Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador became president of Mexico on December 1, 2018. His election, and the victory of his new Party, MORENA, represent a sharp shift to the left by Mexico’s political system. Previously, President Pena Nieto and his party, the PRI, had initiated and implemented the Pacto – a long overdue series of institutional and structural reforms. Yet even after several years, Mexico had not shown significant improvements in productivity, or growth. With U.S. relations at a low point, thanks to President Trump’s neo-isolationism, Mexico elected Obrador as a nationalistic response. It remained to be seen how his new policies would affect Mexico’s growth.
Covering a time frame that ranges from 8000 BC to the present, and drawing upon both Marxist and feminist theories, the book argues that nearly all the decisions we make in our most intimate lives—whom to marry, how to have children, how to have sex, how to think about love and romance and families—are driven, and always have been driven by technology. We think we’re behaving as fully autonomous individuals; we think we’re pushing or participating in social change; but we’re actually just being swept up in, and responding to, much broader shifts in technology. Or to what Marx and his kin would have termed “the means of production.” As current technologies—particularly the technologies of assisted reproduction, robotics, and artificial intelligence—continue to evolve, they will drive fundamental changes in how we structure our families and our lives.
This article highlights the benefits that rigorous use of oral history can offer to research on the contemporary business history of emerging markets. Oral history can help fill some of the major information voids arising from the absence of a strong tradition of creating and making accessible corporate archives in most countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It also permits a level of nuance that is hard to obtain even if written archives are accessible. Oral histories provide insights into why events did not occur as well as why companies have chosen certain industries over others. Oral history can also shed light on hypersensitive topics, such corruption, which are rarely formally documented.
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Maria Fernanda Miguel joined Harvard Business School in 2013 as Director for the Latin America Research Center (LARC). Her responsibilities include leading research activities for Spanish speaking countries in LATAM, and providing programmatic support to different areas of HBS including admissions, executive education, and immersion programs. Fernanda is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Prior to join Harvard Business School, Fernanda was a Senior Director and Leader for LATAM Business Development at Merck and senior consultant at McKinsey & Co., serving as global Practice Manager for the Business Technology Office Health Care Practice.
Fernanda holds a degree in economics from the Argentine Catholic University, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a Master of Research from University of Bath.
Fernanda has been very active in non-profit activities, including fund rising at the Fundación Acción Hemato-oncologica – Argentine National Academy of Medicine, and acting as advisor to the Board of Directors of the Hospital Garrahan.
Priscilla Zogbi is the Director of the Latin American Research Center in São Paulo. Priscilla focuses on the School’s work in Brazil, developing research opportunities for faculty and relationships for other educational efforts such as the MBA curricular innovation and immersion programs.
Priscilla has over 17 years’ experience in marketing and product development. Before joining HBS she was a consultant to private equity and venture capital firms interested in the region. Prior to that she was a Global and a Regional Marketing Director at Avon Products, and has held managerial positions in the US and Brazil with Bath & Body Works, General Mills, Johnson & Johnson and Reckitt Benckiser.