Program News
Second EIMBA class comes to Columbia
The second class of the Moore School/Tec de Monterrey’s joint Executive International Master of Business Administration (EIMBA) program visited
the University of South Carolina campus Oct. 31-Nov. 2. The 11-member class, which will graduate in May 2007, is enrolled in a 20-month program
launched last year and aimed at senior managers in Mexico.
The inaugural EIMBA class members, who completed their first year last spring, will graduate in May 2006. The new class is more diverse, with two women and several managers who work in Mexico but are natives of other Latin American countries, including Puerto Rico, Brazil, and Colombia, said Libby Shropshier, program coordinator.
The managers, all in their 30s and 40s, continue to work while earning their degrees. When they graduate, they will have two degrees: an EIMBA from USC, and a Maestria en Administracion from Instituto Technologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Guadalajara, Mexico, one of the Mexico’s top universities popularly known as Tec de Monterrey.
Dolores Salguero, one of the new class’s females, said she enrolled in the program because she wanted “the big picture” of today’s business world. Currently, she focuses on finance as a controller for BerryMex.
Orfilio Quintero, vice president of Brown Forman Spirits, an alcohol distributor, said he wants to earn an EIMBA “for personal improvement and to understand the new trends, particularly in information systems.” Quintero, a native of Puerto Rico, graduated from college in 1983.
Jaime Santmaria, head of computer systems for the electronics manufacturing firm Flextronics Manufacturing, enrolled in the EIMBA program, he said, because many companies today are moving their operations to Mexico because it’s a low-cost region. “We need to be prepared to take those jobs,” he said.
The three-day visit to Columbia included meetings with students, faculty, and staff, as well as tours of Sonoco, Inc. in Hartsville, S.C., and the Lexington, S.C., plant of Prysmian Cables & Systems (formerly named Pirelli).
EIMBA classes are taught in Guadalajara every third weekend, using both Moore School and Tec de Monterrey faculty.
The new class members, their titles, and their employers are: Ravi Arcot, regional director, Solectron; Victor Farias, credit manager, Almidones Mexicanos; Gerardo Fernandez, general director, Distribuidora Fesa SA de CV; Samuel Perez-Ayala, corporate finance integrations project manager, Sanmina-SCI; Orfilio Quintero, vice president, Brown Forman Spirits; Cecilia Reyes, cost accountant, Flextronics International; Dolores Salguero, controller, BerryMex; Jaime Santamaria, head of computer systems, Flextronics Manufacturing; Carlos Suarez, sales manager, Millennium Sales, Inc.; Ricardo Telles, international account representative, Smith & Associates; and Omar Zuniga, tech leader, Infosyst-IBM Guadalajara.