Pitt Business e-newsletter Issue 13, January 2009
Japanese Alumni Help Spread the Word
Nearly 700 prospective MBA students attended the World MBA Tour Fair in Tokyo, November 6 and 7. Also in attendance were Cliff McCormick, director of MBA admissions for the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and Katz alumni, Hiroshi Tanizawa (MBA '94), vice president of asset and investment trust for Morgan Stanley, and Kazunobu (Kazu) Nakao (MBA '94), owner of International Human Resource Consulting, a company that focuses on building relationships between U.S. and Japanese companies. While McCormick conveyed important aspects of the Katz MBA program, including its global scope and experience-based learning approach, Tanizawa and Nakao offered candidates something McCormick could not: the personal experience of having traveled from Japan to earn an MBA at Katz.
"It is always a tremendous benefit for the candidates and the school to have local alumni present at fairs to share their own MBA experiences and to provide quality advice to prospective students whether those alumni be in Japan or in Chicago," McCormick said. "You just can't beat first-hand experience."
While in the Land of the Rising Sun, McCormick attended the fifth annual meeting of the Katz School's Japan Alumni Network (JANet), which attracted more than 20 alumni going back to the class of 1988. Together they shared stories, food, and drink. But more than that, they shared an experience that changed their lives-their Katz MBA experience-and made plans to continue to strengthen relationships within the Katz community.
