Cheung Kong GSB Hosts UCLA Executive MBA Students on July 2-5 in Beijing

July 13, Beijing - The current class of executive MBA students from the UCLA Anderson School of Management completed their China Residency Program with the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business on July 5th in Beijing. In their four days with Cheung Kong GSB, the group of 67 students participated in a series of lectures and corporate visits, gaining a combination of in-depth academic analysis and onsite personal exposure to the latest trends in global business in China.

This was the second year of the China Residency Program, which was made a standard component of the UCLA Executive MBA after the enthusiastic response of participants last year. Despite decades of sustained growth in US-China trade and investment, this trip to Cheung Kong GSB represented the first visit to China for most of the program's participants. Students remarked that it was very helpful in "breaking down stereotypes" and "obtaining ideas and insights on China not available in US media."

For the lecture component of the program, the audience was exposed to a wide range of topics including Leslie Young on "China's Economic Reform and Implications for the Global Economy," Xiang Bing on "The Globalization of Chinese Companies," Ming Huang on "Financial Market Reform in China," and Ming Zeng, President of Yahoo! China, on "Rising to the China Challenge." Participants were impressed by the lecturers' ability to grasp the big picture and analyze the many interrelated factors that contribute to current developments.

To give students hands-on experience with business in China, visits were made to the factories of Huiyuan Juice, one of the largest juice makers in China, and GE Healthcare. There, program participants enjoyed the opportunity to converse with senior executives on the challenges and opportunities of running a large business in China.

After this brief but productive visit, the UCLA students left Beijing, in the words of one: "hugely impressed by the extent to which China has progressed from a planned economy to a market economy and the influence Chinese companies are having on global competition."