European global classroom trip emphasizes international perspectives for Professional MBA colleagues
Moore School Professional MBA recent graduate Anna Codron (’22 MBA) and PMBA candidate Kyle Radtke (’24 MBA expected graduation) were able to see business through an international lens with a May 2022 global classroom immersion in Vienna and Prague.
Both Radtke and Codron were able to apply the principles they’d learned in the Professional MBA program to European companies while seeing the impact varying cultures can have on organizations’ business practices.
“I believe that in-person exposure to different cultures cannot be substituted in a classroom,” Codron said. “Besides learning different topics such as mergers and acquisitions, innovation and small business ventures, engaging in the context of other countries is very insightful in our current global age. Building skills for how to work cross-culturally will become increasingly important. This global classroom experience was a building block to cultural awareness that will be necessary for me and my colleagues to compete in the future.”
Like Codron, Radtke chose the global classroom to Austria and the Czech Republic to fulfill his PMBA requirement for the international business specialization.
The 2022 Maymester trip to Vienna and Prague was initially scheduled for Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia. With the conflict between Russia and Ukraine intensifying in spring 2022, plans shifted, and the group detoured to Austria and the Czech Republic.
Radtke said he gained invaluable insights from the trip abroad during the academic lectures and visiting European businesses.
“As it is a long-term goal of mine to be an expatriate and work abroad, I leveraged this study abroad experience in my current role to focus now on international regulatory reporting tasks,” Radtke said.
Radtke and Codron said they not only gained new skills while visiting Europe, but they also were able to put into an international context the skills they have acquired during their Professional MBA coursework.
Of her time in the PMBA program overall, Codron said it provided her with the “solid foundation” she needed to be successful in a business-related career. The technical skills she learned and interpersonal interactions she had with professors, classmates and guest speakers helped her “relate theory to application from a range of perspectives. All of these experiences helped me build confidence for making impactful business decisions.”
As a progress advisor at Michelin, Codron said obtaining her MBA has made her more impactful with the multinational manufacturing company.
“In my current position I work across numerous business functions, so I was able to easily apply course learnings to my existing projects,” she said. “This was very rewarding, and I believe that applying theoretical skills to practical application significantly enhanced my retention and command of the material.”
While he’s finished just half of the PMBA coursework, Radtke said his newly acquired skills are already helping him build momentum with Wells Fargo, where he is a financial controls and risk oversight consultant.
Noting that Radtke can complete small tasks more efficiently and has “bridged some new, important connections with other business units to improve overall business processes,” Radtke’s supervisor has given him additional responsibilities, which have provided Radtke more exposure to upper management.
From the PMBA program in general, Radtke said he has enhanced his communication skills and tech savviness as well as learned “new ways to gather and to use data for more strategic purposes.”
He said the most important things he has gained from the program, however, are that he has had the opportunity to network with other members of his program and has “gained more confidence to lead, manage and negotiate.”
Radtke said as he continues to take elective courses and finish the PMBA program, he envisions “even more comparisons back to those lectures and business visits” he and Codron had in Vienna and Prague.
-Sydney Hankinson