Berkeleyan

New business center to bolster Haas School's Asia offerings

By Ute Frey, Haas School of Business | 27 February 2008

The Haas School of Business is launching a new center focused on significantly increasing the school's leadership training for Asian business managers and on expanding its research collaborations with Asian universities, Dean Tom Campbell announced last week.

Several new partnerships between the Haas School and both National Taiwan University and City University of Hong Kong will launch the new Berkeley Asia Business Center. The center also will build on and expand the Haas School's existing joint programs with National Singapore University and Nanyang Technological University.

The new center will enable the Haas School to expand its outreach to Asian alumni, business leaders, and academic communities well beyond its current programs. It will provide executive-leadership training, advanced management programs, certificates in risk management, and business-networking opportunities. Future targeted regions include China, India, Japan, and Korea.

"We are delighted and encouraged that there is such high regard for Berkeley's executive-training program in the Asia region," says Campbell. "We are honored that our partners, alumni, and the business community in Asia hold the Haas School and Berkeley names in such high esteem, and we look forward to expanding our outreach across Asia."

Campbell and Teck-Hua Ho, a Haas School professor who directs the Berkeley Asia Business Center, are traveling in Asia through March 1 to promote the center and to sign agreements for new programs.

"In recent years, the Asian markets have taken the world by storm. They are now a critical part of the world's economy," says Ho, the William Halford Jr. Family Professor of Marketing. "While there is great demand for management expertise and training, these markets also offer innovations that are changing the way business is done elsewhere. For the academic community, this offers rich ground for joint research."

New programs being offered as part of the center's launch include:

Berkeley Asian Fellows: A three-month executive-training program taught at Berkeley for academic, business, and government leaders from China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan through classroom and experiential learning.

Advanced management executive programs: National Taiwan University will host Haas School senior faculty members at its campus to promote research collaboration and to teach an annual one-week program in Taipei on the topics of leadership, marketing, finance, and entrepreneurship. City University of Hong Kong will partner with the school to bring 60 business managers to Berkeley for five days of executive-leadership training in marketing, finance, and entrepreneurship.

An annual Berkeley Asia Leadership Conference will bring together the region's business leadership, featuring CEO speakers and Berkeley business professors. The conference will be held in a different region in Asia each year. The first conference, to focus on "The Family Business Challenge," is scheduled to take place in Singapore in December.

The Haas School also currently operates an Advanced Management Executive Program with the National University of Singapore (NUS), and its successful Risk Management Certificate Program is now in its second year. In addition, Haas has a research-exchange program that will send five Berkeley finance professors to visit NUS in 2008.

For more information about the new center, visit asiabusiness.haas.berkeley.edu.