Stanford Business

NOVEMBER 2006


Sloans End Year with China, India Trip

Cal and Kathy Augason, Sloan '06, joined Sloan fellows and spouses on a pedicab tour of the labyrinth of alleys called hutongs in Beijing. The visit was a highlight of the international study trip that capped the 2006 Sloan Program.
Photo by Barbara Buell

With both China and India as destinations this year, the Sloan Master’s Program study trip in June and July drew a record number of participants—more than five dozen people, including faculty members Bruce McKern and Haim Mendelson and 18 spouses of fellows. China’s burgeoning economy provided huge learning opportunities with visits to 12 companies in technology, real estate, and heavy industry, not to mention a stop at the Forbidden City, now under massive renovation in anticipation of the 2008 Olympics. Market displays of U.S.- and European-brand knock-off products were not lost on the students. In Shanghai, alum Stephen Wong, Sloan ’99, hosted a lecture and a reception in a restored French Concession-era building at Xintiandi.

A monsoon swept the students into the Indian city of Mumbai. That proved no obstacle to meeting more than 22 executives and government officials in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, and New Delhi. There’s nothing like having an incredibly connected Sloan alum helping behind the scenes. Indeed, Farhad Forbes, Sloan ’91, director of Pune-based Forbes Marshall and chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry, arranged nearly a dozen meetings with senior execs for the Sloans.

Those included a discussion with Rattan Tata, chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group, which includes auto, power, steel, hotel, telecom, and it consulting businesses. Students also met with 1981 MBA class member Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of petrochemical, textile, and financial services giant Reliance Industries.