Fifteen

Issue date: 4/14/09 Section: Student Life

Kim Rescigno, Ian Levery, Leland Cheung, and Mann Duenas, all MBA '10, do the MIT in Antigua

Mike Norman MBA '10 enjoys Susie's Hot Sauce

With assistance from staff and faculty (Amy DiMattia of MBA Student Affairs & Professor Christine Kelly), I worked alongside three brave MIT Sloan students (Manuel Dueñas, Spencer Irvine and Kim Rescigno, all MBA '10) to organize a thirteen student seminar on the economic, cultural and political climate of Antigua. We ended the seminar with a 9-day trip to Antigua spanning SIP and Spring Break. Our main goal was to provide an opportunity to visit Antigua and to do meaningful project work with companies that positively impact the local economy. With the generous financial, administrative and academic support of MIT Sloan, we were able to make this goal a reality. Through the course, we scoped projects and started to work with two companies: Hermitage Bay Hotel and Susie's Hot Sauce.

The teams arrived in the country 6 days after a hotly contested election and one month after the assets of the country's largest private investor were placed into receivership pending an SEC judgment on fraud allegations centered on assets worth $8 billion. Through discussions with the Director General of Tourism and the Manager of the Antigua Commercial Bank, we were able to endow our projects with a macro-economic perspective on the country's financial affairs. For example, a recent reduction in remittances was observed to have had a major impact on the local economy. The group also participated in cultural activities, including a visit to one of the oldest slave plantations on the island, complete with a restored wind-operated sugar mill. The visit provided a valuable representation of the country's transition from a plantation-based economy to one dominated by tourism.

The Hermitage Bay team, led by Ian Lavery MBA '10 worked with Andy Thesen, one of the hotel owners, and developed a strategy to aid the hotel in penetrating the U.S. market. Lavery and other Hermitage Bay team members (Louis Baltimore, Hala El-Khaldi, Christiaan Vorkink and Megan Zito, all MBA '10) conducted market research to better understand the buying patterns of high-end consumers and travel agents. "Much of the tourism industry in Antigua has been in a slump throughout the economic downturn," Ian mentioned. "By creating an authentic Antiguan experience with open-air accommodations, talented local staff and an array of local, all-natural foods, Hermitage Bay has been able to maintain strong occupancy rates and resist declining revenues."

The Susie's Hot Sauce team, led by Ash Martin MBA '10, developed a strategy to help the hot sauce manufacturer expand domestic production capacity and connect with contract manufacturers. With the assistance of Rescigno and the other team members (Leland Cheung, Conner Corwin and Michael Norman, all MBA '10), interviews were conducted with Susie's Hot Sauce Managing Director RoseMarie McMaster, and MIT Sloan alum Trevor Thomas MBA '98, who was Susie Hot Sauce's former Marketing Director. As with any small company, the on-the-ground reality can be very different from the cases we read about in our classes. "The biggest value-add of our assistance was the validation of [RoseMarie's] thinking about her growth prospects and helping her prioritize the next steps," said Ash. "You could tell in our final presentation that she was impressed [with] how well we understood her business in such a short time."

Most importantly, we were able to participate in a unique, well-rounded international experience that had never been done before at MIT Sloan - the Sloan study tour. The lessons learned through cultural visits, local social events, and meaningful project work with companies made the sunburns some of us suffered more than worth it.

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