The Thunderbird School of Global Management at ASU is excited to bring you a series of events to mark our expansion at the ASU California Center. We invite Thunderbird and ASU alumni, prospective students, current students, corporate and civic partners and guests to join us for the festivities on Friday, Oct. 7. The day will feature three Thunderbird Executive Education Master Classes, a lunch panel, afternoon keynote speaker and an evening reception. Please see event listings below for complete details and to register to attend. For questions, contact Ghazal Khorshidi, director of special projects, at Ghazal.Khorshidi@thunderbird.asu.edu.

Executive Education Master Class I: Agile Leadership: From Strategy to Execution (10:15 - 11:30 a.m.)

It is hard to grow fast if you manage slow- in this volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world, many individuals and organizations struggle to keep up with the rapid pace of change. The need to adapt to new ways of working will separate not just successful organizations from those that will fall to the side, but also those in the workforce who will either thrive or fade. This master class will unpack the latest thinking in agile transformations with insights for any individual to implement for both their organizations and personal lives from day one.

Come prepared to engage in the latest thinking on agile best practices, including a short set of interactive exercises to highlight the immediate benefit of “thinking and practicing agility” with insights to take back to your teams. Participants will leave this immersion with a clear understanding of why it is important for leaders across all sectors to understand strategic and operational agility elements and to draw on these insights, to not just respond to the changes at play but to proactively shape them.

This master class will be led by Euvin Naidoo, distinguished professor of practice for accounting, risk and agility at the Thunderbird School of Global Management.

Lunch Panel: Global and Local Sustainability: The SDGs, ESG, Climate Action and Beyond (12 - 1:30 p.m.)

The United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the accompanying Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a plan of action for people, the planet and prosperity. Accelerating progress toward the SDGs requires global communities to form close partnerships, from local to regional and national levels. Traditionally, sustainability policy has been a top-down approach, with countries setting the agenda on global goals. However, with 70% of the world’s population expected to live in urban areas by 2050, many cities and regions are taking the lead in these important conversations. Policies impacting the SDGs on topics including water, infrastructure, land, transport, and housing are now being set at the local level. Only by applying global, national, regional and local lenses to SDGs will we be able to engage all stakeholders in the efforts towards realizing the 2030 agenda. In this panel, we will juxtapose global and local viewpoints to learn how they must align to achieve the SDGs.

This panel will feature:

• Sanjeev Khagram, director general and dean of the Thunderbird School of Global Management and the Foundation Professor of Global Leadership and Global Political Economy
• Erin Bromaghim, deputy mayor of international affairs, Office of International Affairs under Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti
• Anupam Govil, managing partner and global head of sales and strategic partnerships, Avasant

Executive Education Master Class II: Beyond the Billionaires: the Global Space Boom (2 - 3:15 p.m.)

Space is booming. Billionaires’ private investments in the space sector are now eclipsing public investment. Competition has driven launch prices down by more than 50%, benefiting the public sector. The new space revolution has emerged from Southern California and grown into a global boom, increasing the number of commercial startups and emerging entrepreneurs as they build their business models around products or services for space markets. This course will be led by Thunderbird Clinical Professor Greg Autry, former White House Liaison at NASA and Thunderbird Professor of Practice Zaheer Ali, a globally recognized expert on the business of space. They will be joined by Dan Hart, CEO of Virgin Orbit, Richard Branson’s pioneering commercial space firm that launches small satellites into space from a rocket carried under the wing of a modified Boeing 747. It is Virgin’s contribution to the massive transformation going on in space technology, and has the clear goal of opening access to space to improve life on Earth.

Executive Education Master Class III: Metaverse, Global Leadership and Future Impact (3:45 - 4:45 p.m.)

How people explore and interact with technology impacts our daily lives, affecting the way we work, communicate and advance our global economies. From the Fourth Industrial Revolution to the fourth wave of consumer hardware, to the new social landscapes of virtual worlds, this panel will discuss the metaverse through the lenses of our resident futurists as we step into the next digital frontier. Panel leaders will cover topics including a wide spectrum of hardware, software and new technologies that are shaping our futures. Participants will be exposed to spatial computing skills and platforms and will gain industry-leading insights to develop effective business models for capturing value in the metaverse economy.

This class will be led by:

• Travis Cloyd, global futurist; professor of practice of global creative industries, senior advisor to the dean and senior fellow at Thunderbird School of Global Management at ASU; CEO, WorldwideXR (WXR)
• Robert Grant, founder, chairman and managing partner of Strathspey Crown LLC, a growth equity holding company based in Newport Beach, California, with a broad portfolio of company and asset holdings spanning health care, clean energy, social media and financial technology
• Ted Schilowitz, SVP Technology Strategist/Futurist

Keynote: Global Leadership in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (5 - 5:45 p.m.)

Mitigating the challenges and realizing the opportunities of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) will require new types of global leaders, managers and professionals across the private, public and nonprofit sectors worldwide. By harnessing the potential of the 4IR, managers and professionals can help organizations navigate digital transformation and constant disruption in order to advance equitable and sustainable prosperity worldwide. In this panel, participants will gain an understanding of new technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence and virtual reality and how they help navigate the physical, biological and digital worlds, fundamentally altering the way we live, work and relate to one another.

This discussion will feature:

• Sanjeev Khagram, director general and dean of the Thunderbird School of Global Management at ASU and the Foundation Professor of Global Leadership and Global Political Economy
• Robert Grant, founder, chairman, and managing partner of Strathspey Crown LLC, a growth equity holding company based in Newport Beach, California, with a broad portfolio of company and asset holdings spanning health care, clean energy, social media, and financial technology

Alumni Reception (6 - 8 p.m.)

Join Thunderbird School of Global Management for a fun networking reception with Dean Sanjeev Khagram and the Thunderbird Alumni network. You'll have an opportunity to connect with fellow T-birds from Los Angeles and beyond and discuss how T-birds are helping prepare students to live and work with meaning and purpose. Please note: This is a special event with limited capacity in the event space. Your registration serves as notification to us of your interest in attending. Please stay tuned for an official email confirmation that will serve as your entry to the actual reception.