Program Connects Columbia MBAs & Global Leaders

Columbia Business School students show their school pride on the Chazen Study Tour to Guatemala in January while volunteering with Pintando Santa Catarina Palopo, a nonprofit founded by former CNN correspondent Harris Whitbeck Pinol, a Guatemala native and an alum of Columbia Journalism School. Photo by Pedro Barata/Chazen Institute

VISITING A SOCIAL ENTERPRISE IN SOUTH AFRICA

Thandokuhle Mtshali is another Columbia MBA who hosted a study tour. Yee, who joined Mtshali’s eight-day study tour around South Africa says the experience of visiting a rhino conservation agency, e-commerce agencies and exploring the wine industry was life-changing. Mtshali moved to New York in August 2016 to attend Columbia after five years as a management consultant in Johannesburg, South Africa. A total of 30 students joined the winter trip that kicked off in Cape Town.

“We visited an e-commerce company because I wanted to show how it’s a very small market in South Africa. The industry serves mainly white people who remain in the country,” Mtshali says. “Few people can afford to shop online and it highlights the socio-economic differences from the majority society. People also don’t trust online banking, or paying with a credit card. I wanted to share that we can’t just copy and paste the things we learn from developed markets.”

Together with Mtshali, the group visited social enterprise, Township Farmers, which works with schools to address the food shortage but with funding difficulties and little support from the state, and a financial management app company that helps the financially illiterate learn to manage money. A main learning point for many of the students on this trip was a realization of how post-apartheid South Africa wasn’t the gateway to the African economy, like commonly believed.

“People were really surprised by how divided and segregated the rich, poor, black, and white here are,” Mtshali, who hopes her classmates left with an appreciation of how far her country had come, says. “This experience gives them context of how a country, in reality, never recovers from something like apartheid. Based on the company visits and engagement with business leaders, I hope they see the inequality issues and will be informed contributors to companies that decide to do business here.”

On their Chazen study tour to South Africa in January, Columbia Business School students met with Township Farmers, a nonprofit near Cape Town that promotes organic agriculture by teaching it to children through its daycare centers. Photo by Abheek Bhattacharya/Chazen Institute

CONTINUING CHAZEN ABROAD

Even after returning from these study tours, the students remain close from the bonds they build while traveling, learning, and reflecting. While some organize gatherings and meetups to bring together the group regularly when they are back in New York, some of them want to work on the things they have learned while abroad.

Mtshali says that students on the South Africa trip have suggested creating projects for the group or school to help the struggling social enterprise continue helping the community.

For Dougherty, her classmates have suggested that her father join a TED talk to share his knowledge on social enterprise in developing economies, especially as part of his family business in Guatemala.

“We (Guatemalans) don’t do a good job of selling ourselves. We have a lot to offer economically and is a place with a lot of strategic important, bridging South and North America,” Dougherty says. “I want the world to see that we’re hardworking people dedicated to improving our lives and our community and these study trips can help bring solutions to growing and improving our projects and initiatives.”

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