Team 19’s Big Win
Emily Hayne’s Big Leap of Faith
By: Katie Zivley, Co-Editor-in-Chief
Back in July 2023, alumna Emily Haynes made the impactful decision to apply and attend the X-Culture Global Business Week in Poland, not knowing where it would lead her.
In place of Haynes’ master’s class requirement for her major in international business, she took the MBA 664 online course and did so well that she was invited to apply for the X-Culture Global Business Week in Poland. This seemed to be the perfect way to finish her degree.
“Going somewhere for a week and working with local businesses, I found for my career path to be something really necessary, and I feel like it has set me up for what I want to do in the future,” said Emily Haynes, Lynn University alumna and X-Culture recipient. “I liked it so much that I want to go back and do the one this summer in Thailand.”
The company that Haynes’ team was assigned to was Laboratoria Natury, a B2B supplement company. The company creates vitamins, medicine and other types of supplements for other companies around the world. They manufacture them all in-house, then send them out to their buyers with their own labels on them.
“We got to do a company visit, so for our company, we went to the warehouse factory for Laboratoria Natury and got to see their whole shipment process,” said Haynes. “It was very hands-on, and we got to meet the CEO and CFO.”
Haynes’ team included students Emily Hawk, Sanjana Shivdas, Lena Goelz and Matteo Reda from Italy, Georgia and Germany, respectively. Haynes admits it was a lot of work but fun and she met incredible people there that she keeps in touch with. At the end of the week, Emily Haynes’ team, Team 19, won the entire competition from 130 students selected from 119 universities and 32 countries.
“At the end of the week (when we finished the project), it felt like I accomplished something pretty big, and I was proud of the work that we had done, so it was definitely rewarding,” said Haynes.
Concluding the symposium, Haynes and a few friends that she made decided to rent a car and drive to Germany for the last week of the trip. Since graduating with her undergraduate and master’s, she has relocated back to her birthplace in Vermont, does retail marketing full-time for a local resort, and is a tennis pro on the side. This spring, she plans on relocating and possibly doing something more focused on her degree in international business.
Those interested in learning more about X-Culture, follow the X-Culture Global Alumni Association on LinkedIn or reach out to Dr. Baumanis at LBaumanis@lynn.edu for further questions.
