Over the years, Laura Benkowski’s entrepreneurial spirit has taken her all over the world, even to the site of a closed gem mine in Arizona. “The gem mine was shut down in 2012 and contains a turquoise known as Sleeping Beauty turquoise that is very rare and highly sought,” says Benkowski ’11, MBA ’14.

Intercultural empathy is the ability to perceive the world as it is perceived by a culture different from your own. For Ansa Edim, MBA '16, vice president and staff board chair at Change.org, a global mindset is just that. “A global mindset means having an understanding of a shared narrative around the world so that we have an understanding of the struggles of other people and empathy. At Change.org, we're dealing with people who don't typically have a voice and we are giving them space to have that voice. So that requires some empathy to their plight,” Edim says.

Perception is how we view, understand, and interpret the things around us. For international trade specialist, Ja’Nel Edens, a global mindset starts with changing your perception and thinking of yourself not just as a citizen of your nation, but as a global citizen. She states, “We must recognize that we are all interconnected in some way. We share similarities with other cultures outside of our own country and we are part of one big world, even though we are separated by waters.”

Business is now more global than ever, challenging us to expand our understanding of other cultures and develop deeper cultural knowledge. For Zeynep Ozenci, principal investment officer at International Finance Corporation (IFC), developing this sort of cultural consciousness is not a choice, it is needed to effectively do her job.

Ed Novak divides much of his time between Boston and the Washington, D.C., area, but his professional reach is global. As managing director and partner at Vistra, an international business services provider, he’s in constant contact with clients and colleagues worldwide. Because much of his work involves helping growth-oriented clients expand their operations overseas, Novak says his global mindset competencies, relationship-building abilities and cultural curiosity are key skills.

Sometimes, it’s a journey halfway around the world that opens doors all the way back home. Iris Lan, MBA ’20, says that’s what happened for her when she left China to pursue an MBA at Maryland Smith. “Before attending the Smith School, I was a supply chain manager at Baxter,” Lan says. She had over 10 years’ experience in supply chain in the healthcare industry, but she wanted to shift her career into general management. The Smith curriculum gave her the tools and business acumen to help make the transition.

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.

Max Major '05 can read your mind. It's a passion he parlayed into the only career he ever really considered. While at Maryland Smith, he honed his entrepreneurial skills to build a business as a renowned mentalist. Major, who describes his craft as combining "the showmanship of a magician mixed with some cool psychology and hypnosis," now performs at more than 200 events each year for top organizations like Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Department of Defense.

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!