Title: International Business Mentorships: A Collaboration between the Spanish Department and the Darden School of Business
Presenter: Paula Sprague (Spanish), Esther Poveda Moreno (Spanish) 
Location: Zoom, Password: iwl

Abstract: 
Our paper presents a pilot collaboration between students in three sections of SPAN 3040 (Business Spanish) and a group of selected International MBA students from the Darden School of Business at UVA. In Fall 2019, Darden students from Colombia, Perú, Chile, and México mentored our students through the completion and execution of their final group projects: a pitch for a hypothetical start-up business in a Spanish-speaking country. During the six week-long, multi-stage preparation of their final projects, our students received feedback from the mentors at two key points; first, in defining their business idea and initiating preliminary research; and second, in preparing their final oral presentations. The semester concluded with a showcase/competition of the three best-prepared “pitches” - one from each section of the class - based on classmates’ votes and presided over by three VIP “judges”: a former student of SPAN 3040, and two native Spanish-speaking start-up entrepreneurs from the UVA community.