“The recipient of the Evening Executive MBA Class of 2010 Faculty Award is one of the most gifted lecturers I have had the honor of learning from.  His lecturers always focus on real-world applications for economics, and he knows how to keep the class engaged by connecting difficult concepts back to current news and everyday life.  As one classmate put it, he is “extremely adept at presenting detailed and complex financial system behaviors.”  The extent of his knowledge always impressed me, and as I prepared to present this award, I came to appreciate how universally admired he is.  He received many glowing comments during the voting process, and almost everyone I spoke to told me that they hoped he would win.

He isn’t just a smart economist who explains difficult concepts clearly.  It’s obvious that he also puts a lot of thought into the courses he teaches and prepares carefully for every class.  After taking the communications class that was part of our MBA curriculum, I was particularly impressed that he never needed to refer to his slides or glance back at the projector screen during his lectures.

Our class was fortunate to have such a skilled professor to help us understand the global economic downturn that occurred while we were getting our MBAs.  He was able to pull together many economic factors – GDP growth rates, unemployment rates, interest rates, market volatility, household debt, net exports, and other measures – to create a cohesive picture of the global economy.  And although the picture was not particularly pretty, I have no doubt that each of us will benefit for the rest of our careers from the insights he provided on both the global economy and our own personal investing strategies.

He is dedicated to teaching EMBA students and teaches three separate courses for the EMBA program.  His classes combine an excellent mix of group work and individual assignments, forcing each student to think carefully about the subject matter.

We have all taken his macroeconomics class, and many of us took his classes on investments and global financial markets.  It is my great pleasure to present the Evening Executive MBA Class of 2010 Faculty Award to Christian Lundblad.”

This post is dedicated to the entire faculty, staff, current students, and alumni of UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School (University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill). *No. This post is not an attempt to suck up to my professors. Like I said, I’ve (almost) graduated.

Last week I received a fairly non-descript, text-only email (see below). As an email marketing guy, I began to (over) analyze it. Regardless of the “best practices” it ignored, it worked. I opened, clicked through, and am now sharing with you.

At this point, if you are feeling a bit ansty, feel free to skip ahead to the juice. The 2 minutes videos on this page tell the entire story of why I am so proud. As I recently overheard, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million” (or something like that). I’d encourage you to watch them all, but if you only have 5 minutes, check out the Valarie Zeithaml and Mabel Miguel videos, two of my favorite professors (shhh – don’t tell anyone).

Dear Students,

We’re happy to announce the launch of 8 new videos featuring our faculty. Take a couple of minutes to look. They promote UNC Kenan-Flagler’s focus on leadership and global impact. They are just 2 minutes each, and the target audience is prospective students, including participants in executive programs.

This project was a collaborative effort of our marketing and communications department, UNC’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications, and the faculty members we featured.

Do you have a group of people that you are proud of? Send me a comment–please!

During the elective registration process, I was excited for the opportunity to take Leveraging Human Capital for Global Competitiveness taught by Professor Susan Palmer. I was always interested in studying HR policies in more depth since I didn’t think companies were doing enough to manage their human capital. Conversations with my classmates who worked at companies like Exxon Mobil, Cisco, IBM, and BMW only increased my interest in the topic.

In the course, we studied corporate recruiting practices, motivating employee performance, HR Information Systems (HRIS), talent management, dealing with turnover, employer branding, and aligning corporate HR policies with the overall strategy of the company. Professor Palmer was able to integrate academic best practices and research in the field with her past professional experience with Wells Fargo and Prudential Financial.

A major component of the course was to analyze an organization’s human capital practices within the context of its overall business strategy. I had a difficult time choosing a company to analyze, so Professor Palmer met with me several times outside of class to help me decide. I eventually chose a small software company founded by Kenan-Flagler alumni. Using my UNC connections, I was able to meet with the Chief Operating Officer, who provided me with great insight into how they were using their HR strategies to grow.

Even after the course was over, Professor Palmer kept in touch with us. It was great to keep the dialogue going and continue sharing ideas about topics we had discussed in class. The course also helped me obtain a job with a start-up that was specializing in implementing strategic HR systems into small- to medium-sized companies. With the in-depth knowledge and practical experience I got from Professor Palmer’s course, I was able succeed in this new industry right away.

After starting in the position, I reached out to Professor Palmer to see if she would be able to assist me with a range of HR issues I was having with a specific client. We ended up meeting for a two-hour lunch, and I left with a specific action plan to help solve my client’s problems. This meeting was outside of her role as a faculty member, but she was more than willing to meet with me. I am still thankful for Professor Palmer’s teachings and guidance as well as all of the other great faculty members at Kenan-Flagler.

Watch UNC Kenan-Flagler’s students, alumni and faculty discuss what you expect in the classroom as an MBA for Executives student.

That’s the type of entrepreneurial attitude toward sustainability we foster here at UNC. We encourage managers to look at sustainability from an innovation perspective. We see the best companies creating new processes, products and business models that are friendlier to the environment and more rewarding to the communities they serve. They are innovating while other companies cling to the old way of doing things. Of course, like our nation’s cities, long-established companies have a harder time changing their processes to become more sustainable, but there is still room for innovation.

In the classroom, we’re studying companies and people who are coming up with new approaches that can be applied to other businesses. For example, the iPod was originally an innovative product designed in a traditional way, with no eye toward making it environmentally friendly. But now iPods are designed to be more recyclable by weight, incorporating fewer and different materials. When you buy an upgraded iPod, you can return your old one to Apple for recycling. Now, the iPod is an innovative product designed in an innovative way. And – also important – Apple is making even more money.

At UNC, we’re turning out managers who consider sustainability as another design constraint – along with consumer appeal and profitability. This attitude carries over into other disciplines – one EMBA student, who is a securities analyst in Charlotte, told me that our courses, Strategic Technology and Sustainable Enterprise, have changed the way he analyzes companies. Now, he examines their sustainability initiatives along with other business factors. If they are not innovative in a sustainable way, he believes the company will not be a good buy for the long term.

While some EMBA students want to shift into careers focused on sustainability, we think the biggest change is with the managers who are climbing the ranks within their company. Many see opportunities for incorporating sustainable approaches into their current company’s business models – and they are initiating change.

I believe the most lasting approach to sustainable enterprise is to marry it to other core business ideas and processes. That’s the only way that today’s interest in sustainability will be sustained.

The United States is no longer the fastest growing economy in the world – this distinction has been passed on to emerging countries like India, China, Russia and Brazil. This is natural: young, emerging economies grow faster than more mature, developed economies. Given these new entrants, we can continue to prosper in the global economy, but we have to take a new approach.

One way is to focus on selling goods and services to the millions of people in these countries. They are hungry for consumer goods and increasingly have the means to buy them. But that’s a small piece of the puzzle. We also must continue to offer goods and services they cannot produce and which they value.

Thus, to be successful, we have to innovate faster than the Indians and Chinese can replicate. Our high growth areas will be based upon high technology, knowledge and complex new products and services. These will cover a wide variety of services and solutions. Developing cleaner energy sources in the face of global warming is also an exciting arena for innovation. Finding applications of nano-technology and personalized medicine are other areas of interest, to name a few.

What does this mean to you? As a business person, you need to understand the impact of globalization on your industry, your company and your career. The Weekend and Evening Programs offer many opportunities through the core curriculum and electives to explore these impacts so you’ll be prepared to be successful in the global economy. You can design a global curriculum to meet your own career goals.

OneMBA has a more targeted focus – to train global managers who are leading people and organizations located around the world. And we do that in ways that no other school can touch. Read why I think OneMBA is the only executive MBA that’s truly global.

As business leaders, we need to build the industries of the future while emerging countries replicate the industries of the past. We need to focus on what we can do that they cannot.