A group of U-M-Flint MBA students have a better understanding of the global economy after participating in an extraordinary trip to Russia.
Because of previous visits to Russia and established relationships, a professor led 13 School of Management (SOM) students on a full itinerary that included meetings with high level government and business leaders in both Moscow and Togliatti (Flint’s sister city). In a period of 10 days, the SOM group met with the U.S. ambassador to Russia, president of General Motors Corp. Russia, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, president and managing director of Ford Motor Co. Russia, and the director of the corporate sector of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in Russia.
Tours included the AutoVAZ facility in Togliatti, Russia’s largest automobile production facility; the AutoVAZ-GM joint venture facility in Togliatti, where the Chevy Niva is produced; various GM and Ford auto dealerships in Moscow; a commercial bank in Togliatti; and universities in both Togliatti and Moscow.
At a visit to Russia’s largest GM dealership, the SOM students learned that 40 new vehicles are sold almost every day from that one Moscow location in the booming Russian car market.
“Some of the Cadillacs at the Moscow Chevy dealership are made in Lansing, Michigan, so that was quite interesting for our students to see Michigan vehicles being sold in Moscow — $100,000 for the Cadillac Escalade by the way,” says SOM Professor Mark Perry, who along with Dr. Greg Allar accompanied the students.
The U-M-Flint students met in Togliatti with the mayor’s staff, and during a meeting at City Hall, Dr. Igor Bogdanov, the president of the Togliatti Academy of Management, and Perry signed a Memorandum of Understanding that will lead to future student and faculty exchanges between the two institutions.
