Certainly one of the highlights of the Oxford MBA is the global Treks that take place in April between Hilary and Trinity terms. This year the Oxford SBS Alumni Relations Office recognized ten different Treks. They included China (Hong Kong & Shanghai), Geneva, Germany, India, Japan, Middle East, New York/Boston, Nigeria/Ghana, Silicon Valley, and Spain. Although students organize these Treks, they are supported by both the Alumni Office and the Careers Office. In fact, the New York/Boston Trek that I organized was of such strategic importance that both the Careers director and the Alumni director attended. Well, technically, the Alumni director's flight was cancelled due to the volcanic eruption in Iceland, but still...these Treks are big events!Any Oxford MBAs interested in "pitching" a Trek next year will typically face a deadline on the second-to-last Friday in January (i.e. Friday, January 22, 2010). During the following week, students actually pitch their Trek ideas with the winners being announced the following Monday (i.e. Monday, February 1, 2010). By this point, you should have already identified a team to help you, a list of students who have displayed interest in attending the Trek, and a list of companies that you are targeting.
Your Trek team will be given 30-minutes to pitch the proposal to a committee consisting of at least the Alumni and Careers directors. At this point, the New York/Boston Trek had "indications of interest" by email from 50 MBA students, of which, ultimately 12 attended the Trek. We had also compiled a 5 slide PowerPoint deck, which identified the dates of the Trek, as well as the flight, hotel, and estimated budget. Of the 15 companies that we had originally identified, we wound up seeing 10 of them, which is a pretty strong success rate. This year all 10 Treks were approved, and collectively over 150 of the 243 students in the 2009/10 class visited 100 companies. Hopefully, next year will be as strong - if not stronger!
Most people flew-in to New York (JFK airport) the weekend before our Trek started. Many people stayed with friends or family to save money. It appears that everyone knows someone in NYC! Those who stayed in a hotel chose "The Pod Hotel" in midtown Manhattan for about $75 each per/night (assumes sharing a room). You can book online, or call them at (212) 355-0300 (info@thepodhotel.com). I think that the best deal they offer is an en-suite room with two twin-sized beds, which for some reason can only be booked over the telephone, not over the Internet. We just missed our Columbia MBA counterparts this trip, but ideally next year we'll able to organize a night-out, or a brunch, to share our "case-study" war-stories.
We tried to cluster our company visits together. For example, on Monday we stayed downtown and visited Citigroup at 388 Greenwich Street, and then Deutsche Bank at 60 Wall Street. The next two days were spent largely in midtown. On Tuesday we visited CBRichardEllis, Credit Suisse, and Barclays Capital. We finished in New York on Wednesday by seeing Sanford Bernstein, SecondMarket, and Pfizer. Similarly, next year's Trekkers should consider visiting no more than three companies each day.
It would be unfair to choose favorites, but suffice to say that ALL of ours hosts had put a considerable amount of time and effort into our visit, and we could not be more grateful. Learning about how the commercial real estate market in New York is structured, and how absorption rates may presage an economic turnaround was absolutely mind-blowing. Other companies were saddled with the Herculean task of finding buyers for hundreds of billions worth of assets. One company shared with us that they knew exactly where every oil tanker in the world was at anyone given point in time by cross-referencing insurance records with maritime weather reporting. Bright people!
Still others spoke to us about the intersection of finance and social welfare through microfinance. Meanwhile a bunch of young and talented hot-shots are fastidiously creating new markets around the world for trading illiquid assets. I wonder if I could buy a PPM (private placement memorandum) in their company through their own trading architecture - that would be interesting!? Finally, the last company on our New York trek brought out an impressive line of managers who deftly answered our questions regarding the effect of Obamacare on the healthcare industry, and how pharma companies compete for market share in emerging markets that are already saturated with generic drugs.
Needless to say, this New York Trek was a real treat for all of us. We are eternally grateful to our kind and generous hosts. We trust that they were sufficiently impressed with us, too, so that they will be willing to meet with next year's Oxford MBA class!
