'Taking Phoenix To The Next Level' Through Global Initiative
A new initiative, coordinated by Mayor Kate Gallego’s office and ASU’s Thunderbird School of Global Management, aims to advance Phoenix as a global city.
Thunderbird will work with Mayor Kate Gallego’s office to launch Phoenix Global Rising, an effort to maximize opportunities that will further brand the nation’s fifth-largest city as an international hub.
“This is kind of taking Phoenix to the next level and helping it to become even more of an international city in many different ways,” said Sanjeev Khagram, Thunderbird director-general and dean.
He said the initiative will include long-term and immediate goals, like attracting more international flights to Sky Harbor Airport.
“More international flights means that more international companies will want to be based here, creating more jobs for us, more tax revenue, more opportunities for our citizens,” Khagram said.
Other focus areas include growing international trade and investment, achieving sustainable development goals, advancing urban innovation and promoting the full inclusion of immigrants and refugees.
“We believe that Phoenix is increasingly a destination of peoples from around the world,” Khagram said. “We believe that it’s shown statistically and every evidence that diversity leads to growth and flourishing but we have to create an enabling environment for that.”
Phoenix Global Rising is scheduled to kickoff in January. Various public, private and nonprofit groups will be involved, including: Global Chamber Phoenix, Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations, Phoenix Sister Cities.
Thunderbird School of Global Management plans to open its headquarters in downtown Phoenix in July 2021. A community suite will be located on the first floor to allow meeting space for Phoenix area groups that are active globally.
Khagram said the school has more than 46,000 alumni in 140 countries.
