Africa.com will be welcoming a team of six students from Harvard Business school in Johannesburg this week. The students will be in the city for one week as part of a required first-year course at Harvard Business School called FIELD, which stands for Field Immersion Experiences for Leadership Development.
Africa.com is one of 156 FIELD Global Partners spanning 13 countries around the world. Together they will host more than 930 students in all.
“We are pleased to be working with Harvard Business School to provide students with a real-world learning experience in South Africa.” said Teresa Clarke,Chairman and CEO.
FIELD has three modules that run through the entire the first year of the two-year MBA programme.
- The first focuses on developing individual leadership skills through team feedback and self-reflection.
- The second focuses on developing global intelligence by immersing them in a foreign country to develop a new product or service in country for their Global Partner organization.
- The last module brings all the lessons together by challenging students to develop and launch their own micro-business as part of a small team back in Boston.
Africa.com executives have been working with the team remotely in the months leading up to their arrival in South Africa. While in the country, they will pitch their ideas to the leadership team, conduct field research with consumers around Johannesburg and present their final recommendations to management.
Harvard is quick to acknowledge that this important learning experience would not be possible without the Global Partners.
“We are extremely grateful to Africa.com and all the FIELD Global Partner organizations for all they do on behalf of our students,” said Professor Tony Mayo, the faculty head of FIELD. “The students benefit immeasurably from this experience and we hope the partner organizations do as well.”