Alexander Mikhailovsky ’18 didn’t have much time to celebrate his graduation from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. Within days of receiving his finance degree, the U.S. Army Reservist headed to Afghanistan to provide logistics support for the military. “I volunteered to be deployed,” Mikhailovsky said. “I supported combat operations and coordinated various types of equipment. It was a great experience, and I learned a lot.” When he returned to the United States in 2019, he faced a new mission: finding a job.

How a long-connected group of alumni came together to start a scholarship for new Smith studentsIt all started with Fantasy Football – 16 members in the league, all of them alumni of the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, and all of them former members of the Delta Sigma Pi co-ed business fraternity.One day, Daniel Friedman ’98 suggested to the group that they do something meaningful with a portion of their dues, donating to their alma mater. Maybe they could help a student in need, he suggested, create a scholarship and give back.

Ha Le, a second-year MBA student at Maryland Smith, writes about the Distinguished Speakers Series in International Business held on November 21, 2019.

Last week, first- and second-year Smith students came together to take on New York City. Over the course of Thursday and Friday, students had the opportunity to connect with alumni, visit companies throughout New York and learn about the opportunities for both internships and full-time jobs available to them in the city.

Chris Steadley, MBA ’12, has consistently used his global mindset in his eight-plus years at advisory and research services firm Gartner. His current role as a senior partner in consulting includes managing business in the Midwest region of the U.S. from a public sector, education, and nonprofit perspective. Steadley’s main responsibility is to oversee the growth of Gartner’s portfolio, which includes delivering the right solutions for clients. He enjoys leading his team to success.

Each of the seven global mindset competencies is integral to Mark Lenhart’s MBA ’00 work as executive director of study abroad organization CET Academic Programs. As a manager and leader, he finds self-awareness and humility to be a particularly important competency. Lenhart explains, “the leaders I admire most are the ones who approach their world with humility. If you don’t approach a conversation with a certain amount of humility, you manage to create barriers instead of creating learning opportunities.”

Erika Hall ’07, assistant professor of organization and management at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, studied finance at Maryland Smith while maintaining an interest in entrepreneurship. The path to her professional journey and the development of global mindset competencies began with an influential summer research assistantship with former Smith professor Ian Williamson. She witnessed the global nature of his work as his research took him to conferences and presentations across the world. Hall explains, “I just kept thinking, this is such an awesome job!

Approaching cultural differences with curiosity and openness is fundamental to leading with a global mindset. Scott Samels '92, global delivery lead within the global enablement team at McCormick & Company, Inc., oversees approximately two hundred people halved between North America and Europe, specifically in Poland. So for Samels, understanding the cultural differences in the countries that his company operates in and how that impacts the employee workforce is an important factor in developing his global mindset and leading a global team.

People with a global mindset have spent time understanding, accepting and leveraging similarities and differences among cultures and business practices. For Ernst & Young Managing Director, and Global Service Coordinating Partner, Ellen Polansky ’87, developing this mindset starts with breaking down stereotypes and barriers and for some, fear. No one’s success equations should be based on fear. As a Maryland Smith graduate, success comes from being “Fearless” exclaims Polansky.

A global mindset is essential for success in an increasingly interconnected world. For Kristin Fallon '11, that means developing boundaryless thinking, with no set geographical reference. “It is about thinking outside of your immediate world and really accounting for the world at large. We are in the U.S. and so we are thinking about the world from the perspective of the U.S. – as someone from Europe looks at the world from a European perspective. However, trying not to have a fixed perspective is key,” says Fallon, the director of content and storytelling at GE Healthcare.