Mary Teagarden’s first volunteer position was as a translator for Mother Teresa. The daughter of a military attaché, she grew up in Latin America and says her love of things international was a value embraced early in life.
“I attended a high school with fewer than 50 students from 31 countries,” she says. “It never crossed my mind that all students might not be enjoying a similar mosaic.” Ever since then, Teagarden has shared her passion for the global world with MBA candidates, bringing life-lessons into the classroom and taking students out into the world. During the Offshoring Winterim led by Teagarden, students in the full-time program meet face-to-face with more than 50 founders and CEOs of companies in China, Singapore, and India. “Students in other schools might read about the world being flat,” says Teagarden, “but our students went out to see if it was flat, and came back and found that it wasn’t.” Non-governmental agencies, multinational IT corporations, science parks and business incubators also are part of the Winterim learning experience that takes students to the world’s most prominent centers of high-tech offshoring activity. “These students are able to speak about the offshoring and outsourcing of high-tech work from a first-hand perspective,” says Teagarden. “They have visited companies, spoken with company presidents and founders, and interacted with the local business community in three of the hottest business regions in the world.” Teagarden’s experience and research expertise in such regions has also led her MBA students to exciting global careers. When one student expressed an interest in global Human Resources, Teagarden introduced him to Intel China. The alumnus is now fulfilling his dream, working as an HR professional in Chengdu, China. Teagarden consults regularly with service and technology-intensive manufacturing firms in Mexico and China, as well as with governments in the same countries, and with the governments of Colombia, Albania and the People’s Republic of China. Regular interaction with companies such as China Telecom, Infosys, LGE, Motorola, Sony Videotec and Tropicana Peninsular lead to classroom discussions of current, real-world business issues. Teagarden has lived and worked in 11 Latin American countries, five European countries and eight Asian countries – in addition to the United States and Canada, sharing lessons learned along the way with her students. |  |
Return to Main News Page PROFILES Andrew Wulf '07 |
