From August 18 to 26, the students visited Buenos Aires, Argentina, as part of a monthlong onboarding process that emphasized camaraderie, academic excellence, and helping the less fortunate.

Julita Haber, Ph.D., a clinical assistant professor of communications and media management and director of the full-time MBA program, said this year’s trip, which followed three weeks of orientation both on campus and remotely, expanded upon previous years’ trips, when students did consulting work for local nonprofit organizations. This year, they also brought goods with them to donate to charities and devoted a full day to community service, helping to refurbish a shelter for homeless children.

Serving Local Charities

The three nonprofit groups they worked with were Mensajeros de la Paz, which runs residential homes and daycare centers for underserved children and the elderly; Pilares, which works alongside the families living in precarious settlements in Buenos Aires; and Educar y Crecer, which designs, implements, and evaluates high quality educational programs for children living in vulnerable situations.

“This year, we enriched their involvement and touched on their emotional connection with these populations,” she said, noting that after interviewing the heads of the NGOs about issues such as human resources and marketing, students then presented their findings in person at the NGO’s headquarters.

“Emotionally, students felt a lot more compelled to tap into a social innovation space and do things that open up their ability to give back, which I think is important for MBAs.”

Argentina isn’t the only place the students are traveling; in March, MBA students will travel to London to work with for-profit companies. Both trips are part of a program that emphasizes a global outlook, personalized leadership development, collaboration, rigorous curriculum, and business with purpose.

Forming Tight Bonds

Kostapanos Miliaresis, a member of the class who created to a spreadsheet to track the unassembled bicycles, sheets, towels, rain gear, and other items that the cohort brought with them to donate, said the trip resonated a great deal with him. The mission of Ethelon, the company he co-founded seven years ago in Athens, Greece, is to connect companies with volunteer opportunities. He decided to get his MBA to explore new opportunities, and Fordham’s designation as a Changemaker Campus convinced him to move to New York City. The trip was a great bonding experience, he said.

“We have all these get-to-know kind of gatherings, but when you spend all this time together, you really get a better sense of who someone is,” he said.

Hermann Rinnen, a native of Dusseldorf, Germany, said the trip exceeded his expectations. A 2013 graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Rinnen said he enrolled in the MBA program to strengthen his accounting and finance skills. He was part of a team that addressed human resource management at Mensajeros de la Paz, a project that enabled him to share insights he’s gleaned as co-owner of a family-owned logistics company, Rinnen GmbH & Co.

He said he considers the group’s donations and the service work to be even more important than the consulting projects.

“With the consulting project, we also benefitted from it, not just the organization. We were able to grow and apply knowledge and insight. But doing the community service opened my eyes to how important community work is and how important it is to pay attention to people,” he said.

“I think it was a really great experience to have one day of this kind of community work, I could have done it two or three more days.”

Haber said the trip, which was the third of its kind, has proven to be an excellent bonding experience. This year, the group was treated to a reception at the home of new Fordham Trustee Dario Wertheim, GABELLI ’91. Wertheim also earned an MBA at the business school, and is currently the director of Grupo Werthein, a firm whose portfolio includes mass consumption, energy, insurance, agribusiness, real estate, and technology.

“By having our students travel together, we are actually creating cohesive cohorts,” Haber said.

“That cohesiveness is something that distinguishes us from other, larger MBA programs.”

Gabelli Launch gave the MBA candidates, who hail from India, China, Haiti, Italy, Brazil, Germany, Ireland, Peru, South Africa, Taiwan and the United States, not only a chance to get to know each other before classes started but also an opportunity to be stretched in important ways. Week One focused on helping the students discover their own leadership style. Week Three focused on specific dimensions of the job search, and long-term career development. And Week Four threw them into the world of data and analytics, asking the students to tackle an industry that they knew nothing about—3-D printing.

But it was Week Two that took the entire cohort to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where they engaged with a unique service learning consultancy challenge, putting their marketing, negotiation, financial, cross-cultural communication, time-management, and problem-solving skills into action before the MBA program even began.

“Coming to the States for an MBA can be challenging [because of] different cultures, language, and social barriers,” said MBA student Ramon Barbosa, a managing consultant from Brazil, who credits the weeklong trip for helping to break those barriers. “I know that my MBA experience is going to be enhanced in ways that it wouldn’t—if not for the trip.”

From Aug. 5 to 12, the students worked as advisers to nonprofits that included Energizar Foundation, an organization that promotes renewable energy in Argentina and Latin America; Fundación Emanuel, a pioneering foster care program in La Plata; and FC Bola, a new soccer ball business helping children living in impoverished communities. Some of the NGOs sought guidance in drafting a branding and marketing plan. Others were struggling to develop a corporate strategy, and a few required recommendations on how to diversify their fundraising models to achieve greater impact.

“The students were on teams that were constructed to be cross-cultural in nature, dealing with clients who were not native speakers of English,” said Benjamin M. Cole, Ph.D., director of the Full-time Cohort MBA and Professional MBA programs, who accompanied the students on the trip.

“Given that they were only going to have five days on the ground, they needed to be as effective and efficient as possible. The students had to use their wit and knowledge, and the technology that the school provided to set up virtual meetings and collect data about the organizations before they even set foot in Argentina. At Gabelli, we focus on ‘business with impact,’ and these projects helped set expectations very high.”

No spectators, only participants

When MBA candidate Linda Werner, a manufacturing financial controller from Germany, arrived in Argentina with her teammates, they spent two days brainstorming with leaders of the anti-child-abuse organization Red Por La Infancia.

The organization, which recently began collaborating with the U.N. human rights education initiative THINK EQUAL, wanted to shift its focus from merely being a refuge for victims to manufacturing products and services that educate children and parents about abuse.

“When we got to the school, there were lots of teachers and a couple of people who were part of the board, but there were only two students,” said Swain, whose team was also tasked with helping the organization to clarify its brand message, update its website, and unify its name across all online platforms.

“When we got to the school, there were lots of teachers and a couple of people who were part of the board, but there were only two students,” said Swain, whose team was also tasked with helping the organization to clarify its brand message, update its website, and unify its name across all online platforms.

After learning that many participants ride horses to school, and often miss days, weeks, and months of classes because of bad weather and muddy roads, the MBA students proposed using technology to combat low attendance.

“I think a lot of nonprofits do amazing work and they need to stay around, but we can’t just think that doing good is a responsibility of nonprofits alone.”

“I was amazed to learn that sometimes we think that making an impact is just a matter of being more effective and efficient,” he said. “Sometimes we don’t realize that there are so many cultural barriers that we might have to overcome before trying to make an impact.”

Cole said that was just one of many lessons Gabelli Launch intended to impart.