NEW YORK—A delegation of faculty, administrators and board members from the Fordham University Schools of Business will travel to China next week to meet with Chinese students and faculty in Fordham’s Beijing International MBA (BiMBA) Program and gauge future opportunities for collaboration between New York and Beijing.
“We are traveling to Beijing in recognition of the significance of globalization to our mission at the Schools of Business and the centrality of the BiMBA program to realizing that mission,” said Sharon P. Smith, Ph.D., dean of Fordham’s Schools of Business. “Together, we are building an enduring global business network of skilled business leaders educated in the Jesuit tradition.”
The BiMBA program, established in 1998, is the first foreign MBA program in Beijing to be approved by the Chinese government. There are more than 400 students currently in the program. Nearly 1,000 have graduated, many of whom traveled to New York to receive their degree during Fordham’s annual May commencement ceremony.
“The BiMBA students have come to us for several years. Now, it is time for us to go to them,” said John N. Tognino, (ICO ’75), chair of the advisory board and incoming chair of the Fordham University Board of Trustees. “We hope to get a better understanding of the great talent and achievement that the BiMBA program is producing and to express our deep commitment to it.”
During the trip to China, Smith and Tognino, who is also the chairman and CEO of Pepper Financial Group, will host the biannual Schools of Business Advisory Board meeting, which is typically held in New York. Fordham recently named Justin Lin, Ph.D., a world-renowned economist and the founding director of the China Center for Economic Research (CCER) at Peking University, to the advisory board. The board is comprised of influential business leaders who recommend curriculum changes, steer the development of innovative programs and facilitate creative corporate alliances for Fordham Schools of Business. The board members traveling to China include William R. Chess, the chief operating officer and chief financial officer for Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide; James J. Dowdall, former vice president for labor relations at Verizon; Emily L. Smith, former managing director for Scudder Investments; and John S. Wilcha, chairman and chief executive officer of Old London Foods, Inc.
In addition to the board meeting, the 18-member Fordham delegation will host panel discussions about various topics, including the legal aspects of doing business in the United States, capital market development in China and the global capital market from a U.S. perspective. The group, which will be in Beijing from June 7 through June 12, will also host a media roundtable for the Chinese press, visit historic sites and participate in cultural events.
Fordham is the degree-granting institution for the BiMBA program, which is a consortium of 26 American Jesuit business schools that provide the program’s faculty. The CCER at Peking University is Fordham’s partner in this endeavor.
Fordham’s Schools of Business, which date back to 1920, provide students with a dynamic combination of liberal arts and business education on the undergraduate level, while preparing students on the graduate level for leadership roles in the changing global environment.
