Lisa Miller is a city person, but she adjusted easily to her first winter in the Hanover area with a newborn. Adjustment is par for the course for a woman who has lived in Tunisia, China, and in suburban Vietnam (also with a baby) and who has worked in Taiwan, speaking Mandarin Chinese.
Miller, who received her MBA at Wharton in 1995, started in January as associate director for programs and communications at Tuck's Center for International Business. Her extensive international experience is a valuable asset at the center, which is dedicated to enriching the education of Tuck students and to research on international business issues. In addition to Taiwan, she worked in Asia and Latin America as a member of Ford Motor Company's Marketing Leadership Program and produced marketing communications in seven languages for MCI Telecommunications.
"I've loved studying languages since I was a small child," Miller recalls. In middle school in the New York City area, she even studied Japanese with a friend's mother. But Japanese wasn't available at college, so Miller switched to Chinese.
In Taiwan, after college, Miller wrote ads for Consumer Electronics, an English-language publication for buyers of electronic components. "I was the only non-Taiwanese employee in the office. It was more efficient if we conversed in Chinese than English, because I had spent a lot of time studying Chinese while they had spent time getting really good at ad sales. So I spoke Chinese almost exclusively."
In an ever more global world, is mastery of a foreign language necessary for a business leader? Miller says no, but it can be valuable. "In an ideal world, everybody would become conversant enough in a foreign language to talk to someone who doesn't speak their language. And learning to see the world through other people's eyes is critical.
"An international experience is a requirement to understand what it's like to be outside your home. You need some level of cross-cultural openness and awareness of your own cultural biases. Well-honed cross-cultural skills—the ability to manage across cultures, motivate people, and translate the home-office ethos and the culture behind it into something people overseas can understand and buy into—are critical."
Miller notes that all companies recruiting at Tuck have international operations, employees, or resources. Not all managers will be internationalists, regularly stationed abroad, but even those based in the U.S. will work for companies that depend on knowledge of other cultures and the forces compelling globalization.
A recent survey of the Tuck student body conducted in conjunction with a center-sponsored conference revealed that 63 percent had been told by recruiters they needed to consider a foreign assignment, yet 22 percent said they weren't sure how that would affect their careers. "There's a lot of confusion about international careers," she concludes—confusion she hopes her work in the center's programs will help resolve.
Miller finds Tuck students "delightful to work with. I really relate to them. I understand their interests, the pressures and concerns facing them in business school, what they're looking to do after school." Her goal is to get students, alumni, faculty, and practitioners more involved in the center's work.
Meanwhile, Miller is fascinated by the center's research, and she is enjoying immersion in an academic world, so different from the world of practice she has left. She commutes from nearby Grantham, New Hampshire, with her husband, a Dartmouth history professor who shares her interest in foreign regions. With a toddler and a six-year-old, she is exploring the outdoor world of the Upper Valley, enjoying swimming, hiking, boating, and skiing. "It's such a nice environment."
