Eddie Onaga, Lindsey Schatzberg, Fanzi Mao, Christine Tringales, Chao Li, Vivek Girotra, and Michael Larcher (all MBA 14) at a “casa particular” overlooking Havana

A border security agent approached me and began asking questions. As the Spanish speaker in our group, I stepped aside while my friends passed through customs. I didn’t know what to expect; we had just landed in Cuba.

After an interrogation on every detail of our excursion, I began to get a little nervous, especially since we only knew where we would be staying that night. The remainder of the trip had a loose itinerary, but with one goal in mind – to learn about Cuban business firsthand and to identify opportunities for future businesses as the country continues to slowly open. Yet, after a half hour of chatting, it became clear the agent, Rosa*, would cause us no immediate trouble.

The “CubHaas” independent study trek mirrored the Berkeley-Haas innovative leader curriculum as we navigated uncertainty and influenced without authority. For 10 days 12 classmates and I delved into Cuban culture, experiencing the trip of a lifetime.

From Havana’s cultural hub to Viñales’ rural mystique to Trinidad’s colonial tradition to Playa Jibacoa’s picturesque white sands, one thing about Cuba became readily apparent – its people are the nation’s greatest resource. Well-educated (99.8% literacy and 17.5 years of expected schooling), healthy (infant mortality rate lower than the U.S. and average life expectancy of 79 years), and equal among genders (many women ran businesses and both men and women claimed equality in education and financial opportunity), Cubans approach business with a distinct attitude. They do more with less. They’re genuinely entrepreneurial. Business is refreshingly relational rather than purely transactional. They always maintain “The Cuban smile” (when things go wrong, they don’t cry over spilled milk) despite individual economic limits imposed by a socialist economy.

Chao Li, Eddie Onaga, and Michael Larcher (all MBA 14) ride through Old Havana in the back of a 1958 convertible.

Everywhere we went – except for the highly trafficked tourist areas – Cubans warmly welcomed us, answered our questions, and sought to do everything they could to help us in our journey. From renting “particulares” (cars from private citizens) to taking us into their homes after arriving at 1:30 AM, the composed demeanor with which Cubans lived in the face of so much economic adversity was simply remarkable. Nobody ever complained despite making $30 a month, having a low financial ceiling unless they participate in black markets, and often struggling to make ends meet. Never frantic or stressed, they are proud to be Cubans and proud to find ways to help friends. That’s how their businesses operated.

Tobacco leaves from an organic farm in Viñales hang dry before rolling

For instance, we arrived at a delicious paladar (home restaurant) in Viñales at 10 PM. Chatting with our waitress, Anita, we slowly built trust and a relationship. She secured us casas particulares (families licensed by the government to serve as bed and breakfasts) and an expedition the following day through Cuba’s unique organic black tobacco fields where we met with farmers to discuss their commerce. Anita also knew of families with casas particulares on the other end of the island in Trinidad for our other travels. With fixed prices from the government for casas particulares, Anita claimed she did not receive portions of the income. Instead, she helped us only after she felt comfortable with us and felt willing to connect us with others in her network. This happened throughout the trip.

Cuba is a seemingly a tightly interconnected network where people know people. The relationships we established made or broke future opportunities and transactions. Despite a need for additional income, in the instances where we did not invest in trust, Cubans would not extend as much aid. To them, the transaction of payment for service was not sufficient. What mattered was the relationship.

While the part of the Cuban economy we experienced was highly relational, it did not come without drawbacks. Prevalent “island time” required patience, especially given the MBA preference for highly efficient operations.

There are obviously times in which a transactional relationship may be what two parties need more, but the importance of relationships to doing business in Cuba surprised us all and served as only one fascinating experience from an absolutely incredible trek.

*Cuban names have been altered to protect identities.

Traveling Spoon’s Stephanie Lawrence and Aashi Vel, both MBA 13

Steph Lawrence gave her first dinner party when she was 12, serving 40 people. Aashi Vel grew up connecting to her culture through the scrumptious south and north indian food made by her mother in Madras, India.

Both women, MBA 13s, considered a future in food entrepreneurship but weren’t necessarily aiming for that straight out of b-school. Then, they met.

At a consumption function in their first week at Haas they immediately bonded over common interests such as, well, food. What followed has been a whirlwind of activity aimed at launching The Traveling Spoon, an online service helping travelers explore culture through the local cuisine. The tagline: Travel off the Eaten Path.

Lawrence, long an avid food blogger and a cook going back to her Easy Bake Oven days, had been thinking for a while about a venture combining food and travel. While living and working in China in 2009, she made learning how to make dumplings from “a Chinese grandma” a priority. Checking this item off her bucket list made her want to share authentic local food experiences with shorter-term visitors to a region. That same year, she registered the Traveling Spoon URL, with the idea that in a few years she’d go to b-school and think about this some more.

Vel came to Haas with a finely honed palate and experience in industrial design for medical devices and consumer products. “I always want to be doing something creative,” she says of her move from design to cuisine. Prior to meeting Lawrence, she traveled in Tulum, Mexico where she too craved an authentic food experience. “On my way to restaurants, I’d smell the aromas coming from home kitchens and wish I were eating fresh tortillas made by a local Mexican woman instead,” says Vel.

Amara Aigbedion, MBA 13, prepares to enjoy a home-cooked meal in Cochin

“Meeting Aashi is what turned Traveling Spoon from something I auto-renewed on Go Daddy each year into something real,” says Lawrence. Last winter they offered a Traveling Spoon experience to fellow students on a winter break trek through Southeast Asia, bringing 8 classmates together for a home dinner in Cochin, India. “This was the highlight of our trip,” says Jane Wong, MBA 13, of the feast of homemade appams, syrian beef fry, and fish curry. “I would jump at the chance to do another.”

Steph Lawrence learning to make a traditional minced catfish dish in northern Thailand with a Traveling Spoon host

Berkeley-Haas coursework has followed the launch curve for Lawrence and Vel, who together took Entrepreneurship last spring to hone their business model. This year, they moved on to New Venture Finance to work on funding, Lean LaunchPad for deeper customer insights, and Women in Business to learn how to empower their partnering hosts (95% of whom are women).

While their aim is to be global, they are concentrating on Asia for now. Vel spent summer 2012 lining up hosts in India and the pair spent this past winter break in Thailand, Vietnam, and Bangladesh signing up additional hosts—a mix of established chefs and teachers along with home cooks. “An important goal for Traveling Spoon is empowering women in emerging markets,” says Vel.

Days that stretch to 3:00 a.m. are not unusual, but Vel says, “It never feels like work.” That’s due, in part,  to the fact that Lawrence and Vel are now close friends as well as business partners. Both say meeting each other is the best thing that has happened to them at Haas, making it clear that, wherever they travel off the eaten path, it will be together.

Kevin Casey, MBA 09, calls IBD the best teamwork experience thus far in life.

Featured prominently on the web home page for the Berkeley MBA Program’s International Business Development course is Kevin Casey, MBA 09 (above with a friend). The IBD team decided to introduce people to this “face of IBD” in a recent email:

On his application for the IBD program, Casey requested the most adventurous project in the most exotic location. We answered by sending Kevin and two of his classmates, Tony Duynstee, MBA 09, and Will Wright, MBA 09, to the Falkland Islands.  The team completed a feasibility assessment for the development of a sustainable tourism industry in the Jason Islands, on behalf of the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Kevin recalls, “Working with scientists in Argentina, academics in Chile, military in the Falklands, and fundraisers from New York City demonstrated how challenging global projects can be.  More importantly, it taught me how an effective small team can lead much larger institutions to tackle daunting challenges.”

 This wasn’t just any team.  Atypical for IBD, this team had only three members, one of whom was a former navy seal.  As for exotic location, there is only one flight a week connecting the Falklands and Argentina.  Upon returning to Berkeley, Kevin reflected that this was the best teamwork experience he had thus far in his life.

 Now, Kevin is running New Avenue, a company he started while studying at Berkeley-Haas.  New Avenue sells architecture services, loans and construction services to families who want to convert their single family houses for multigenerational living.

Ajay Kshatriya wrote to Dean Lyons about how Haas Defining Principles yield life lessons even for the very young

When Haas unveiled its Defining Principles back in fall 2010, it was not an announcement of a new direction but an articulation of a culture that already strongly defined Berkeley-Haas.

Kevin, Hill, MBA 07

One example: When Kevin Hill, MBA 07, returned to campus for his 5^th reunion, he was so certain the Defining Principles had been in place back then, he bet on it with a classmate. Though he went home with a little less cash, he was glad to know his alma mater was clearly on to something.

From band names to life lessons for newborns, here are a few more stories Dean Rich Lyons has been told in recent months by students and alumni inspired by Haas culture:

Alicia Salmeron, BS 12

Alicia Salmeron, BS 12, reached out to the dean about being contacted by prospective students regarding her Haas experience. “I have never enjoyed writing long emails so much. All I needed to write about was the undeniably powerful culture that is Haas,” wrote Salmeron, now an account manager for Microsoft’s public sector. “The culture really did define my experience and is very much a part of what I bring to my work today.”

Showing the potential staying power of the Defining Principles, Ajay Kshatriya, MBA 11, wrote Lyons in August following the birth of his first child. Ajay had asked friends and family to share three values in life that they thought would be important to little Nikhil. The top three answers: (1) A focus on education, (2) a perspective greater than oneself, and (3) resilience through tough times. That prompted Ajay to write to the Dean: “I realized these represent our core Defining Principles…the Haas culture transcends generations.”

The Dean also heard from a Berkeley undergrad who took Solomon Darwin’s Open Innovation course. At the time, Henry Do, who will graduate in 2013, thought he would become a dentist, but his myriad experiences at Cal have launched him on a broader exploration. He wrote to Dean Lyons that his aim is to “make a larger impact” and to thank the Dean and Haas “for inspiring me to be more than another cog in the world,” adding, “The values I found most influential and inspirational to me (in my time at Berkeley) were the four principles that Haas holds its students accountable for.”

Members of a new full-time MBA band apparently had Haas culture on their minds when naming the group: David Haaselhoff and the Four Chord Principles. Guitarist Michael Nurick, MBA 14, says the name is a look at the ways the band embodies Haas Defining Principles. “We want to serve the Haas community and make it stronger, shatter the stereotype that top business school students can’t also be artists, learn to work as a team in an artistic context, and not take ourselves too seriously, while making this band the best it can be.”

They worked on the project throughout the semester, then went to Jeddah for three weeks to implement it.

This short video highlights their trip and some of the things the students learned about Jeddah.

Patrick Awuah, center, opened Ashesi University in 2002

Patrick Awuah, MBA 99, shares with Bloomberg Businessweek how he came to Haas with the intention of founding a private, secular liberal arts college in his home country of Ghana, a dream he’d had since his first son was born in 1995. Ashesi University is now regarded as one of the premier universities in Ghana. Learn how Haas played a role in making Awuah’s vision a reality.

We have been following Hurricane Sandy from Berkeley and wanted to let you know that our thoughts are with you and your family.

We hope that your homes and businesses were not affected too badly by the floods and winds in the region.

When time permits, we will be grateful to know how you are and if there is any support your Haas Alumni Relations Office can provide.   You may reach us at alumni@haas.berkeley.edu

In the meantime, you are in our thoughts, hopes, and prayers.

Sincerely,
Dean Rich Lyons
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They’ve been workin’ on the railroad: Sebastien Brion and Greg La Blanc of Exec. Ed. helped hone the leadership skills of railway managers in Kazakhstan

Tired of merely chugging along, a regulated monopoly with a Soviet-era organizational style turned to the Haas School’s Center for Executive Education (CEE) to become more competitive.

Kazakhstan’s national railway, Temir Zholy, partnered with CEE in September to train 130 of its leaders how to lead change, communicate up and down the hierarchy, and better listen to the customer to reorient strategic direction. “Temir Zholy is currently profitable, but keenly aware that it needs to change to survive in a more competitive and more dynamic transportation market,” says Haas Lecturer Greg La Blanc. La Blanc, Sebastien Brion, PhD 10, assistant professor at IESE, and Peter Wilton, senior lecturer, developed and delivered the curriculum for this custom program.

Participants learned about customer value, developing a performance-based culture, and building coalitions. They were guided, La Blanc says, to question the status quo and to think about how the world will change. “We encouraged them to identify all aspects of the business that could be improved, dividing them into teams to hone their ability to communicate, find common ground, and work fluidly in groups,” he says.

La Blanc observed that many of the participants were skeptical that they could learn much from people outside their industry. “I think we convinced them that we were not there trying to tell them how to run their railroad but to help them to realize that it was up to them to figure out how best to run the railroad . We were there to jumpstart that process.”

Abby Scott, CEE interim assistant dean, says the partnership speaks nicely to the work Haas is doing in emerging markets. “Haas has a lot to offer in markets like this because our instructors and students are very comfortable dealing with markets in flux,” Scott says. “We are in an environment that makes a habit of continually generating ideas and questioning the way things are done. This maps well to markets that are confronting major transformations–such as Kazakhstan.”

Mexico’s Entrepreneurs of the Year include Carlos Orellana, MBA 10 (l.)

Haas alum Carlos Orellana, co-founder of a network of low-cost, high quality eye-care clinics in Mexico, was named an Entrepreneur of the Year by CNN Expansión–and made its cover (see right).

Orellana, MBA/MPH 10, and co-founder Javier Okhuysen are co-CEOs of salaUno, which delivers eye care, such as cataract surgery, to patients on the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid. The duo aims to make salaUno (which has also been an IBD client for two years) the leading health-care provider for Latin America.

CNN Expansión, a magazine covering business and entrepreneurship in Mexico and Latin America, awarded two companies with the Entrepreneur of the Year honor, selecting salaUno in the High Potential category for its rapid growth and social impact.

While at Haas, Orellana co-founded the Latin American and Hispanic Business Conference with classmate Pedro Kudrnac, MBA 10. Though he and Okhuysen had the idea for salaUno before earning his MBA, Orellana says, “It was during my time at Haas that the project really took shape.”

Note: Read about the experiences of IBD teams working with salaUno this summer in these Haas in the World posts.

As part of a summer 2012 IBD project, Sarah Fisher, MBA 13, helps out at a salaUno outreach eye camp in a remote area outside of Mexico City

Haas conquers the Sugar Loaf

Let me back up a bit. After the series of interviews in the first week of our in-country engagement at ePrimeCare, we focused next on gaining a thorough understanding on the internal workings of the company. We had discussions with the IT development team, the operations team and the sales account managers. We spent several hours poring over the balance sheets, income statements and burn rates. Finally, having wrapped our minds around both the internal and external aspects of the business, we sat as a team to brainstorm and determine a set of clear strategic recommendations to put ePrimeCare on a successful trajectory. In the spirit of “Challenging the status quo” we decided to prepare our final presentation on Prezi . For the last two days and much of the nights, we worked hard at putting our presentation together. We ended up with a 120 slide deck chockfull of insights, suggestions and recommendation. We presented our recommendations to the CEO and CFO of ePrimeCare and the entire management team (CEO, CFO and Directors) of ePrimeCare’s VC, Confrapar. For us, the most fascinating part of the engagement was the opportunity to study, analyze and understand a company in its entirety. We were able to observe and analyze the product development, operations, sales, marketing, finance, competitive landscape, pricing, and customers and gain a C-suite perspective on a company.

The conference room that became our command center for two weeks

1:20AM – Final presentation under construction

All set for the final presentation

During our two weeks at ePrimeCare, we got used to a work hard play hard lifestyle. We would get into work by 9:30AM and generally work till 7:30PM. We would then join Mario and Leonardo, the CFO and CEO, and on occasion their families for dinner. One evening we joined the entire ePrimeCare team for happy hour at a local bar and really felt like a part of the ePrimeCare family. And along the way we made it to the local newspapers, not once, but twice.

Article about ePrimeCare and our IBD team in Jornal Brasil Econômico

Article in Jornal Estado de Minas

From attending a soccer game between Atlético and Internacional to joining the locals for a traditional tropeiro lunch, we also found time to really immerse ourselves in the Brazilian culture. On Saturday, we checked out of the hotel and joined Leonardo and his family at his home for lunch. We enjoyed the traditional cuisine of Minas Gerais. Lunch started with Feijoada and concluded with a spread of seven types of dessert ranging from guava jelly to doce de leite. And then it was time to say goodbye and head to the airport. Muito obrigado to our new found friends in Brazil – Leonardo, Mario, Dina, Gabriel, Rodrigo, Mariana, Marcello, and the entire ePrimeCare team – for their unbounded hospitality, for their cheerful friendliness and for making our stay in Brazil really amazing.

- Shamik, Shisher, Yaro and Matt

Football – Brazilian Style

Tropeiro Porção

Lunch with the ePrimeCare team

Feijoada