InternationalHub: Cultural Conversations

An interview with Kent White, the CEO of A Child's Hope Foundation - a foundation that supports orphanage leaders and helps them to provide loving, family-style environments where the children can thrive.

Emma Brown shares her expertise on attachment theory disorder and how it affects children in disenfranchised areas.

Welcome to our first ever mini series! We are thrilled to welcome two fantastic MBA student hosts to our team. Joseph and Kenzie have interviewed multiple individuals about their experiences with various forms of childhood crisis. These episodes will explore what these adults lived through during adolescence, how they learned, grew, and overcame these challenges, and ultimately what we can can do in order to help alleviate these issues on a global basis. Thank you for listening!

Oscar Cordón shares insights from his two internship experiences in China. He demonstrates that it's possible to go abroad even with relatively little experience. From Oscar, you can also learn how to determine how deeply you dive into the culture of your host country when seeking out professional opportunities.

The number of U.S. students studying abroad has increased 15% in the last five years. But how can we break into international academic work? We've got four experienced guests lined up for our upcoming mini series on doing graduate school abroad. In this episode, they share their insights on finding impetus to study abroad, selecting the right opportunities, and the logistics of an international move. For more great content, visit us at internationalhub.org and join us on https://www.linkedin.com/company/internationalhub/mycompany/ (LinkedIn )and https://www.instagram.com/theinternationalhub/ (Instagram).

Learn about Dr. James Moore's experiences moving his young family across the world to China. Dr. Moore discusses his experiences adapting to life in China, becoming a CEO of an international company at a young age, and different global management strategies he's learned throughout his career. Dr. Moore now teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School where he is also currently getting his MPA.

Throughout history, sport has played a role in the shaping of our societies and communities. In this episode, we take a leap into some of these moments and explore the “why” behind the massive influence sports have on political and social issues. Former NBA player Earl Cureton shares his insight on the role of basketball within diverse teams and in local communities. We then outline some ways you can get involved with organizations that try to harness the power of sport to bring about positive change.  Get Involved: Right to Play - https://righttoplay.com/en/ Football for Peace - https://footballforpeaceglobal.org/ Peace Players International - https://www.peaceplayers.org/ Earl Cureton's podcast - 3 League OGs https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/3-league-ogs/id1548014597 Sources: Francois Peinaar's snippet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdr5ksJhKi8 Rugby game announcer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8y63a5z0h4

Billie is an implementation consultant at Restaurant365, an Irvine-based software startup that provides accounting solutions for restaurants. Billie’s education and experience aren’t typical for his field – he got a bachelor’s degree in history before realizing his passion for numbers and getting a master’s in accounting. He spent several years as a business owner in Laos before returning to California. In addition to his business experience, Billie is a big foodie and is always a great resource for restaurant recommendations.

In this episode, Will Perry walks us through how his career path brought him to the favelas of Brazil, to the heart of Washington D.C., to his current residence in London. Listen to hear some of Perry’s favorite (and most dangerous) travel stories, as well as his valuable advice for future international professionals. Find more podcasts, videos, articles, assessments and other international business resources at internationalhub.org!

In this episode, https://www.linkedin.com/in/reziausman/ (Rezia Usman) walks us through some of the biggest lessons she has learned on the importance of networking in the business world. Although Rezia has lived in very different countries, she has found that being kind and making meaningful connections are universally important in building your network.   Guest: Rezia Usman is a passionate educator with high interests in language education and international education. Her work experience extends from international higher-ed relations, student recruitment, classroom language teaching, teacher training, curriculum development, program implementation supervision, maintaining relationships with schools, providing academic information, and consultation on international program implementation.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brooke-squires/ (Squires) walks us through her path to receiving and navigating an internship in China. She shares how she networked for the internship and how to have an open mind in a new culture, and also describes some of the cultural differences that she experienced.   Guest: Brooke Squires grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, before graduating from the Global Supply Chain program at BYU. After an internship in China. Squires now works at Sunrise Technologies as a supply chain consultant on projects with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Terry is an associate at The Boston Consulting Group in Dubai, UAE, and has extensive international experience for such a young professional. During his time at Queen’s University, Terry interned in Toronto, Johannesburg, and Washington D.C. He also spent a semester abroad at the Vienna University of Economics and Business.    In addition to Terry’s wide range of experiences abroad, he speaks fluent French and Mandarin. He is passionate about adventure photography, and his photos have been featured in National Geographic.

Cragun’s unique engineering internship in China helped him get into one of the top MBA schools in the world. Get his advice on how to find great opportunities and find the internship that is best for you.   Guest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cragun-liston-4347874b/ (Cragun Liston) grew up in Ogden, Utah. He moved to Provo to study at Brigham Young University where he first started studying Finance before switching over to *Manufacturing Engineering*. Cragun was first exposed to Asian culture when he served a mission in the Chinatowns of New York City. He then did a couple of international internships while at BYU. The first, where he traveled around Asia with a group of BYU students and presented to the management of different companies. The second, he worked at a shrimp peeling factory in China to work on process optimization. After graduating from BYU Cragun worked at Whirlpool for a couple of years. He is currently starting up his first semester at Harvard Business School where he plans to get his MBA.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dsundwall/ (Dan) has over 20 years’ experience in Finance Operations / Shared Services. He has key skills in International Leadership, Finance Operations, Business Process Transformation, ERP Implementations, extensive Program, and Project management experience, building and maintaining Key Performance Indicators, and other related financial and accounting reporting.Dan has led both on-shore and off-shore organizations around the world and managed the migration of work in several different business models. He has worked mainly in the U.S. and has international experience having lived and worked in The Netherlands and Mexico City.In addition to leading Finance Operations organizations, Dan has utilized his background and skills to consult as a Subject Matter Expert in finance organization design, outsourcing strategies, business process-led transformation, and leveraged his knowledge of best practices to help several organizations achieve leading practice.

Guest: Jeff Jenkins grew up in Spokane, Washington before his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Accounting at BYU. He started with Deloitte in the Bay Area before taking on his current opportunity in Finland.

Guest: Carolina Núñez is the Associate Dean for Faculty and Curriculum and Professor of Law at Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School. She is a summa cum laude graduate of the Brigham Young University Law School and Managing Editor of the BYU Law Review. Dean Núñez co-founded the J. Reuben Clark Law School’s Refugee and Immigration Initiative. Her commentary on immigration-related current events has appeared in the Deseret News, the Salt Lake Tribune, on BYU Radio, and KUER.

Guest: Jennifer Birtcher is an accomplished human resources leader with experience in many different industries and countries. She has lived and worked in England, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya, among others. With experience working for large companies such as Saudi Aramco and Nestle as well as nonprofit experience in Kenya, Jen has vast knowledge about leadership, how to develop talent, and international culture and business.

Guest: Lori Nichols was born and raised just outside of Portland, Oregon. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Accounting at Brigham Young University and has her CPA. Lori started at Ernst and Young and is now the Senior Director for International Tax at Adobe.

Guest: Dr. Chantel Sloan is a professor of health sciences at BYU. Dr. Sloan joined the faculty in the BYU Department of Health Science after completing a postdoctoral program at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She received her Doctorate from Dartmouth College, and her bachelor's degree from BYU-Hawaii. Dr. Sloan has researched a variety of topics in respiratory health, genetics and applications in Medical Geography.

Guest: Kristie Seawright, a native of Southern California, received her undergrad from Brigham Young University. She then received a second bachelor’s degree, MBA, and a Ph.D. in Operations Management and International Business from the University of Utah. After 18years of being a full-time homemaker, she taught Marketing and Global Supply Chain at BYU and has been heavily involved in many international study activities while there. Connect with https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristie-seawright-1315b01/ (Kristie) on LinkedIn!

Guest: Ken Wilson: Finance leader with 20 years experience including 8 years team management in finance and accounting functions with global companies ranging from rapidly growing venture capital funded startups to Fortune 500. Led global cross-functional teams to improve profitability by $100M on 4 occasions. Connect with Ken on https://www.linkedin.com/in/kendalwilson25/ (LinkedIn) iHub on https://www.linkedin.com/company/internationalhub/ (LinkedIn) and https://www.instagram.com/theinternationalhub/ (Instagram) Check out our https://internationalhub.org/podcast/ (website) and get more content on international business Connect with Meg Rowley on LinkedIn

Guest: Joshua Loud: Received his undergraduate degree in Economics and Political Science from Brigham Young University. He then went on to receive a PhD in Political Economy from Stanford. Prior to working for the EBRD, Joshua worked for the United States Department of the Treasury and GE. Connect with Joshua on https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-loud-aa769b8/ (LinkedIn) iHub on https://www.linkedin.com/company/internationalhub/ (LinkedIn) and https://www.instagram.com/theinternationalhub/ (Instagram) Check out our https://internationalhub.org/podcast/ (website) and get more content on international business Connect with Meg Rowley on LinkedIn

Guest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottlalor/ (Scott Lalor) started his undergraduate education at Brigham Young University where he studied economics and finance. After graduating he had the opportunity to work for a few local companies in Utah including Zango, Goldman Sachs, and England Logistics. He then got his Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Notre Dame. After receiving his MBA Scott recruited straight to Amazon at their headquarters in Seattle. A few years later he transferred to their Luxembourg office where he is currently living with his family and filling the role of Senior Vendor Manager. Overview: Have you ever wondered what it’s like getting a career in international business? Or how to manage diverse teams representing a variety of cultures and countries? Join us as we learn from Scott Lalor, Senior Manager at Amazon in Luxembourg as he shares with us his experience managing abroad. Transcript Meg: So first Scott could you give us a little bit of a background about yourself? Scott: Absolutely, first thank you for inviting me out. I’m excited to be back on campus and speaking about business. So, I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah and then out of high school I came to BYU. I played on the lacrosse team, had a ton of fun doing that. And then I spent two years on a church mission in California. I came back from that and focused more on my studies. I ended up graduating in Economics but also spent a fair amount of time in the business school studying finance. And then I ended up getting my MBA at the University of Notre Dame. Personally, I am married to my wonderful wife Allie. We have two boys ages eight and four. We absolutely love to travel, it’s one of our favorite things to do; my two boys have been to twenty-one countries already, so they love to travel as well so we passed that on to them. And anything outdoor-related hiking, biking, fly-fishing, and most recently I’ve picked up soccer or as my European colleagues a called it Futbol. I am still pretty bad, but I have a lot of fun doing that.https://internationalhub.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1.png () Meg: Tell me a little bit more about some of your travel experiences… Scott: So, we’ve lived in Luxembourg for two and a half years. It has really become kind of our leap pad to the world. We’ve been able to travel to a lot of European countries and we’ve also been able to go a little bit farther. So, we’ve spent time in Israel, Turkey, Morocco, and Egypt. Some really some special places and it’s really taught our family about the world and different cultures. Just a few fun stories that I like to tell. First, a funny one. So, we were in Germany’s late one night visiting some Christmas markets and we were all hungry and so we went to this pizza place. They didn’t speak English, our German is quite bad and so my son ordered a pepperoni pizza for dinner and when it came out it wasn’t pepperonis like we know here in America, it was actually huge peppers across every inch of the pizza. So, he looked at me in fright. We all had a good laugh about that. So, we ended up picking the peppers off and enjoying now a cheese pizza. I would say, on the more serious side, we visited Egypt. Egypt as many know, has been through some real challenges over the past five or so years after Arab Spring and you know their economy is struggling. So, we went to a city called Hurghada which is on the Red Sea and visited Luxor and some of the some of the neat Egyptian sites that a lot of people know. When we’re there we got a taxi every day and went into the city and we met this wonderful taxi driver named Mohammed. We became close friends with him. The first day he picked us up and said, “Hey do you do you need a taxi the next day?” and we said, “Sure.” So, we ended up going with Mohammed four or five nights in a row. So, the third night he turned around in the cab and said “Are you interested in meeting my family and coming to my...

God save the Queen! The last stop of the study abroad group’s hop across the pond was to London, England. Join us as we learn about business, food, and culture in England.

Our students had the chance to spend two days in Belgium. While there they were able to explore the cities of Brussels and Bruges as well as visit the European Commission headquarters and one of Cargill’s production facilities.

Ever heard of the country Luxembourg? Neither did many of our students before going there. Let’s learn more about this beautiful country in the middle of Europe, including the melting pot of cultures and the big businesses that are run there.

In this episode, we hear from students about Germany. The group visited the University of Duisburg-Essen to learn about education in Germany. Join us as we learn about German food, culture, and education.

Join us this week as we hear a little more about Polish education, history, and culture, but this time from some of our international friends we made while we were there.

Join us as we follow the study abroad to Katowice, Poland and learn about Polish food, education, and culture.

Join us as we follow the Study Abroad group to Paris, France and learn about French cuisine, culture, and business.

In this week’s episode, we reach out to the 2019 BYU Accounting Study Abroad group to hear about their time in Rome, Italy. Join us as we learn about Italian food, business, and culture.

Each year, the Brigham Young University School of Accountancy takes a group of students on a Study Abroad in Europe. This next series includes interviews from those who attended the study abroad.

In today’s episode, we talk with Hiram Chan, an international student from Hong Kong studying accounting at Brigham Young University. During the discussion, Hiram shares Hong Kong’s cultural characteristics as well as the transitions he has made after coming to the United States.

Do you have an upcoming business trip to a foreign country? How can you be prepared to enter a new culture? In today’s episode, we talk with Greg Jones about the lessons he has learned during his international travels. As a volunteer church missionary, Greg spent two years in Argentina. As a lawyer for Novell, Greg has traveled to Japan, India, Germany, China, and South Korea.

:Today on the show, we talk with Dave Pierce over the phone about foreign currency and capital markets. We discuss why you should care about foreign currency risk, whether you are part of a small domestic company or a giant multinational corporation.

Etiquette –“It’s not rules. It’s people.” Learn from Candilyn Newell, wife of a former US Ambassador to Sweden, about managing relationships and etiquette in an international setting.

Belief systems are an integral part of every culture. In today’s show, we focus on belief systems –what they are, why they are important, and how they affect business.

This episode is all about managing relationships. Join us as we take on two more “Culture Map” scales: Leading and Trusting.

What is considered “on-time” in the US Army versus a company in Costa Rica? And what drives student and employee motivation in different countries? In this episode we dive into two different “Culture Map” scales, Persuasion and Scheduling.

In this episode, we discuss the evaluating, disagreeing, and communicating scales formed by Erin Meyer. Along the way, we learn why the Swiss don’t necessarily mean to be rude, the Japanese know how to read the air, and more.

Join us as we begin a new season of our podcast!

What does innovation look like in emerging markets, and how is it different from innovation in developed markets? Jim Oldroyd explains his thoughts on the subject during this interview.

Earlier we heard from Aric Johnstone about his experiences working around the world. Aric moved back to the US not long after our interview. Today we hear about his experiences during his first 30 days back in his home country.

Have you ever wondered what it is like to work for a joint-venture between two global companies? Join us as we hear from Swedish professional Örjan Olsson’s about his experience working for the joint-venture between Universal Pictures and Sony, as well as his thoughts about Swedish Fika and the summer semester.

Living and working abroad is really what you make of it. Join us as Rob Jenson guides us through his experience as an expat in the Netherlands. Find out how he manages cross cultural relationships and communication outside of his home country.

What do you do when a bribe payment is the only thing keeping your company’s supply chain from moving? What about when an HR employee messes with your company’s severance policy? Find out in this episode of Cultural Conversations as Bill O’Rourke shares his experiences as a business executive working in Russia.

On this episode of Cultural Conversations, we hear from Marc Eulerich, a German professor with experience working in both America and Germany. Listen to learn the difference in how Americans and Germans value education.

This is the story of an American physician and his experiences researching and working with doctors in Japan. Join us as we learn how Robert Carlile navigated his way through Japanese culture.

Kip shares his wisdom from years of working as an international business consultant in Mexico, Brazil, Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the UK, Japan, China, and Hong Kong. He discusses the necessary procedures before entering a foreign country, the difficulties of international business travel, and how to understand cultural nuances.

Working in England sounds easy right? You speak the language—they have those charming accents. Where’s the difficulty? Jonathan Young explains how moving to England is more of an adjustment than you would imagine, what it’s like to be an American foreigner, and his experience with cross-border mergers and acquisitions.