Lucky to have Dr. Curt Gervich, my friend and colleague, visit me in Baku and at UNEC. Curt met with UNEC Dean and friend, Dr. Nazim Hajiyev, sat in on my class, and went out for dinner with other faculty members. Both Curt and I are very interested in the UN Climate Change conference (COPP29) that will be held in Baku this November. It is interesting to see how the US is working to support Azerbaijan in this important work. Earlier this year, I had a great time at the presentation of Sue Biniazi, who explained the history and the goals of the COPP meetings. The US ambassador to Azerbaijan, Mark Libbey, is shown here with Ms. Biniazi.

I can talk about The 7 Habits anytime and anywhere. We had a very nice talk with about 15 colleagues participating. Below, I visited an undergraduate Marketing class for some of their presentations. I was impressed with the students and their hard work.

The above picture supports the idea that two heads are better than one. The Bakery presentation included a hand-on exercise and the pair on the left helped me feel poorly about my cake making. ability.

At the 28th FAI global conference on Digitalization and AI, I presented Nazim’s and my exploratory research on Azerbaijani culture and its influence on entrepreneurship. I met nice people from India, Ukraine, Georgia, and more colleagues from Azerbaijan. The picture above me is President Ilham Aliyev, the second President of Azerbaijan following its independence from the Soviet Union. More conference pictures below.

Above, I participated in an excellent panel discussion and got to hear from Azerbaijani experts about their work to support entrepreneurial women. Below, I co-facilitated a two-day leadership conference for Azerbaijani English teacher organizations. It was a pleasure to work with the teachers and two former US Peace Corps training staff.

Perhaps my main activity in Azerbaijan was teaching two MBA courses at UNEC, Marketing Management and Entrepreneurial Manager. It was a new experience teaching MBA courses and an extra challenge of teaching in a different educational system. I think it went well and I will have fond memories of these hard working Azerbaijani people.