A global perspective starts with a local outlook for Rocio Holub '04, a senior manager for global operations at DAI Global, LLC. She says understanding on-the-ground conditions in foreign environments has helped shape her career. In her current assignment, Holub has traveled the world to establish businesses and promote sustainability in foreign markets. She says forming relationships and experiencing different environments firsthand provides valuable perspectives that allow her to better accomplish her objectives.

Cross-border mergers and acquisitions start with empathy, says investment banker Abhjieet Biswas, MBA '00. "Everything else can fall into place," he says. "But if there are barriers to understanding each other, you won't be successful." Biswas, a 2000 MBA graduate of the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, says empathy is also a key component of global mindset. "It means having the ability to marry knowledge of local markets with a global outlook," he says. "And to see these two things as complementary not supplementary."

Every transaction is international when you work at Maersk, the world's largest container ship operator. "Supply chain management gives you a really literal illustration of global business," says Katie Praske '01, who spent nearly 15 years at Maersk as a customer service and compliance manager. "Each shipment touches at least two countries. You can't do anything in isolation."

Development banker Evelyn Hartwick, EMBA '10, embraces ambiguity and stretch assignments as a way of life. "People who resist change don't grow," she says. Hartwick knew little of the world outside El Salvador when she arrived in the United States at the start of a civil war that tore apart her country in the 1980s. She was 17, fresh out of high school and alone in a foreign place. "I had $200 in my pocket, and I didn't know any English," she says. "Needless to say, I experienced culture shock when I got to New York to study."

Stephen M. Feeney '70 knew his place in the world as a New York banker. "I was working for various financial entities in a narrowly defined square block bordered by 42nd Street, 59th Street, Third Avenue and Broadway in Manhattan," he says.

Surprises come with the territory when working in international development across India. As senior engagement manager at Sattva Consulting, Rahul Shah, PTMBA ’15, MFin ’15, must navigate uncertainty as he works across all domains with all types of stakeholders on a diverse subcontinent.

By Meredith Cobb New Jersey native Jenna Steckler ’94 is not afraid of change. It usually starts with simple intuition, she says, a “little voice” that suggests it might be time for something new. The description helps to explain how she graduated with a marketing degree from the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business and now, 25 years later, runs her own interior design firm that recently remodeled the Sigma Delta Tau house near campus in College Park.

Marine conservationist Johanna Polsenberg, EMBA ’07, never stays in one place for long. She has traveled through Asia and lived in the Bahamas, Alaska and Gabon on the Atlantic Coast of Central Africa. She now raises sheep with her family in Vermont, where she teaches skiing and middle school science. She also runs a consulting firm focused on corporate governance.

Intermediate French class started with the usual chatter on April 16, 2007, at Virginia Tech University. “It was a normal Monday morning, talking about what we did the previous weekend,” says Colin Goddard, MBA ’18, who took the course as an international studies major. When loud banging interrupted the routine, students assumed construction workers had started a project nearby. The professor looked in the hallway to investigate, then immediately shut the door and told students to get under their desks.

When Dublin-native Liam Brown, EMBA ’05, travelled to the United States for a friend’s wedding in 1989, he intended to stay only a few days. But an unexpected job opportunity in the hotel business kept him stateside, where he spent the next three decades rising through the ranks at Marriott International. Now Brown will head back across the pond to become president and managing director of Marriott International’s Europe division, which includes the United Kingdom, Ireland and continental Europe. He shares three leadership principles that have guided his career.