Creating a profitable news business is difficult. Roy Schwartz ’98, MBA ’01, and his partners have done it twice. Schwartz joined Politico in 2008 during the publication’s early days and helped the journalism company expand in Washington, D.C. Then in 2016, he and two associates left Politico and started Axios. Since then the startup has grown to prominence, grabbing attention with an HBO series and exclusive interviews with newsmakers like White House adviser Jared Kushner and Apple CEO Tim Cook.

A multimillion-dollar social media campaign on two of China's most popular platforms requires careful planning and vision. Digital Strategist Rishi Kadiwar, '05, MBA '10, says success also requires global mindset — especially when team members work in multiple countries and speak numerous languages.

Visiting other countries, whether for business or leisure, can seem daunting because of the abundance of variables in a new environment. Philip Grove, MBA '15, an international sales manager, chooses to focus on the one constant variable in each trip: himself.

Global business strategist Paul Adler, MBA ’78, can’t help asking questions when he meets somebody from another place. His cultural curiosity propels him forward. “Being interested in other cultures is impossible to fake,” says Adler, a former business development executive for IBM who launched his own firm in 2018.

Sameness can be reassuring. But Maurice Nick, a supply planning manager at Stanley Black & Decker, prefers the disruption of new ideas. "I grow tired of situations quickly," he says. "Without having different insights, different perspectives and different people around me, I get weary in what I'm doing."

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."

By Meredith Cobb Anthony “A.J.” Woodard Jr. ’20 loves music, leadership and math. He combines the first two passions in his side gig as a DJ. “In high school we really didn’t do anything on the weekends,” he says. “So I saw an opportunity to do something for my friends. I picked up DJ-ing, kept it up as a hobby and turned it into a side gig.” His other passion led him to a dual degree program at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, where he is pursuing a full-time MBA and Master of Finance.

Entrepreneur Jasmine Snead, MBA ’21, has been skating since she was 5. But as a woman of color, she struggled to find tights that matched her skin tone. “I was forced to wear tights, mesh and other paraphernalia in the wrong skin tones because my shade was not readily available,” Snead says. “The lack of color variety posesd a drawback because it's not aesthetically appealing to the eye and it’s frustrating to practice your passion while feeling like you’re in someone else’s skin.”

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.