The first week of May brought the fourth International Partner Program from Darden’s partner school in Lima, Peru, PAD School of Management, to Charlottesville. This group consisted of 32 part-time and full-time MBA students and two administrators who came for a week of courses and company speakers focused on a general management approach to entrepreneurship and innovation. The Darden faculty team of Raul Chao, Bobby Parmar and Tom Steenburgh led courses in operations, marketing, strategy and leadership while maintaining a focus on startups and entrepreneurship. The group visited Bold Rock Hard Cidery in for a firsthand look into their operations and innovative practices, and heard from co-founder Brian Shanks who led a tour of the Nellysford, VA facility. The PAD group also spent time in the innovation lab (iLab at UVA) where they heard from the founder of PAKA Apparel, Kris Cody, a fourth year student at UVA. Kris formerly participated in iLab’s summer incubator program with his startup venture, PAKA, a social enterprise that sells handmade alpaca wool apparel made by local women weavers in Peru.
See below for more pictures from the program!
