Seth Fearey: “Everyone should study MBA”

May 30, 2016

Seth Fearey has already lived and worked in the Kyrgyz Republic for seven years, making a name for himself as one of our student’s favorite professors in AUCA’s MBA program. Seth listens to his students and answers their questions, drawing from his broad experience as a manager, researcher, and specialist in PR and marketing at several companies.

Seth started his career in business with a twenty-year stint at Hewlett-Packard, an American technology company based in Palo Alto, California. In the 1990s, he moved on to a Silicon Valley NGO called Smart Valley Inc., and within five years he was sitting on the board of directors. Afterwards, Seth started his own consulting company to help others adopt internet technologies, and finally volunteered with the Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan, where he’s stayed since.

In 2013, Seth started teaching leadership and business communications AUCA, soon branching out into marketing and entrepreneurship. Currently, he teaches the “Business Administration” undergraduate course and the “Entrepreneurship” MBA course.

Seth, who speaks English, Italian, and French, now lives between his homes in Bishkek and Tuscany, Italy. In his free time, he plays tennis, skis, and takes pictures.

Of course, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to talk with such an interesting professor. We took an hour to sit down with Seth and have a conversation about his journey to Kyrgyzstan, the unique challenges of doing business here, and what his students have taught him.

“For undergrad, I attended a liberal arts college and studied psychology and political science. After graduation, I had absolutely no clue what I’d do with my life. I signed up as a volunteer for the Peace Corps and took off for Nepal to help people gain access to clean drinking water. There, I discovered my affinity for administrative work. After I finished my two years in Nepal, I came back to the States and started looking for a way to combine the practical administrative skills I’d picked up in Nepal with a job at an international organization. With that goal in mind, I enrolled in Stanford’s MBA program.”

 

 

“My МВА opened a number of doors in my life”

“The MBA turned out to be exactly what I wanted. The program gave me all-purpose skills and knowledge I was able to transfer to literally every area I worked in: business, government, an NGO, and even here at a university. My MBA taught me how to manage human and material resources, opening a number of doors in my life. My MBA gave me the opportunity to find work in several different areas. Every new job I’ve had has been different from the last, but I’ve enjoyed every one. The first 20 years of my career, I worked at HP [Hewlett-Packard], and I managed to work in almost every department of the company: marketing, finance, management, information systems, PR and advertisements, strategic planning, and research. I think all of that was possible because of my MBA. The education it provides is so flexible it enables you to apply your knowledge base to almost any activity.

“After working at HP, I worked for 6-7 years in the NGO sector. I helped local communities and local authorities ‘make friends’ with IT-technologies. I taught them how to work on the Internet, explaining the advantages of working within a virtual space and how it could improve people’s quality of life. I worked with schools, libraries, public institutions, public health-care agencies, and other social institutions as well. We had a big push to create new companies in Silicon Valley and a lot of economic growth took place. At that moment, a lot of companies and websites were starting up, including several industrial companies. Partnerships between the state and private companies were actively developing and the internet (along with many other innovative technologies) was becoming more and more popular.”

 

 

My Students Taught me their Optimism

How did you get to the Kyrgyz Republic?

“I decided I’d worked in the States long enough, and I wanted to work on the international scene. In 2009, I applied to the Peace Corps and was assigned to the Kyrgyz Republic. Initially, I worked as an administrative director, but soon I worked as the country director of the organization, where I had to manage large number of Peace Corps staff. I managed all the local employees and approximately 120 volunteers. After my work in the Peace Corps, I was offered a great opportunity to work and teach at AUCA, passing my experience on to the next generation. I’m always happy to help students figure out what they want to do with their lives and make decisions about their career.”

Right now, you are teaching “Business Administration,” and you have a lot of experience working with companies in the private and public sectors across a number of countries. What comparisons do you see between doing business in the USA and in the Kyrgyz Republic?

“In my opinion, doing business is pretty much the same here as it is overseas. Business is business. It does not matter where it is conducted. The primary functions of business are same worldwide. I’ve observed that family businesses are well-developed in the Kyrgyz Republic, and they are vitally important for people in Kyrgyzstan. At the same time, I think it’s necessary to learn up-to-date business practices—it helps keep family business running effectively.

Teaching is always a two-way process. Not only do you share your knowledge with students, but they always give something back. What have you learned from your students at AUCA?

“Many of my students have their own businesses. In class, they are always sharing their experiences and problems with me and with each other. The first thing I learned from my students was how to make a family business work. The second thing I learned was how to navigate those hidden rocks and opportunities you encounter doing business in the Kyrgyz Republic. The third thing my students taught me was their optimism.

 

 

«The Economy cannot develop without trust»

What problems do your students face most frequently doing business in Kyrgyzstan?

“The greatest hurdle doing business in the Kyrgyz Republic is getting access to capital. Sometimes, it is just impossible to get the money you need to start a new business. In Silicon Valley, for example, there are a lot of opportunities to get money for a start-up. People are desperately looking for ways to invest their money.

“The second issue people face is the quality of the business infrastructure—it’s developing, but it’s still far from what we have in the West. The lack of high quality legal support and the lack of protections for business rights, intellectual property, and contractual obligations frequently cause problems when you are starting a business.

“The students always complain about the lack of national agencies (laboratories) to certify goods. Practically, this means they can’t export their goods outside of Kyrgyzstan. They also talked about the lack of trust between business partners. In California it is not unusual for several businesses to come together to solve some shared problem, but in the Kyrgyz Republic, it is incredibly difficult to get entrepreneurs to work together.

“This is one of the biggest goals for our MBA program: to create a network of businesspeople who jointly solve problems and build business ventures. To do this, you need trust. Trust will always be an irreplaceable component in developing the economy of the whole country.”

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