The University of Texas at Dallas recently hosted an internationally focused conference that prominently featured faculty members from the Naveen Jindal School of Management.
Held May 3 and 4 in the Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center, the Forum for Expatriate Management (FEM) Americas Summit 2023 included five faculty members from the Jindal School, all from the Organizations, Strategy & International Management Area: Hubert Zydorek, the director of the Center for Global Business; Dr. Agnieszka Skuza, an associate professor of instruction; Dr. Riki Takeuchi, the Dr. Joseph Picken Distinguished Chair in Innovation and Entrepreneurship; Dr. Junfeng Wu, an assistant professor; and Dr. Jason Kautz, an assistant professor.
The Forum for Expatriate Management (FEM) aims to unite HR professionals and the global mobility community through content and international events that focus on supporting the exchange of talent across borders. FEM’s mission is to spread knowledge, encourage dialogue and promote networking among companies that employ workers who settle outside their native countries. FEM’s major goal is to share information and best practices regarding expatriates including the logistics of relocation and immigration, as well facilitate discussion about the challenges that arise from managing a global workforce. FEM holds several major summits during the year.
Claire Tennant-Scull, global director of content and events for FEM, opened the Americas Summit by giving some background on why UT Dallas was chosen to host the event.
“Last November I was very fortunate to be invited to judge a student case competition at the Jindal School of Management,” she said. “I was just so impressed by the standard of work of the students and also what they’re doing at the faculty to educate the business stars of the future. It seemed to me that when we spend so much of our time talking about talent, we should come to where the talent of tomorrow is being educated and trained.”
Zydorek, who is also director of the MS in International Management Studies, gave the opening keynote address to formally welcome summit attendees to UT Dallas and describe how the university is cultivating the future of global mobility in business.
“Educating future global mobility professionals requires determination and collaboration of many actors,” he said. “It involves planting a seed in students’ minds that global mobility is an exciting and complex industry that is critical to the success of a company’s international operation. It requires faculty to bridge the gap and provide multiple opportunities for industry and students to come together to ideate about the future of global mobility as well as the skills and competency required to thrive in it.”
Zydorek also explained that a partnership between the Center for Global Business and Joint Academe-Mobility (JAM) was creating these opportunities for students.
The summit continued with a panel discussion about attracting, developing and retaining global talent. Skuza, the new JSOM program director for the Bachelor of Science in Global Business, who opened the discussion by describing the different definitions of talent as outlined in one of her academic papers that she had previously shared with FEM. The panel discussion also included Juan Carlos González, senior director of global mobility at Microsoft; Urska Blagojevic, marketing director at AltoVita; and Vince Cordova, workforce mobility advisory partner at Mercer. Together they discussed the evolving nature of talent strategy, how artificial technology will impact the future of talent management, and what skills and competencies will be required of the talent of tomorrow.
Skuza, Takeuchi, Kautz and Wu all spoke at an interactive workshop — Research Study Workshop: How Can Taking Part in Academic Research Benefit You and Your Business? — in which they discussed what the organization-researcher partnership can look like and how industry professionals can gain the most out of what a university does.
The afternoon brought final voting on a UT Dallas Global Mobility Club case competition where students discussed topics such as employee retention, spreading awareness of global mobility among students, and the impact of hybrid work on global mobility. A total of 16 teams and 63 students entered the competition, and the finalists presented before the FEM Americas Summit audience.
Team 7 which included students Aayesha Syed Ibrahim (UT Dallas freshman, Information Technology and Systems), Sreeja Mudumby (UT Dallas Sophomore, Information Technology and Systems), and Harshini Gudladona (UT Dallas freshman, Information Technology and Systems) placed third in the competition and won a $500 cash prize.
Second place and a $1000 cash prize went to Team 9, Keshav Kumar (UT Dallas freshman, Computer Science), Shashank Gundlapally (UT Dallas Junior, Information Technology and Systems), and Avinash Chivakula (UT Dallas Sophomore, Finance).
First place and a $1,500 cash prize went to Team 4, Arub Ahmad (UT Dallas Senior, Political Science) and Sameer Haq (UT Dallas Senior, Business Analytics).
The case competition organizers, Jackson Passage (UT Dallas Senior, Finance) and Moona Shaik (UT Dallas Senior, Global Business) said that this semester’s GMC case competition was enriched by its inclusion in the FEM event.
“Helping with the planning for this event has helped me develop my professional communication skills and strategic thinking tenfold. Being given the opportunity to work directly with dozens of industry professionals and conference organizers has given me experiences that I would have never otherwise had.” Jackson Passage said.
“After reflection I have realized that this opportunity has allowed me to gain several skills such as creativity, communication, and strategy which will allow me to be a better leader in the future. The GMC officer team has gained more exposure to the global mobility industry directly through professionals with the help of the Forum Expatriate Management summit that took place; officers had the chance to sharpen their networking skills which will be incredibly useful for their future careers!” Moona Shaik said.
The FEM Americas Summit 2023 was jam-packed with even more prominent global mobility speakers, networking opportunities, dynamic workshops and panels. The summit closed with the Expatriate Management & Mobility Awards (EMMAS) ceremony and an after-party in the Texas Instruments Inspiration Hall.
Zydorek said the connections made at the summit were valuable for the Jindal School, its faculty members and students because the Jindal School’s future will necessarily become more intertwined with global mobility to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing, technology-driven, global society.
“Our aspirations include establishing concentrations, academic and corporate certificates that will allow our students not only to obtain the necessary skills but also to see the global mobility journey from start to finish,” he said. “Our mission is to create a structured network of partners on which we can rely. We aim to become the academic leader of the global mobility ecosystem.”
