Award for Global Engagement

Dr. Mahmood Zaidi's thinking, teaching, and actions are truly global. Born in India, he worked for many years in China and Europe; conducted research in Australia, Canada, Japan, Thailand, and the Caribbean; and has taught in a multitude of countries. For more than 20 years he developed and taught graduate courses in international human resource management, with teaching and research interests in the areas of international labor market analysis, human capitol and multinationals, and international human resource management. He has authored and edited books, articles, and reports on international human resource management. Throughout his career he has championed the internationalization of faculty, students, and curriculum, and his vision and determination have been instrumental in the internationalization of the Carlson School of Management.

Early in his career at the Carlson School, he was one of the first to champion the issue of "international" and in 1985 was appointed to develop international programs for the school. He helped establish the school's Office of International Programs and was subsequently named its founding director. He established a vision and strategic plan for globalizing the business school and mobilized a cadre of faculty to support the work of establishing international programs. He secured substantial grant support to seed the school's international efforts, including multiple funding grants from both USAID and the Mellon Foundation.

In the early 1990s, under Dr. Zaidi's leadership, the Carlson School established the first of its acclaimed international executive MBA programs at the Warsaw School of Economics in Poland. Additional executive MBA programs were later established in Austria and China. His work was crucial in enabling the University, for the first time in its history, to grant degrees to students in offshore programs taught collaboratively with an established foreign partner.

Over the years, Dr. Zaidi has established a network of international relationships with business schools that have proven invaluable to the Carlson School. He has developed faculty exchange programs and student exchange agreements, assisted with international curriculum development, facilitated international research, and enlisted a large portion of the school's faculty to teach and spend time overseas.

Dr. Zaidi's globalization work has extended beyond the Carlson School to the University. He has developed projects to foster interdisciplinary cross-college activity in international scholarship, collaborating on international issues with the Humphrey Institute, the College of Liberal Arts, and the Law School.

Dr. Zaidi's legacy is large, and his global vision and accomplishments have made a lasting impact on the Carlson School of Management and the University.