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Stanford Business magazine

 

Spreadsheet

Clearing Roadblocks In the Global Village

After three years in the federal government, Amy Wilkinson, MBA ’02, sees a growing need for business people to find out more about the public sector. “From my perspective, the intersection of business and government is critical,” Wilkinson says, “increasingly so as globalization increases.”

Wilkinson went to Washington in 2004 as a White House Fellow and stayed on in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative until last spring. There she was able to observe a parade of executives whose companies needed assistance in international trade relations. The CEO of Wal-Mart was a frequent visitor. The company, which has nearly 70 stores in China, built a few of them without first getting the blessing of Vice Premier Wu Yi, Wilkinson relates, “so the Chinese said we’re not building roads to your store, and Wal-Mart had to ask the Trade Office for help.” Wilkinson cites another example: “In Russia, Motorola was having a heck of a time because a lot of their cell phones were being destroyed on entry. Russian customs was literally exploding their inventory. That one got kicked all the way up to the president.”

Wilkinson is taking a year off to write a book before finding a job, this time in the private sector. Her government experience was valuable, but enough is enough, she says. She expects that seeing the realities of global trade and knowing where to go for help will make her a better cross-border business person in the long run.