Babson College MBAs to Host Latin American Forum: MBA News

This Friday, the Latin American Club at Babson College, which is led by MBA students at the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business, will host its sixth annual Latin American Forum.

The forum has a particular focus on encouraging entrepreneurship, opportunities and leadership in Latin America and is said to be the largest event dedicated to entrepreneurship among universities in the US. This year’s tagline is ‘passion for a brighter future’. Debate will center on how Latin America can become the next great hub for entrepreneurship and new business.

In the past, Babson College’s Latin American Forum has been able to call upon some illustrious speakers and panelists including the former president of Colombia, Álvaro Uribe, and the former president of Mexico, Vicente Fox. For 2014, it is expected that 450 participants from Babson College will be joined by approximately 1,000 connecting online from over 30 Latin American universities.

This year, Eduardo Braun, an MBA alumnus of the Wharton School and the former director of HSM Group (the global multimedia management company) will provide one of Babson College’s keynote addresses. Having interviewed and learned from globally influential leaders such as Bill Clinton and Michael Eisner during his career, Braun will speak on the subject of leadership through a culture of high performance.

Entrepreneurship, innovation and the World Economic Forum

Also featured at the Latin American Forum will be a talk on innovation in entrepreneurship, given jointly by Deloitte Consulting’s innovation and intelligence specialist leader, Carmen Medina, and Alfredo Zolezzi, founder and CEO of Advanced Innovation Center Chile. They will point out that only 15% of entrepreneurs create new businesses from ideas no one else has yet thought of, whereas the remaining 85% build enterprises from an existing idea.

The Latin American Club at Babson College seeks to enhance people’s understanding of business in Latin America as well as the politics and culture of the region.

Last night, two northern regions of Chile were hit by an 8.2 magnitude earthquake and the country, along with neighbors, Peru, remain vigilant to the possibility of an ensuing tsunami. Chile is a country accustomed to the threat of natural disasters, due to its location in one of the most seismically active regions on the globe; a larger earthquake struck just four years ago. However, this has not stopped Chile from taking a central position among the emerging Latin American markets which have been growing rapidly in their appeal to new business and investment – expanding its opportunities for MBA graduates along the way.

The Latin American Forum at Babson College takes place the day after this year’s World Economic Forum on Latin America closes. This year’s meeting in Panama City has been focusing on the region’s efforts to diversify its economies, boost productivity and fuel competitiveness under the theme of ‘Opening Pathways for Shared Progress’.