Cuba & Kathy Engle

Kathy Engle was one of four executive directors of the LEADER Project (LEADER), an MBA student-run volunteer organization associated with The Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. LEADER’s objective was to contribute to international development by teaching introductory business and decision-making skills in a free market economy to institutions in emerging economies. In March, 2002, Engle had to quickly decide a course of action for LEADER: Whether the LEADER Project should maintain the status quo of working in the countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU) or instead focus its energies on expansion into a new country outside the FSU with a transition economy. If expansion was considered, Engle needed to determine which new emerging economy should be selected and how to manage the transition into a new country beginning in two months’ time. Engle had gathered a considerable amount of information about Cuba that led her to believe it may be an appropriate target for expansion, but the information was both positive and negative.