Center for Global Management

Michael Bybee (’22)

Blizzard Entertainment

MICHAEL BYBEE is a member of the FEMBA Class of 2022 and recipient of the Howard M. Williams Award, which recognizes the top 2% of the graduating class. He is the associate production director for Diablo IV, an upcoming action role-playing game being developed by Blizzard Entertainment, where he has worked for 15 years. He manages producers responsible for Diablo IV content, including all story, worldbuilding, dungeon and audio aspects of the game and thousands of art assets outsourced to studios all over the world. When Bybee decided to pursue the global management specialization, he thought the value he would gain would be primarily from learning how to better manage international teams and understand international consumers. However, over the course of three years, he gained something far more valuable: context.

The pandemic fundamentally altered the course of Bybee’s education. While it was more difficult to build close connections and options to travel for global immersion and GAP were limited, the virtual environment also provided opportunities. As a hybrid student, Bybee was able to enroll in courses and attend events that would otherwise not have been available to him. “Global Trends,” one of Bybee’s favorites courses, was the first time he encountered a topic that became a common theme during his time at Anderson: climate change. He learned how drought, famine and flood are likely to lead to massive patterns of migration that will put even more pressure on geopolitical tensions worldwide. In the pan- European global immersion course, he heard from many policy and business leaders, including alumni in France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Germany and the U.K., who provided a firsthand account of how businesses and governments are dealing with Brexit and COVID-19 and what the future holds for European and global companies. The regulatory and business environments around climate change came up in several discussions. In his “Non-Market Risks” course, Bybee learned how a company’s environmental footprint in one country could become a risk that reduced sales or increased costs in another country. Courses such as “Global Macroeconomics” further provided frameworks to assess macroeconomic impacts and analyze issues through a business lens.

During a worldwide pandemic with rising geopolitical unrest and a volatile global economy, Bybee feels that his UCLA Anderson education and the global management track provided him with the tools to understand what was going on. While there are many examples of things that he learned during his time at Anderson, together they represent something more. His perspective on the world, on global business and on his place in both has changed for the better. Bybee feels that he is a better person and a better leader because of these priceless experiences, that he is more prepared to face whatever comes next and that he is motivated to help the teams that he works with to do the same.

Jong-Yoon Park (’22)

Flex

JONG-YOON PARK is a member of the FTMBA Class of 2022 and a Sandy Sigoloff Fellow. For two years, he served as a drill sergeant in the Republic of Korea army while attending Seoul National University, where he studied Asian history, political science and international relations. Before joining UCLA Anderson, Park worked at Hyundai Steel as a business analyst and strategy manager.

During his time at UCLA Anderson, Park represented the international community and dedicated himself to improving the representation of and opportunities for international students. He assumed multiple leadership roles, including vice president of international student relations for the Anderson Student Council (ASA), and led the international Anderson career team (ACT) to help first-year international students with recruiting. He was chosen by the FTMBA Class of 2022 as the recipient of the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Service, which recognizes a graduating student for their outstanding contribution and dedication to the UCLA Anderson community. He was also honored as an Outstanding Student in Strategy.

To expand his global perspective and enhance his understanding of various economies and markets, Park enrolled in a variety of global management courses, including those focused on global macroeconomics, global trends, and technology and society. He traveled to Chile for the CGM’s global immersion course, where he explored business opportunities in a rapidly changing emerging country. For his capstone experience, Park explored opportunities in the online seafood market to deliver the freshest prime grade fish, sourced from around the globe, directly to customers’ homes. He also held leadership positions for the three student identity clubs: the Korean Business Student Association, the Japan America Business Association and the Asian Student Management Association.

During the summer of his first year, Park interned at Flex, a multinational electronics contract manufacturer, as a strategy manager. As part of his internship, he analyzed leading global automotive OEMs to understand EV battery procurement strategy trends and developed recommendations for potential growth opportunities. After graduation, he will be returning to Flex in San Jose as a corporate strategy manager, where he will use his business school skills, combined with his extensive global technology and strategy experience, to drive new revenue opportunities for the company in the fast-growing global EV and battery markets. He looks forward to leveraging his UCLA Anderson global experiences and learnings as he advances in his career and develops as a global business leader.

Tiffany Wang (’22)

Warner Bros. Discovery

TIFFANY WANG is a member of the EMBA Class of 2022. She is a senior vice president of international film marketing at Warner Bros. Discovery, where she works with over 60 international markets to define, present and execute marketing strategies. As Wang’s career progressed, she became increasingly involved in global initiatives and started to pivot from a domestic-focused role to a global position. She realized that the next stage of disruption in the entertainment sector would come from the globalization of content. As technology continues to provide the backbone of a new infrastructure for importing and exporting information, the entertainment industry is able to leverage this infrastructure to reach a broader audience around the globe and facilitate storytelling in a massively impactful way. Wang, who wanted to be a leader in this aspect, decided to pursue the global management track to gain an enhanced understanding of how to operate in a global marketplace and develop her own global perspective.

During her two years at UCLA Anderson, Wang enrolled in numerous global management elective courses and learned many important concepts and frameworks that she was able to immediately apply to her career. The “Technology and Society” and “Non-Market Risks: Understanding Politics and the Global Context for Doing Business” courses, among Wang’s favorites, provided a solid foundation as to why business is conducted in certain ways around the globe and helped to fill a philosophical perspective for Wang of how to truly manifest and empower a global state of mind in business. The principles she refined and practiced through a combination of classroom learning and practical application have been incredibly helpful to Wang’s career growth. In “Global Trends,” she explored key trends affecting business and their effects on management practices and business opportunities around the world. She also enrolled in the hy-flex Shenzhen-Hong Kong global immersion course, where she learned about the tech-driven transformation that is happening in the Greater China region, enabled by government policy, changes in consumer preferences and enterprise-driven innovation. Earlier this year, Wang served as a guest speaker for a CGM global management seminar with a partner school in Europe and shared her professional experience with international EMBA students. She discussed the disruption and transformation in the movie industry and the trends and new business models that she is observing.

For her EMBA international business residency, Wang traveled to Dubai to learn about the United Arab Emirates and the business climate in the Middle East, a region that had always piqued her interest. From visiting tech-centric hubs to experiencing the different souks, Wang walked away with even more curiosity and passion to work in the MENA region.

Wang feels that these collective experiences on-campus, virtually and around the world have expanded her understanding and appreciation of different cultures and ways of doing business will continue to serve her well as her global responsibilities grow in scale and scope, and have created the capacity for her to lead and truly make a positive impact.

Lynn Bresnahan (’21)

Who Gives a Crap

LYNN BRESNAHAN is a graduate of the EMBA Class of 2021. She is a senior operations manager and serves as the U.S. tissue manufacturing lead at Who Gives a Crap, a multinational company and fast-growing social business. Prior to this, Bresnahan worked for Kimberly-Clark Corp. for 13 years in various process engineering, operational and managerial roles, where she had an opportunity to work on product development for international brands.

Bresnahan’s decision to attend Anderson was strongly influenced by the opportunity to develop her global perspective and participate in programming offered by the Center for Global Management that would provide a more practical understanding of working and leading in a global company. During her two years, she enrolled in numerous global management elective courses and learned many important concepts and frameworks that she was able to immediately apply to her work as a supply chain leader. In “Global Macroeconomics,” she learned how to hedge foreign exchange risk when assessing various manufacturing locations and creating new market entry strategies. In “Global Trends,” she explored key trends affecting business, including shifting demographics, the rise of authoritarianism and impact of climate change, that have helped to guide her when thinking about which markets to enter. The course also helped her to better understand technology, the impact of accelerating automation and the future of work. Two global supply chain courses provided invaluable frameworks to analyze and build supply chain strategy and better understand the impact of COVID-19. Bresnahan was a regular attendee at the many global forums and discussions to further inform her understanding of the implications of the pandemic.

Outside the classroom, Bresnahan was a mentee in the CGM mentor program. This experience helped her navigate a new company and provided the perspective she needed to be more effective and assimilate faster into her new role. She also served as an equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) fellow providing research and data support to identify and implement key strategic goals to further advance EDI in the Anderson community. Understanding the world around her through a global lens has always been core to who Bresnahan is. Her time at Anderson has been an amazing period of accelerated learning and growth. Bresnahan feels that the global element of that growth has made her a better, more well-rounded leader and will continue to serve her well as her global responsibilities grow in scale and scope.

James Feng (’21)

Flatiron Health

JAMES FENG is a graduate of the FEMBA Class of 2021. Prior to joining the FEMBA program, Feng worked for six years as a management consultant with Accenture in New York and Los Angeles, where he advised Fortune 500 pharmaceutical clients on the role of technology in enabling better delivery of medicine within the U.S. health care system. He received his B.S. in environmental engineering from Syracuse University in New York, where he studied abroad at the City University of Hong Kong. This experience fueled Feng’s global interests, which he wanted to further explore at UCLA Anderson.

During his time at Anderson, Feng had the opportunity to enroll in global management courses and engage in learning experiences that helped to broaden his perspectives on global health. He completed two global immersion courses and traveled to India and the Nordic countries. These firsthand experiences provided vastly different perspectives on health care systems, funding and administration of health care, as well as health literacy and inequalities. Feng also participated in two globally focused case competitions involving developing a global supply chain strategy for cleaning supplies during COVID-19 and solving a global health crisis. Together with UCLA graduate and undergraduate students from various academic disciplines, his team earned first place in the UCLA Global Health Care Competition, where they developed a solution to address adverse health outcomes in Madagascar resulting from natural disasters.

Feng held leadership positions in the FEMBA Student Council and the UCLA Graduate Student Association, and was selected as class speaker for his 2021 class commencement. His leadership positions and global experiences positioned him to think more holistically about global solutions and recognize the importance of understanding the local landscape and working with a diverse team when tackling complex issues such as global health. Courses such as “Global Macroeconomics” also provided frameworks to assess macroeconomic impacts and analyze issues through a business lens. After graduation, Feng will join Flatiron Health, a health care technology and services company focused on accelerating cancer research and improving patient care, as a senior product manager. He looks forward to leveraging his UCLA Anderson global experiences and learnings as he advances in his career and develops as a global business leader to improve health outcomes around the world.

Keerthi Kocherlakota ('21)

Google

KEERTHI KOCHERLAKOTA is a graduate of the full-time MBA Class of 2021 and a Forté fellow. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from Osmania University in Hyderabad before receiving a postgraduate diploma in management from the Indian Institute of Management in Indore. Before joining UCLA Anderson, Kocherlakota worked at Airtel, a telecom company in India, in corporate finance and product manager roles.

To expand her global perspective and enhance her understanding of various economies and markets, Kocherlakota enrolled in a variety of global management courses, including those focused on global macroeconomics, technology management, innovation and evolution in the global mobile industry, and the impact of COVID-19 on global supply chains. She also participated in the CGM’s first Pan-European-focused global immersion course and learned about the challenges and opportunities that the European Union’s structure, Brexit and COVID-19 have created for European and global business through an analysis (though not exclusively) of their effects on five sectors, including technology and entrepreneurship, health care, financial services, sports and entertainment. To further her language skills, she enrolled in the CGM’s “Spanish Language and Culture for Business” course, and for her capstone experience, Kocherlakota worked with Intel on new product development and identified growth opportunities for the company. She also served on the Anderson Student Council (ASA) as director of alumni and graduate connections and was a member of the Investment Finance Association and Anderson Technology Business Association.

During the summer of her first year, Kocherlakota interned at Google as a financial analyst in its Ads business. As part of her internship, she focused on evaluating new market opportunities in alignment with Ads’ business development goals and Google’s priority markets. She was recognized as an “All-Star Intern” for outstanding performance during her internship. After graduation, she will be returning to Google Ads as a financial analyst, where she will use her business school skills, combined with her extensive global technology and finance experience, to drive new revenue opportunities for the company.