Past Entrepreneurship Programs

The WEAmericas Accelerator, a U.S. Department of State initiative, supported the advancement of women business owners in Central America. Three cohorts of 27 women from all seven Central American countries and from a wide range of industries participated in the accelerators over a four-year period. The program combined training by Thunderbird’s renowned faculty, several layers of mentorship, wrap around services, and access to capital. Following the week-long intensive business and management training, each cohort worked with their mentors during a nine-month period developing their strategy to accelerate the growth of their business. At the end of the nine months, during a capstone event, the business owners had the opportunity to pitch their business plan to a panel of potential investors. The program, ran from September 2016 to October 2019, provided women business owners the opportunity to grow their businesses through capacity building and by expanding their access to markets and capital.

Project Artemis is an international visitors style program that trains Afghan women entrepreneurs in business skills. With a total of 86 graduates in six cohorts since 2005, the program aims to build the entrepreneurial skills of promising Afghan businesswomen, enabling them to return to Afghanistan to create and grow sustainable businesses. Mentors provide additional support as the women return home to establish or expand their companies.  Thunderbird brings together cohorts of motivated women from all over Afghanistan, ensuring that the benefit of the program reaches well beyond Kabul, where many programs cannot.  These women travel to the United States or India to attend this intensive two-week business training program featuring business courses taught by leading Thunderbird faculty, personal coaching on business plans and goals, site visits to a variety of small and medium-sized businesses, networking opportunities with global business networks, and continual follow-up support and business coaching online after the program. 

Thunderbird School of Global Management teamed with Goldman Sachs as an early partner when the investment bank announced a $100 million commitment in 2008 to educate 10,000 underserved businesswomen from emerging markets around the world. Thunderbird has worked with Goldman Sachs since the initiative was launched, leading training programs that resulted in 1,124 graduates for the program worldwide.  To accomplish this, we worked in partnership with local universities to accomplish program goals, develop the curriculum, train the trainers and provide ongoing support throughout the program. Thunderbird operated the 10,000 Women Initiatives in Afghanistan with the American University of Afghanistan and Peru with the Universidad del Pacifico and hosted 10,000 Women trainings for women from 22 other countries including Pakistan, Indonesia, Haiti, and Bolivia at our campus in Arizona in collaboration with the U.S. Department of State in 2012. 

Thunderbird for Good was contracted under DAI to lend expertise and knowledge to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Promote: Women in the Economy (WIE) and Musharikat programs. 

The Women in the Economy (WIE) component bolstered women’s inclusion in Afghanistan’s economy and working to ensure that progress made by Afghan women over the past decade endures and advances.  Thunderbird strengthened career counselling and job placement services through a customized job services guide created in concert with our partners in Afghanistan. The School facilitated access to quality management tools and information through the creation of a searchable entrepreneurs’ assistant, containing answers to common business questions, step-by-step managerial methods, and tools and templates that business owners can use to increase efficiency and grow businesses in Afghanistan.