Merhaba!

–Authored by Maren Berge

Every year the Wisconsin MBA Program organizes several International trips to give students the opportunity to bring a global perspective to their MBA education.  For many students, these trips are one of the highlights of their Wisconsin MBA experience. Destinations are selected that allow students to learn more about an emerging business economy.  With its unique East meets West culture, young demographics and overall financial success story despite the recent economic downturn, Turkey was a perfect choice for a 2011 Global Trip. Turkey was the ideal place for us to learn about how business is being done in a fairly modern, but not yet mature market.

With sign-up and applications completed in early October, our group spent much of first semester eagerly anticipating and preparing for our trip.  Fortunately, we were lucky enough to have some students and faculty from Turkey here at the Wisconsin School of Business who were willing to help prepare us for our trip. We got our first introduction to Turkish food at Madison restaurant Oliva with first year MBA student Canan Ozkan and PhD student Volkan Ozbek. Wisconsin School of Business Real Estate Professor, Dr. Abdullah Yavas led us in an introductory presentation about the economic and business climate in Turkey. Many of us also made plans to extend our time abroad over our winter break with trips to nearby Greece, Egypt and London. By the time the end of first semester arrived we were all ready to depart!

Our party of MBA travelers arrived in Istanbul on January 3^rd and 4^th and included 16 first and second year students and our trip advisor, Cindie Adams. We represented four of the Wisconsin MBA specializations including Corporate Finance & Investment Banking, Marketing Research, Strategic Human Resource Management and Supply Chain Management. Our 11-day itinerary combined both business and cultural experiences and included stops in Istanbul, Cappadocia, and Kusadasi.  We participated in six company visits in Istanbul including Best Buy, Coca-Cola, Hewlett-Packard, Ülker, Vakif Bank and the Istanbul Stock Exchange.  The company visits gave us the opportunity to experience Turkish Companies as well as US companies with Turkish operations allowing us to develop a more robust understanding of the Turkish business climate. We also had the opportunity to learn more about Turkish history and culture through visits to many of the famous Turkish cultural and historical sites including the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Egyptian Bazaar and the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul; the Fairy Chimneys, Uchisar Castle and Goreme Open Air Museum in Cappadocia; and the Roman city of Ephesus, Pammukale, and the House of the Virgin Mary near Kusadasi. The following blog posts will give you a little more color on each of these experiences.

From each of our blog posts, I think you will be able to tell what an incredible time we had in Turkey.  We learned so much about the business climate, history and culture of Turkey and on top of that we had a great time together.  Many of us made new friends both from within our group and with the amazing people that shared their warm Turkish hospitality with us along the way.  Much of the credit for all of our learning and fun goes to our fabulous trip advisor Cindie Adams, who planned an awesome trip for us (while also keeping up with her day job as the Center Director of the Nicholas Center for Corporate Finance and Investment Banking). We sincerely thank her for making our trip so amazing!

Enjoy reading more about our trip to Turkey and feel free to reach out to any of the participants who will be thrilled to tell you more about our experiences!