Schulich School of Business

The Kellogg-Schulich Worldwide Classroom: Kellogg-Miami

In today's global economy, knowledge and experience of international business are essential. A compulsory component of the Kellogg-Schulich EMBA is the global electives program, where students have the exciting opportunity to study abroad, network with students from around the world and participate in the optional company visits and sightseeing activities many of the schools offer. This series of articles provides you with a closer look at the international opportunities that await Kellogg-Schulich EMBA students through the global electives program.

This week, we are profiling Gautam Sachdev and his experience at the Miami Campus, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Miami, USA.

Schulich EMBA student Gautam Sachdev (EMBA Class of '10), is a Senior Vice President and Head of Strategy and Implementation, Global Banking and Markets Compliance, Americas, for HSBC Group in New York, U.S. After attending Kellogg-Recanati in Tel Aviv, Israel, for his required EMBA global electives module, Gautam decided to complete an additional module at Kellogg's Miami Campus, Kellogg-Miami.

"I was interested in learning more about Latin America because of HSBC's presence and business emphasis on this developing region. In the near future, I will be traveling to Latin America and working closely with HSBC's branches there," he explained. "I thought attending Kellogg-Miami would be beneficial since most of the students are from the region."

Kellogg students from diverse countries around the world attend Kellogg-Miami, with the majority from Latin American countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela.

"I had never set foot in Latin America, but spending time with my classmates was extremely helpful in understanding the culture and how business actually works there," said Gautam. "They told me what to do and, more importantly, what to avoid. Now, all of a sudden, I have this network of people already in place for when I move down there and, if anything, I have people to contact if I have any questions."

With the Kellogg-Miami campus situated in the heart of Miami, there were plenty of opportunities for networking outside of the classroom. The newly designed, state-of-the-art Kellogg-Miami facility is situated west of downtown Miami in the community of Coral Gables, just a short distance from both restaurants and shopping.

"The networking opportunities were tremendous," said Gautam. "It was one of the major benefits for me. I had a good mix of classmates and working so closely together on the group assignments allowed me to get to know them personally. I learned about their organizations and work cultures. And it was nice to network both professionally in the classroom and socially."

Inside the classroom, Kellogg-Miami offered two global elective courses: Wall Street, Hedge Funds and Private Equity and Strategic Issues in Commodity Industries. Wall Street focuses on the role that investment banks, leveraged buyout funds (LBO) and hedge funds play in mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance markets, as well as their influence on corporate governance. Commodity Industries introduces students to state-of-the-art models for the analysis of commodity markets, including powerful frameworks for forecasting price trends, incorporating real options and herd behaviours in pricing models and economic drivers of public policies and regulations.

"Both were great courses with seasoned professors from Kellogg instructing us," said Gautam. "Our professor for Wall Street was a veteran executive with almost 35 years of experience working on Wall Street. He's lived through many financial ups and downs, so he offered us great insights into banking and how the industry has evolved through the years. Both professors provided us with excellent perspectives on the industry."

Gautam holds both a Bachelor of Science (BSc) and a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from New York University. The Kellogg-Schulich EMBA was his first formal exposure to business education.

"I chose to attend Kellogg-Schulich not only because of the program's number one ranking and location, but also for the course offerings and a program structure which allowed me to strike a good balance between work and life."

In terms of the global context and content of the EMBA program, Gautam said it was tough to compare his experiences in Miami and Israel because both of the Kellogg campuses provided many cross-cultural benefits and opportunities for networking.

"Both Kellogg-Miami and Kellogg-Recanati had their own benefits in terms of locations and the people we were interacting with," said Gautam. "At Recanati, the majority of students were from Israel but there were also students from Kellogg and each of the Kellogg partner schools. So when I was in Miami, I was seeing quite a few of my classmates from Kellogg-Recanati for the second time.

"Attending Kellogg-Miami was insightful and worthwhile because I had the opportunity to sit in a classroom with seasoned individuals from various parts of the globe, hear different business perspectives and discuss diverse views on the course content."