, a business executive from Brazil, nearly brought us to tears with the recounting of the way in which he surprised his mother by flying his wife and young son to her home with him to Brazil to share the news that he was accepted to the Thunderbird School of Global Management.  For him the quest to be a Thunderbird student was a dream that started 12 years earlier.  The development sessions that the students participated in today were discussions about the concepts and practical applications of creating sustainable prosperity in global business ventures.  Sustainable prosperity is one of those unique Thunderbird applications that impress the principals of sustainability into the global business mindset.  For this student from Brazil, something clicked today and he was one step deeper into his life as a global citizen.

Below is a video we shot late this evening that further inspires the feeling of being a global citizen.  It is the bells peeling at Cathedral St. Pierre in old town Geneva.  For me it synthesized a day having immersed myself one step deeper into a global mindset, head swimming with the ever moving definitions of a citizenship on the planet and eyes keyed to capture the spirit of men and women striving to develop sustainable prosperity on an international level.  Sometimes you just have to stop and appreciate something beautiful to have it all make sense.

Bon Jour.

Robert Farthing
Geneva, Switzerland

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Robert Farthing

Robert Farthing, RIESTER’s Brand Activist for the Thunderbird School of Global Management, reports from Geneva.

Written on November 17th, 2009 | Posted by Robert Farthing
The Palace of Nations, Geneva, Switzerland.

The Palace of Nations, Geneva, Switzerland.

There have been many moments throughout my career in production when I have found myself standing on location in an unusual place. I would look around and appreciate all the elements that came together that brought me to that moment in time when something remarkable was happening. Tonight I am reflecting on a day filled with remarkable moments.

I have the humble pleasure of being on assignment in Geneva, Switzerland this week.  I am following 40 Executive MBA students from Thunderbird School of Global Management.  My job is to track these students through the experiences of their day as they meet with influential diplomats, economists and esteemed professors.  These are men and women who meet every other week on the Thunderbird campus in Glendale, Arizona over 18 months and this is their first trip abroad for an immersion experience in international business.  The group is a microcosm of the globe with students from places like Pakistan, Brazil, Mongolia, South Africa, the United States and many other countries.  

My task initially has been to be invisible and to capture in still photos, pure moments of their experience here, whether it be engaged in a thought provoking debate with a cohort on child labor issues, or gazing out picturesque windows of the conference room deep in thought, pondering what it means to be a global citizen today.

Today we went to the U.N. and toured the great chambers, where issues of the world have been debated for decades.  I could not help but feel the power of the historic and relevant decisions that have been made here as we moved through hallways of marble in this storied building that was originally built for the League of Nations. 

To be on the floor of the U.N. under the great golden symbol of peace and unity and standing with these students from all over the world was an intense experience.  I am captivated by the students as people and to be able to watch them through a long zoom lens as they debate with passion and compassion on important global matters is an honor.  It’s exciting to witness the spark of enthusiasm through their eyes as they experience a personal epiphany.  Here we were where leadership characteristics like this matter. It is the human quality of compassion, care and concern blending with practical knowledge and the desire to drive the world to a better place.  These are the qualities of leadership that I see being transferred to the men and women in this class from Thunderbird and it was humbling and remarkable to be there.

Although there were many remarkable moments today it seems fitting to end my first entry for this travel blog with this one particular moment. Today I was a RIESTERite standing in the halls of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.  I felt humbled to be here on many levels and in a fleeting moment I felt the honor of what we get to do at the agency sometimes, and that is, to play a small role for a client which in turn empowers them to play a small role in the lives of people who may very well go on to change the world in a remarkable way.

Robert Farthing
Geneva, Switzerland

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