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Blog
Written by Lauren Grau
Monday, 23 August 2010 13:00
A friend of GBSN, Martín Burt of Fundación Paraguaya, was featured in a recent Huffington Post article by Elisabeth Rhyne entitled "Measure? Alleviate? No, Eliminate Poverty". Fundación Paraguaya is a leading edge social enterprise that seeks to develop innovative solutions to poverty and unemployment and proactively disseminate them throughout the world.
Read more...
Written by Lauren Grau
Thursday, 01 July 2010 09:31
GBSN's CEO Guy Pfeffermann's letter to the editor was published in today's Washington Post:
Regarding the June 26 news story out of the Group of Eight summit "Reduction in funds for maternal and infant health criticized":
Reduced funding may be a blessing in disguise if it focuses the minds of all partners in the supply chain on the efficiency of aid funding, rather than the amount. Management of local service delivery institutions is typically the weakest link in that chain, and there is little doubt that a huge share of funding is wasted. Indeed, management education for health personnel is one of the pillars of the World Health Organization's Global Health Workforce Alliance.
Nairobi Hospital's turnaround and Hygeia, a major Nigerian health-care provider, are examples of how modest outlays for management training can improve outcomes. Both organizations used a business approach to improve health delivery with significant results. And a focus on leadership development in Egypt's Aswan Governorate contributed to a drop in the maternal mortality rate from 85 to 35 per 100,000 births over four years.
At a recent Nairobi meeting, nine sub-Saharan Africa management schools joined schools of public health, nongovernmental organizations and donors to form a consortium for health leadership and management education. Aid agencies, philanthropic groups and corporations should find this consortium a helpful tool in using scarce resources more effectively and view the downturn in aid funding as an opportunity to focus on increasing the effectiveness of health interventions.
Guy Pfeffermann, Chevy Chase
The writer is chief executive of the nonprofit Global Business School Network.
 Read this letter on the WashingtonPost.com
Written by Guy Pfeffermann
Friday, 25 June 2010 12:51
I am delighted to welcome Keith Richards to GBSN’s Advisory Board. Until recently Keith was Guinness Nigeria, Plc’s Managing Director – one of Lagos’s largest companies and one whose management brings with it deep knowledge of every corner of Nigeria. Keith is currently Managing Director of Promasidor Nigeria, Ltd, a food and beverages company based in Lagos. He is a member of the Development Board of the Pan African University’s Lagos Business School, a member of GBSN. Great to have you on board, Keith! We shall treasure your advice in coming years.
Written by Guy Pfeffermann
Tuesday, 25 May 2010 13:34
 Rapid, unpredictable changes in market conditions, boundless opportunities, fierce competition—that's what emerging markets are like. Unfortunately they're also short on executives with the leadership skills needed to succeed in this kind of environment.
For years now, China has been a locomotive of global growth. Chinese growth has pulled several hundred million persons out of poverty. The on-going trade negotiations between the US and China and press commentary underscore the perception of China being highly competitive. I am astounded, therefore, to read in Jean Lee's evidently well-informed article that companies in China are "short on executives with the leadership skills needed to succeed" in a highly competitive environment. If that is the case in China, how much more acute must be this shortage in the other emerging economies, most of which have not grown nearly as fast as China ? The Wall Street Journal article vindicates, and dramatically so, the basic tenet of the Global Business School Network, which is that enhanced competitiveness and more broadly-shared economic growth require a greater supply of highly-skilled leaders and managers - not just in business but also in social services, government, in fact throughout society. Working with management schools, companies, civil society and governments at meeting this challenge is what GBSN is all about.
In emerging markets, where companies and entire industries are growing and evolving at an accelerated pace, open-ended learning is crucial.
 Read "Emerging Need: How companies in developing markets can cultivate the leaders they lack" by Jean Lee, WSJ, May 24, 2010
Written by Guy Pfeffermann
Thursday, 20 May 2010 14:18
In the run-up to next month's annual GBSN conference I participated in the World Economic Forum on Africa and the annual meetings of our African partner organization, the Association of African Business Schools (AABS) in Dar es Salaam. Once again, several GBSN deans and faculty were actively involved in WEF discussions. Scores of social entrepreneurs showcased their achievements and aspirations, and advances in affordable IT and in particular mobile phones created an ever-expanding space for such initiatives. So, for example, in Nairobi's largest low-income area, Kibera, access to cell phones is virtually 100 percent - those who don't own a phone buy time for pennies from others. The educational potential of cell phones for the "bottom of the pyramid" have barely been explored, and I expect an explosion of innovations, including forrays into basic business literacy. AABS continues to be a vibrant institution, and offers, among other member benefits, the only All-African benchmarking for local business schools.
Our members web portal, GBSN Connect will be unveiled June 10 at our annual conference. Among others it will serve to forge new collaborative knowledge-sharing channels and enable students seeking experiential field projects to match their interests with those of emerging market companies and non-profit organizations. I am looking forward to the launch.
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Food for Thought
| A competitive and vibrant
post-secondary educational system in any country is a critical precursor to ensuring that
the workforce of tomorrow will possess the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to
create and manage new businesses, to privatize and restructure existing enterprises, and
to regulate business activity effectively-all elements of a robust private sector.
-"Assessment of Graduate Management Education", William Davidson Institute, University of Michigan Business School (2003) |
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