Global Opportunities

Building International Intelligent Products: New Zealand 2025

Cityscape of Auckland, New Zealand. This is one of the 2025 GIM destinations.

Course Description

Learning to build international products requires a different layer of intelligence, from cultural understanding, to local consumer insight, to understanding the technology and scale applicable to the locality of the country’s ecosystem. We will explore how global companies have used New Zealand as a playground for experimentation for their moonshot innovations, how they view this market as a marquee space for global rollouts, and the potential struggles they uncover. This class will focus on a barbell approach to learning how New Zealand approaches technology: experimentation and full-scale automation. We will meet with start-up founders, large company executives, and large government stakeholders, while exploring the nuances of the New Zealand economy and automation that thrives in this small but rich country. We will undertake this journey with a product view, seeing what it takes to launch a product globally, understanding the nuances of the culture, while comparing and contrasting the differences in maturation of the products.

 

New Zealand

In New Zealand, the local competition is fierce, the early adopter mentality is here, and the country has a robust and high-quality education system. The investment by foreign companies and governments into the local economy in New Zealand is vast, and the timing is perfect to learn about the critical role New Zealand plays on a global scale. Small countries often pride themselves on the do-it-yourself mentality, but the difference with New Zealand is of particular interest to MBA students: their focus on innovation and their robust tech economy.

 

Faculty Bio

Birju Shah is a clinical assistant professor of Product Management and AI at Kellogg.  Birju is a seasoned product leader, entrepreneur, and educator with over 15 years of experience in building and scaling innovative AI and ML products for various industries and use cases. He is the CEO of Loam, an AI-powered sustainability platform that helps companies accelerate their environmental and social impact, while also enhancing their stakeholder value chain. He is also a Clinical Assistant Professor of Product and AI at Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management, where he teaches and mentors students and executives on how to design, develop, and deploy intelligent products including, but not exclusive to AI and ML products and platforms.  He has been a CPO, CEO, and President, while an academic professor for the last decade.  

Prior to Loam, Birju was the head of healthcare products at Uber and the head of product for ML/AI at Uber, where he managed large product, data, and engineering teams that built over 10 products used by 2 billion people worldwide with an attributed total market cap value of over $3 billion. He also has experience in starting his own ventures, working at large tech organizations in their early and mature stages, and transforming various commercial organizations via private equity buyouts. His approach to launching and evolving products is based on data-driven decision-making, digital transformation, and achieving large outcomes. Birju is passionate about using technology for long-term sustainability and equity up-leveling, and is actively seeking a mission-driven public board role that leverages his expertise in AI, ML, and sustainability governance.

Birju holds an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Business, where he was a McGovern Scholar and a Legatum Scholar. Birju is a graduate of Northwestern University with a BSE in Industrial Engineering.