Webster University’s International Business Internship Exchange to Hold 30th Anniversary Dinner

WHAT: “Changing Lives in a Changing World,” a dinner celebrating the 30th anniversary of Webster University’s International Business Internship Exchange (IBIE), which aligns students with global internship opportunities. At the dinner, students whose lives were changed by IBIE will be highlighted, along with the companies – both national and international – that are making it possible.

Speaking at the dinner about his IBIE experience will be Yao Amekor, a student from Ghana who says his 2002 internship in St. Louis with Premcor Group “opened the doors that changed my life.” Following his IBIE internship, Amekor went on to earn a master’s degree in economics and finance as well as an MBA. As a summer intern at Proctor & Gamble, he developed a savings of $1.3 million per year in the P&G dishwasher detergent product line. Amekor was hired by P&G as Financial Director of its St. Louis soap plant and currently serves as president of the 150-member Ghana Association of Greater St. Louis. He also started the nonprofit Amekor Foundation, which is working to build and stock a library in his native village in Ghana, which has no electricity or running water.

Also speaking at the IBIE 30th anniversary dinner will be Ragan Dueker, a Missourian who did her IBIE internship in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2009 with Kansas City Southern De Mexico, an international railway transportation company. Dueker’s internship included verbal translation in meetings, hard copy translation with nuanced terms, and working in teams of people from a different culture. “Even as a Spanish major with significant language skills, I gained fluency and business knowledge I wouldn’t have otherwise had,” she says.

WHEN: Friday, Nov. 19, 2010, at 6 p.m.

WHERE: Hilton St. Louis Frontenac

1335 S. Lindbergh Blvd.

St. Louis, Mo. 63131

BACKGROUND: Aligning qualified, talented, diverse student candidates with the premier companies throughout the world for 30 years, the International Business Internship Exchange (IBIE) offers experiences that distinguish corporate partners and interns worldwide, while energizing host families and bringing communities together.

The International Business Internship Exchange (IBIE) places American students from Webster University in overseas “total immersion” internships that entail extensive foreign language and intercultural experience. Likewise, students from universities in Germany, Ghana, Japan, Mexico and the U.K. complete internships with corporations in Missouri. IBIE is a unique partnership among Webster University, the State of Missouri and several Missouri corporate sponsors. American corporate partners receive a screened, qualified, English-speaking intern full time for eight or 10 weeks over the summer.

A unique program providing university students a total immersion experience with an internship and homestay abroad, participants develop language and hone business skills while learning in-depth about another culture and business model. This firsthand market research opportunity improves global scope and makes alumni more valuable employees.

YOU ARE INVITED TO SEND A REPORTER AND PHOTOGRAPHER/CAMERA CREW TO COVER THIS EVENT.

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