UC Berkeley News
Press Release

UC Berkeley Press Release

New Asia business center to bolster UC Berkeley's offerings in Asia

– The University of California, Berkeley's 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 today (Tuesday, Feb. 19).

Several new partnerships between the Haas School and both National Taiwan University and City University of Hong Kong will kick off the launch of the new Berkeley Asia Business Center later this month. 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 well beyond its current programs to Asian alumni, business leaders and academic communities. It will provide executive leadership training, advanced management programs, certificates on risk management and business networking opportunities. Future targeted regions include mainland 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," said Campbell. "We are honored that our partners, alumni and the business community in Asia hold the Haas School and UC Berkeley names in such high esteem and look forward to expanding our outreach across Asia."

Campbell and Teck-Hua Ho, a Haas School professor who directs the Berkeley Asia Business Center, is 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," said Ho. "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 UC Berkeley for academic, business and government leaders from China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan through classroom and experiential learning. The 2008 participants will be known as the Wang Fellows, thanks to Stanley Wang, chair, founder and president of Pantronix Corp., whose gift will support this program in its first year, starting in fall 2008.
  • 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. The agreement was signed in Taipei on Monday (Feb.18).
    • City University of Hong Kong will partner with the Haas School to bring 60 business managers to UC Berkeley for five days of executive leadership training in marketing, finance and entrepreneurship. The agreement is to be signed in Hong Kong on Wednesday (Feb. 20).
    • An annual Berkeley Asia Leadership Conference will bring together the region's business leadership and feature outstanding CEO speakers and UC Berkeley business professors. The conference will be held in a different region in Asia each year. The first conference will focus on "The Family Business Challenge" and is scheduled to take place in Singapore in December 2008.

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, the Haas School has a research exchange program that will send five UC Berkeley finance professors to visit NUS in 2008.

Nanyang Technological University in Singapore recently joined forces with the Haas School to bring 30 managers to UC Berkeley for two weeks of advanced management training starting in March 2008.

The Asia Business Center was initiated by Ho, the William Halford Jr. Family Professor of Marketing at the Haas School. Ho is a native of Singapore who earned his master's and bachelor's degrees at NUS.

Additional Haas School faculty dedicated to teaching in the Berkeley Asia Business Center include Ganesh Iyer (marketing); Laura Kray and James Lincoln (organizational behavior); John Morgan and Andrew Rose (economics); Laura Tyson (public policy); and Xiao-Jun Zhang (accounting).

For more information on the Berkeley Asia Business Center, visit: http://asiabusiness.haas.berkeley.edu/index.html.

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