About
Thunderbird School of Global Management is the world’s premier academic institution for the study of global leadership, management, and business for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but we are much more than a school. Thunderbird is also a global network of leaders, managers, entrepreneurs, and intrapreneurs spanning the private and public sectors who advance inclusive and sustainable prosperity worldwide.
School History
In 1946, American military officers and business leaders founded Thunderbird as the American Institute for Foreign Trade after acquiring Thunderbird Field, a decommissioned World War II air base in Glendale, Arizona where pilots from around the world trained. With the new mission of building peace through global commerce, Thunderbird became the world’s first academic institution to specialize in international management by concentrating its graduate curriculum on cross-cultural communication, regional and international affairs, and hands-on, real-world training in the nuances of global business at the intersection of public policy and law.
In 2014, Thunderbird joined Arizona State University, recently relocating to its growing Downtown Phoenix campus where construction is underway on a state-of-the-art facility housing Thunderbird’s in-person graduate degree and executive programs. The capital city’s urban core has undergone a remarkable revitalization and today, 20,000 students call ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus home.
Unique Location
Located in the heart of Phoenix’s flourishing business district, Thunderbird's global headquarters is steps away from major sports arenas, museums, performing arts centers and other entertainment venues. Uniquely positioned adjacent to other professional schools in the nation's fifth-largest city with the fastest population growth, T-birds have easy access to first-class fitness facilities, a dazzling variety of dining options, unlimited ways to enjoy the warm, sunny climate, and a local culture steeped in regional history.
Academic Offerings for Global Leadership in the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Thunderbird has transformed its Global MBA program into a newly designed, highly innovative Master of Global Management (MGM), ranked #1 in the world by the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education for 2019. MGM students choose from 16 academic concentrations with opportunities to take courses within ASU’s other schools. Thunderbird's No. 1-ranked MGM program offers applied learning opportunities, 16 concentrations, and internships in real-world settings around the globe where students gain hands-on experience and learn from the diverse perspectives of a global cohort of classmates. Graduates join a worldwide alumni network of 45,000 leaders across 170 alumni chapters.
All Thunderbird students also join the broader ASU community and benefit from Thunderbird’s rich history of training global leaders in skills like cross-cultural management and cross-border negotiation combined with ASU’s innovation expertise in disciplines from bio-design to journalism, space science to humanities.
Thunderbird has expanded its on-demand academic offerings with new online programs for both undergraduate and master’s level degrees. Thunderbird now offers two newly designed undergraduate degrees, the Bachelor of Global Management and the Bachelor of Science in International Trade with undergraduate courses delivered at ASU’s West campus or fully online.
More than ever, today's global organizations need versatile leaders and managers with creative problem-solving skills who can elevate diverse teams across cultures in multiple markets around the world. Students expand their repertoire and sharpen their skills in Thunderbird's online Master of Applied Leadership and Management (MALM) program, a unique graduate degree with classes taught online by Thunderbird's world-class professors. The program is designed to explore new leadership and management practices for transnational organizations from a global perspective in order to deliver the highest quality graduate education in flexible online format.
The Master of Applied Leadership and Management program is designed specifically for students from around the world and allows them to become a part of the globally connected Thunderbird alumni network (https://thunderbird.asu.edu/node/238) that opens doors and opportunities all over the world.
In addition to providing leading graduate and undergraduate degrees, Thunderbird Executive Education delivers world-class global enterprise and leadership success development through open programs and custom programs for professionals seeking career development training. Thunderbird has expanded executive offerings to include an Executive Master of Arts in Global Affairs and Management (EMAGAM) in Washington, DC and the Executive Master of Global Leadership and Strategy (EMGLAS) hosted in six cities around the world over twelve months. Thunderbird Executive Education also offers custom programs for global organizations looking for individualized development solutions for their unique global management challenges.
All courses are offered in English; however, Thunderbird’s Master of Global Management (MGM) program includes foreign language training. All graduates earning the Master of Global Management degree are required to have training in at least one language in addition to English by graduation.
Global Innovation and Inclusion
Thunderbird is known worldwide for its welcoming culture of collaborative innovation. The school has often been called a “mini-United Nations” because of its diverse and inclusive global student body and its vast and engaged alumni network of more than 45,000 professionals in 150 nations.
Guided by a global mindset and a deep commitment to advancing inclusive and sustainable prosperity worldwide, Thunderbird integrates original, multidisciplinary management and business training and research with leadership expertise across sectors to empower leaders of transnational organizations to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing and increasingly complex world.
With global headquarters in Arizona and regional Centers of Excellence strategically located in top centers for international business and trade, Thunderbird School of Global Management offers degree programs (graduate and undergraduate), professional development opportunities and corporate solutions to individuals and organizations around the world.
Thunderbird’s growing network of satellite hubs around the world will all be connected by a dynamic new global headquarters facility, an architectural tour de force now under construction on ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus. Designed to foster innovation and collaboration, the digitally enhanced building will embody the grandeur of Thunderbird’s rich history while leveraging the latest technology to serve as a central nexus of the School’s worldwide network.
The state-of-the-art facility is engineered as a welcoming and luxurious space in which to convene and educate global leaders to maximize the benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Envisioned as a global village of high-tech learning and innovation, the new global headquarters is scheduled for completion in 2021 when the Thunderbird community will be celebrating 75 years of educating global leaders who advance inclusive and sustainable prosperity worldwide.
Thunderbird’s global presence is on the rise, with Centers of Excellence now operating in Geneva, Switzerland, Moscow, Russia, Dubai, UAE, Tokyo, Japan, Jakarta, Indonesia, Seoul, Nairobi, Korea, Los Angeles, California and Washington, DC. The School has plans to expand to twenty of these regional hubs by 2025.
Thunderbird School of Global Management has two main campuses, one for undergraduates at ASU’s West campus in Glendale, Arizona, and one for graduate students at ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus.
Students at Thunderbird enjoy modern classrooms equipped with cutting-edge technology for global connectivity, complemented by spacious, comfortable study rooms and lounge areas. Thunderbird students can also make use of libraries, sport and recreational facilities, entrepreneurial projects, cross-sectoral collaborations, research and innovation labs, executive meeting suites for boardroom style presentations, and more.
Graduate students step outside their high-tech business tower into a vibrant commercial district packed with restaurants, gyms, shops, theaters, hotels and bars. For Thunderbird undergraduates, the West campus of Arizona State University creates a learning community blending liberal arts education with 21st-century workforce preparation. The northwest Phoenix campus provides modern amenities in its residence halls, dining facilities, and the Sun Devil Fitness Complex and swimming pool. Subtropical landscaping, fountains and outdoor enclaves are third-space opportunities for students to socialize and collaborate while pursuing their global leadership dreams.
Thunderbird School of Global Management brings people from around the world to Arizona’s sunny capital city of Phoenix and to its many surrounding suburbs such as Scottsdale and Glendale, part of the fifth-largest and fastest-growing US metropolitan area. As a large, diverse, and rapidly growing hub for global trade and commerce, Phoenix provides students with a broad spectrum of rich internship and job opportunities within multinational corporations, global nonprofit organizations, and government agencies, as well as access to eminent thought leaders and innovators from across sectors and industries.
In addition to being a dynamic center of government, international trade, and technological innovation, Phoenix enjoys a warm desert climate and is surrounded by wonders of the natural world as well as popular travel destinations. Thunderbird’s Phoenix headquarters is approximately a six-hour drive from Los Angeles and San Diego, California and under five hours to Las Vegas, Nevada. Life at Thunderbird also includes short but unforgettable adventures to places such as the Grand Canyon, Sedona, Monument Valley, and Antelope Canyon, just to name a few.
Outside the classroom on a typical day on campus, students can take advantage of events, speakers, and culturally enriching activities while networking with Thunderbird’s robust alumni network. Their learning journey is full of opportunities to participate in hands-on entrepreneurial and public service opportunities, contributing to the economic, cultural and overall health of a diverse community while gaining skills and experience for careers that can take them anywhere in the world after graduation.
Through a wide range of student clubs, student life at Thunderbird is built around social, professional and cultural activities. Take Regional Nights Thunderbird’s global tradition for example, or the Student Leadership Organizations.
Thunderbird students also have full access to ASU’s Sun Devil Fitness facility, where they can optimize health through a variety of recreational, fitness and sport opportunities.
Thunderbird’s Career Management Center provides on-site visits to local companies such as Honeywell and On Semiconductor, oversees career development, and student mentorship by Thunderbird alumni.
1. There is a $115 application fee
2. Thunderbird will be looking at the following admissions criteria:
- Academics (grades, GMAT, any additional schooling)
- Employability/Success Factors (years and quality of work experience/professional skills, leadership/managing teams, communication skills, prior business knowledge)
- T-bird Fit
- Overall quality of your application
Thunderbird’s Career Management Center offers a full suite of support services, including a one-credit professional development course. All students are paired with an alumni mentor, a student liaison, a career coach, and a faculty advisor. The entire Thunderbird community cares about students’ success and we are all here to support T-birds throughout their Thunderbird journey, and beyond as they pursue leadership roles in global organizations.
Many Thunderbird programs including the Master of Global Management, require both applied learning and internship experiences. The Global Challenge Lab sends teams of students to complete consulting projects for organizations in the US and abroad.
Thunderbird’s global alumni network includes 46,000 professionals from 143 countries, with almost one-quarter living abroad.
About
Thunderbird School of Global Management is the world’s premier academic institution for the study of global leadership, management, and business for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but we are much more than a school. Thunderbird is also a global network of leaders, managers, entrepreneurs, and intrapreneurs spanning the private and public sectors who advance inclusive and sustainable prosperity worldwide.
School History
In 1946, American military officers and business leaders founded Thunderbird as the American Institute for Foreign Trade after acquiring Thunderbird Field, a decommissioned World War II air base in Glendale, Arizona where pilots from around the world trained. With the new mission of building peace through global commerce, Thunderbird became the world’s first academic institution to specialize in international management by concentrating its graduate curriculum on cross-cultural communication, regional and international affairs, and hands-on, real-world training in the nuances of global business at the intersection of public policy and law.
In 2014, Thunderbird joined Arizona State University, recently relocating to its growing Downtown Phoenix campus where construction is underway on a state-of-the-art facility housing Thunderbird’s in-person graduate degree and executive programs. The capital city’s urban core has undergone a remarkable revitalization and today, 20,000 students call ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus home.
Unique Location
Located in the heart of Phoenix’s flourishing business district, Thunderbird's global headquarters is steps away from major sports arenas, museums, performing arts centers and other entertainment venues. Uniquely positioned adjacent to other professional schools in the nation's fifth-largest city with the fastest population growth, T-birds have easy access to first-class fitness facilities, a dazzling variety of dining options, unlimited ways to enjoy the warm, sunny climate, and a local culture steeped in regional history.
Academic Offerings for Global Leadership in the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Thunderbird has transformed its Global MBA program into a newly designed, highly innovative Master of Global Management (MGM), ranked #1 in the world by the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education for 2019. MGM students choose from 16 academic concentrations with opportunities to take courses within ASU’s other schools. Thunderbird's No. 1-ranked MGM program offers applied learning opportunities, 16 concentrations, and internships in real-world settings around the globe where students gain hands-on experience and learn from the diverse perspectives of a global cohort of classmates. Graduates join a worldwide alumni network of 45,000 leaders across 170 alumni chapters.
All Thunderbird students also join the broader ASU community and benefit from Thunderbird’s rich history of training global leaders in skills like cross-cultural management and cross-border negotiation combined with ASU’s innovation expertise in disciplines from bio-design to journalism, space science to humanities.
Thunderbird has expanded its on-demand academic offerings with new online programs for both undergraduate and master’s level degrees. Thunderbird now offers two newly designed undergraduate degrees, the Bachelor of Global Management and the Bachelor of Science in International Trade with undergraduate courses delivered at ASU’s West campus or fully online.
More than ever, today's global organizations need versatile leaders and managers with creative problem-solving skills who can elevate diverse teams across cultures in multiple markets around the world. Students expand their repertoire and sharpen their skills in Thunderbird's online Master of Applied Leadership and Management (MALM) program, a unique graduate degree with classes taught online by Thunderbird's world-class professors. The program is designed to explore new leadership and management practices for transnational organizations from a global perspective in order to deliver the highest quality graduate education in flexible online format.
The Master of Applied Leadership and Management program is designed specifically for students from around the world and allows them to become a part of the globally connected Thunderbird alumni network (https://thunderbird.asu.edu/node/238) that opens doors and opportunities all over the world.
In addition to providing leading graduate and undergraduate degrees, Thunderbird Executive Education delivers world-class global enterprise and leadership success development through open programs and custom programs for professionals seeking career development training. Thunderbird has expanded executive offerings to include an Executive Master of Arts in Global Affairs and Management (EMAGAM) in Washington, DC and the Executive Master of Global Leadership and Strategy (EMGLAS) hosted in six cities around the world over twelve months. Thunderbird Executive Education also offers custom programs for global organizations looking for individualized development solutions for their unique global management challenges.
All courses are offered in English; however, Thunderbird’s Master of Global Management (MGM) program includes foreign language training. All graduates earning the Master of Global Management degree are required to have training in at least one language in addition to English by graduation.
Global Innovation and Inclusion
Thunderbird is known worldwide for its welcoming culture of collaborative innovation. The school has often been called a “mini-United Nations” because of its diverse and inclusive global student body and its vast and engaged alumni network of more than 45,000 professionals in 150 nations.
Guided by a global mindset and a deep commitment to advancing inclusive and sustainable prosperity worldwide, Thunderbird integrates original, multidisciplinary management and business training and research with leadership expertise across sectors to empower leaders of transnational organizations to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing and increasingly complex world.
With global headquarters in Arizona and regional Centers of Excellence strategically located in top centers for international business and trade, Thunderbird School of Global Management offers degree programs (graduate and undergraduate), professional development opportunities and corporate solutions to individuals and organizations around the world.
Thunderbird’s growing network of satellite hubs around the world will all be connected by a dynamic new global headquarters facility, an architectural tour de force now under construction on ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus. Designed to foster innovation and collaboration, the digitally enhanced building will embody the grandeur of Thunderbird’s rich history while leveraging the latest technology to serve as a central nexus of the School’s worldwide network.
The state-of-the-art facility is engineered as a welcoming and luxurious space in which to convene and educate global leaders to maximize the benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Envisioned as a global village of high-tech learning and innovation, the new global headquarters is scheduled for completion in 2021 when the Thunderbird community will be celebrating 75 years of educating global leaders who advance inclusive and sustainable prosperity worldwide.
Thunderbird’s global presence is on the rise, with Centers of Excellence now operating in Geneva, Switzerland, Moscow, Russia, Dubai, UAE, Tokyo, Japan, Jakarta, Indonesia, Seoul, Nairobi, Korea, Los Angeles, California and Washington, DC. The School has plans to expand to twenty of these regional hubs by 2025.
Thunderbird School of Global Management has two main campuses, one for undergraduates at ASU’s West campus in Glendale, Arizona, and one for graduate students at ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus.
Students at Thunderbird enjoy modern classrooms equipped with cutting-edge technology for global connectivity, complemented by spacious, comfortable study rooms and lounge areas. Thunderbird students can also make use of libraries, sport and recreational facilities, entrepreneurial projects, cross-sectoral collaborations, research and innovation labs, executive meeting suites for boardroom style presentations, and more.
Graduate students step outside their high-tech business tower into a vibrant commercial district packed with restaurants, gyms, shops, theaters, hotels and bars. For Thunderbird undergraduates, the West campus of Arizona State University creates a learning community blending liberal arts education with 21st-century workforce preparation. The northwest Phoenix campus provides modern amenities in its residence halls, dining facilities, and the Sun Devil Fitness Complex and swimming pool. Subtropical landscaping, fountains and outdoor enclaves are third-space opportunities for students to socialize and collaborate while pursuing their global leadership dreams.
Thunderbird School of Global Management brings people from around the world to Arizona’s sunny capital city of Phoenix and to its many surrounding suburbs such as Scottsdale and Glendale, part of the fifth-largest and fastest-growing US metropolitan area. As a large, diverse, and rapidly growing hub for global trade and commerce, Phoenix provides students with a broad spectrum of rich internship and job opportunities within multinational corporations, global nonprofit organizations, and government agencies, as well as access to eminent thought leaders and innovators from across sectors and industries.
In addition to being a dynamic center of government, international trade, and technological innovation, Phoenix enjoys a warm desert climate and is surrounded by wonders of the natural world as well as popular travel destinations. Thunderbird’s Phoenix headquarters is approximately a six-hour drive from Los Angeles and San Diego, California and under five hours to Las Vegas, Nevada. Life at Thunderbird also includes short but unforgettable adventures to places such as the Grand Canyon, Sedona, Monument Valley, and Antelope Canyon, just to name a few.
Outside the classroom on a typical day on campus, students can take advantage of events, speakers, and culturally enriching activities while networking with Thunderbird’s robust alumni network. Their learning journey is full of opportunities to participate in hands-on entrepreneurial and public service opportunities, contributing to the economic, cultural and overall health of a diverse community while gaining skills and experience for careers that can take them anywhere in the world after graduation.
Through a wide range of student clubs, student life at Thunderbird is built around social, professional and cultural activities. Take Regional Nights Thunderbird’s global tradition for example, or the Student Leadership Organizations.
Thunderbird students also have full access to ASU’s Sun Devil Fitness facility, where they can optimize health through a variety of recreational, fitness and sport opportunities.
Thunderbird’s Career Management Center provides on-site visits to local companies such as Honeywell and On Semiconductor, oversees career development, and student mentorship by Thunderbird alumni.
1. There is a $115 application fee
2. Thunderbird will be looking at the following admissions criteria:
- Academics (grades, GMAT, any additional schooling)
- Employability/Success Factors (years and quality of work experience/professional skills, leadership/managing teams, communication skills, prior business knowledge)
- T-bird Fit
- Overall quality of your application
Thunderbird’s Career Management Center offers a full suite of support services, including a one-credit professional development course. All students are paired with an alumni mentor, a student liaison, a career coach, and a faculty advisor. The entire Thunderbird community cares about students’ success and we are all here to support T-birds throughout their Thunderbird journey, and beyond as they pursue leadership roles in global organizations.
Many Thunderbird programs including the Master of Global Management, require both applied learning and internship experiences. The Global Challenge Lab sends teams of students to complete consulting projects for organizations in the US and abroad.
Thunderbird’s global alumni network includes 46,000 professionals from 143 countries, with almost one-quarter living abroad.