Alumnus helps solve a major problem facing American businesses

Julian Leuthold first encountered the problem while in India.

The alumnus, then a senior at USC Dornsife, was exploring India’s nuclear policy as part of a study abroad program. He also managed to talk his way into a semester of graduate study at New Delhi’s prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University.

“I made a lot of friends in Delhi, quite a few of whom were Indian executives. And they asked me one day, ‘Julian, why do American companies come here and make so many mistakes? Why do they come and repeat the same errors, time and time again?’

“I didn’t know enough back then to tell them,” said Leuthold, who graduated in 2010 with a bachelor’s in international relations from USC Dornsife and marketing from USC Marshall School of Business. “But it did prompt me to really think about this. It was a question I couldn’t get out of my head.”

He came to recognize a pattern. Companies going into India assumed there was a subcontinent full of people just waiting to buy their products. “And that just isn’t the case,” Leuthold said. “If they want to succeed they need to get to know Indian society and how it works and figure out the best way to meet it — its laws, structure and history — halfway.”

The more he investigated this issue, the more Leuthold said he began to realize that this lack of cultural and institutional fluency was not limited to India.

“It’s Brazil, it’s Mexico, it’s Africa. American companies have a really difficult time understanding how things work in most countries,” he said. “That isn’t to say that nobody gets it right, but it’s not made easy and there’s certainly no one who is pulling all these resources together to make an open conversation.”

A panel discusses changes in the business landscape during the 2016 GetGlobal conference.

Leuthold was determined to change that. In 2011, with the help of two of his former professors at USC Dornsife, David Karl and Pamela Starr, he founded Geoskope, a company that grew out of his astute observation that businesses with ambitions to expand into foreign markets had no one-stop place to go to get their questions answered.

“I saw this and realized this was a major opportunity to try to pull together all the major participants of international trade and investment and build a conversation,” Leuthold said, “something focused on what can companies do today and tomorrow to successfully compete internationally.”

The keys to success

Initially, Geoskope was set up to take American executives to India for an immersive experience that was designed to help them get an in-depth understanding of the country.

“But we realized executives didn’t want to take two or three weeks out of their busy schedules,” Leuthold said. “We had to adjust, so we decided to bring the countries here to the U.S. instead by creating GetGlobal, the first conference about how to succeed in foreign markets.”

This month, the first GetGlobal conference took place in Los Angeles. It drew almost 1,000 registered attendees, including delegations from the United Arab Emirates, South East Asia and Columbia, all keen to hear the insights of GetGlobal’s 150 international experts.

Leuthold distills the key to international success down to two essentials: Realize when you are making assumptions and stop; and make the effort it takes to get to know a people’s shared history.

“If you can put yourself in their shoes for a little bit, that goes a long way,” he said.

Laws and market structure can all be learned, he added, but an open mind is needed in order for businesses to enter markets and position themselves for the long term.

The lure of diversity pays off

Leuthold was born and raised in L.A. His father worked in banking and entertainment. His mother, a writer, and his grandmother both had Hindu gurus and although no one in the family had ever been to India, Leuthold grew up surrounded by Indian books and artifacts.

Julian Leuthold speaking at the inaugural GetGlobal conference in October.

“Growing up, I also become familiar with the Tibetan diaspora,” Leuthold said. “So it was an easy jump for me to make, coming from California with all these Indian influences to understanding India on its own terms because the words, lifestyle and cultural materials had been so familiar to me from a very young age.”

Leuthold said he was initially drawn to USC by its diversity, a factor he felt benefitted him during his time as a student. Now he is finding that the diversity of the international Trojan Family is of enormous benefit in building his business. He cites major Indian economist and alumnus Ajay Shah, whom he said “couldn’t have been more friendly,” when Leuthold reached out to him.

Leuthold is also grateful to Starr, associate professor (teaching) of international relations, and Karl, former lecturer of international relations.

Asked about what stood out for him in the support he received from Starr and Karl in developing and building his company, Leuthold immediately responded, “They cared.

“They wanted me to be successful and they thought it was a lot of fun and it would be great to work with me on a project that they had never heard of existing any place else and they stuck with me on it. David still works with me today while Pamela still lends advice.”

Future ambitions

Leuthold is ambitious for GetGlobal.

“I would like it to go straight to the center of the discussion in international business and stay there,” he said. But although he wants attendance to grow, he doesn’t want it to be an exclusive event.

“I want everyone with international operations and aspirations to come and know they are going to get the latest and best information possible,” he said. “If GetGlobal ends up being a huge event one day with visitors from all over the world, that would make me a very happy man.”