Saint Mary's College of California
AC-4: Graduate Program

The Transglobal Executive MBA program has a platform of sustainability while balancing people, planet and profit. The key overarching learning objectives include understanding how to make businesses financially sustainable (profit) while ensuring sustainability of the planet and protecting the rights of the people involved. The capstone experience includes an overseas trip in which the students are required to demonstrate their newly acquired sustainability skills in analysis of best practices in top of the pyramid countries. These countries may include Australia, New Zealand, Singapore etc. For example how does the wine industry adapt to organic farming and while creating jobs for the local community in North Island New Zealand. Some of the projects include: Africa Uganda - Skills development, strategic plan for keeping local villages with basket weaving. Uganda - Children’s Hospital Batwa Pygmy Hospital: developing sustainable financial plan/strategic plan, micro-insurance. Project completion: May, 2012 Rwanda - Working with government to improve tourism in Rwanda, built 5 year strategic plan and website portal. Project completion: May, 2012 Faculty Advisor: Linda Herkenhoff Rwanda - Partnership with American NGO to build a co-op model for creating jobs in hospitality in Rwanda. Uganda – Microfinance model and co-op development in interior Uganda. Project completion: May, 2012 Faculty Advisor: Tina Zhang Zanzibar – Chumbe Island Coral Reserve: education development on global warming, reef protection while enhancing aqua-culture. Project completion: February, 2014 Faculty advisor: Tina Zhang Zanzibar – Seaweed Harvesting: building financial model and product development with women’s co-op. Project completion: March 2014 Faculty advisor: Yung-Jae Lee India (all in Mumbai) Night School Program: marketing and distribution development. Project completion: December, 2013 Faculty advisor: Andras Margitay-Becht Creative Handcrafts: women’s co-op building marketing and developing jobs. Project completion: December, 2013 Faculty advisor: Tina Zhang Don Bosco Orphanage: moving towards financially sustainable model instead of donation base. “These are abandoned children at the Rail Station in Mumbai” Project completion: December, 2013 Faculty advisor: Tomas Gomez Microfinance: helping small companies gain loans to allow for growth and job creation. Indonesia Lifestyle model, improving women’s skills, providing better infrastructure for children and education for parents in the slums of Jakarta. Project completion: April 2014 Faculty advisor: Judith White Bio-waste: development of bio-waste into chicken feed to allow for easier entry into chicken farming. This also allows men to find jobs in their own communities instead of migrating to Jakarta. Project completion: April 2014 Faculty advisor: Yung-Jae Lee Dreamdelion: Women’s handicrafts, working with NGO to do product analyses and supply chain analyses in slums of Jakarta. Project completion: April 2014 Faculty advisor: Tina Zhang Philippines (these are C10 projects and expected completion is December 2015 Persons with Disabilities (PWDs): helping with job creation, training models, scaling model to be used throughout Philippines. Faculty advisor: Tomas Gomez Microfinance: helping NGO to reach more families in poor communities. Creating education and distribution models. Faculty Advisor: Andras Margitay-Becht An overarching project for all teams must work on, has to go with the NOAA data base on coral bleaching. We actively collect data in the water with coral reefs in our areas of study. The student not only read about Global Warming but collect data based on the impact of the phenomena. The students discuss this impact on local economies and the financial sustainability on the local communities. A wonderful example of balancing people, planet and profit. To make this program even more effective in the spirit of continuous improvement, we have shortened this particular MBA program to 12 months where the students complete a course each month. Throughout the program the student work on their service project that emphasizes sustainability with people, planet and profit. All professors meet with the program director to discuss how they will build sustainability into their courses while considering the students’ service projects at the base of the economic pyramid.