Late Stage MBA/Josh Moritz-The Financial Times- Mom's Maserati and Cash Flow Analysis

I now have 15 minutes of fame and another reference to Mom's Maserati.

The article that I penned for the Financial Times on my experience in the Babson Fast Track MBA program was published Monday March 15th while I was studying in St. Petersburg, Russia.

See the article here: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7352574c-2d6a-11df-a262-00144feabdc0.html.

Quite a surprise to me, the article takes up half a page on the back of the print edition of the education section entitled Business Education/New Media. While good for the ego, I just hope its good for my pocket book as well.

The online version headline is kinds of dull, the print edition headline has more pizazz and offers up more controversy: "Cash Flow Analysis Can be As Much Fun as a Maserati."

With all due respect to my finance professors Fetters, Bliss, and James (and anyone else that I missed) and my tutor Denise Chew, I never said that cash flow analysis was as much fun as driving a Maserati. Having test driven a Maserati in order to get a special $100 gift card to the Smith and Lewinsky Steak House in New York, I know that driving a Maserati is a lot more fun, especially for someone who missed out on being a master of the universe in their 30's.

I also know that a bad cash flow analysis can be as serious as a non-fatal car crash, so I tend to drive and invest wisely, although I am always in a hurry.

Unfortunately, there was a lot of information that had to be edited out to make the article about 1000 words.

For example, to save space I had to cut out the first names of people in my first study group. Made up of Sagar, Suniel and Dinesh, all from India and Alex, the Italian product manager who is a really a Gardner, it was truly a bunch of people getting used to one and other, but once we got going it really clicked well.

The article also does not do justice to the diversity of the program.

We not only have African Americans, we have people from Africa, folks from Venezuela, The Dominican Republic, India, Pakistan, Lebanon, Italy, The People's Republic of China and Taiwan. Roumania and the UK are represented as well. Neil from the UK commutes in every 4 to 6 weeks, while there was a person from section 2 of my cohort who came in from Shanghai, but is now coming in from Chile. Of course there are a number of middle-aged white people like myself as well. Straights and gays are well represented.

My mother in law research suggests that all the major religious groups like Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists, agnostics and atheists are in the mix as well. And those are the ones I know about.

While my cohort is has about 15% to 20% females, I hear that class that just started in March 2010 is nearly 40% female. This is a far cry from the days of my friend Pat who attended the Babson MBA program about 25 years ago. She was the only female in most of her classes in those days.

Somewhere in the mix is an ex-professional soccer player, a former race car driver, even corporate types from IBM, Intel and Nike. Corporate and independent entrepreneurs abound.

I figure since nearly half a million people read the Financial Times per day, my 15 minutes of fame might actually get me somewhere.

Stayed tuned to find out.

For those who would like to download the full report, click here: http://media.ft.com/cms/fb27c9e6-2d96-11df-a971-00144feabdc0.pdf.

Late Stage MBA - From St. Petersburg Airport, Russia

Phew, made it to St. Petersburg. Waiting at Costa Coffee with fellow classmate Maggie Barrett who is from the Portland Ore, cohort. Here is a business opportunity waiting for development. There is no retail at the St. Petes airport. Invest now. Unlike Maggie who seems have left from her house at 4am Seattle time and now has been up for nearly 2 days, I have been awake only 36 hours. (turns out maggie is in charge of the software operating system for the HP 210 at Intel that I am typing on.)

20 degrees F here vs. 45 degrees yesterday in NY.

Sizewise the airport terminal is about the same as White Plains in Westchester county NY, but needs ambiance. The people are nice, they speak many languages. We had advice not to use the ATMs here from the tourist person.

My goodnesss we (actually Maggie Treated) are having $20 worth of coffee and water. Seems a bit higher than JFK or Logan. Have to work on the money matters.

Please check out the Financial Times on Monday March 15th. Wrote about my experience at Babson. More later.