(China Post Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Judy Olian, dean of UCLA Anderson School of Management, is one of the few female heads of top business schools in the United States. But Olian is rather modest about it.

"I don't get up in the morning and think about that. Anderson is a good school and I happen to be a woman dean of that school," she said in a recently interview with The China Post. "I don't think of my career in gender term but in performance term."

Olian is the eighth dean of Anderson. Her appointment comes after serving five and a half years as dean and professor of management at the Smeal College of Business Administration at Pennsylvania State University.

At Smeal, Olian led an ambitious fundraising campaign for a US$68 million state-of-the-art facility opened in 2005, in addition to spearheading comprehensive renewals of undergraduate, MBA and Ph.D. programs and overseeing program expansion to expose students to more aspects of the business world.

Olian does consider herself as a role model for women as they pursue a leadership position in their careers. She said having a role model is important when encouraging more women to get into business -- especially the senior level of companies and enterprises.

"Whether in Taiwan or in the United States there is just that many women who are at the senior level of businesses, and that's a missed economic opportunity as there is a lot of talent among women that I'd like to see present in businesses," she said.

In Olian's words, the biggest challenge facing women in a serious work role is juggling and balancing career with everything else that women do. She said men face the same challenges, too, but "it's just a little tougher for women."

At Anderson, women learn about how to balance these choices. Successful female role models are invited from time to time to talk about how they juggled their careers and succeeded both at home and work.

"We try to prepare women to function in a business environment without that many women around them," she said.

The Anderson School of Management at UCLA is one of the most renowned business education institutions in the States, or in the world for that matter. Students are from different parts of the world, and over the years the school has seen an increasing number of students from Asia, in particular Japan, Taiwan and China.

According to Olian, Asian students' increased presence at Anderson is only natural -- the school is located in Los Angeles, which is easily accessed to from most Asian nations. The close economic ties between Asia and the West Coast of the United States -- indicated by the fact California is where 75 percent of all America-bound Asian imports go through -- has made Anderson an even more popular choice for Asian students.

Born in Australia and having received her undergrad degree from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and her Ph.D. from the States, Olian believes students should be provided with a global perspective when they study business. That's why the school is offering a number of international studies programs to broaden students' horizons.

To help Anderson students learn more about Asia, the school has set up an executive MBA program in conjunction with the National University of Singapore to prepare students for a career in one of the biggest and fastest growing markets in the world.

The program, targeting business executives who might not have time to join a regular two-year program, requires students to take six two-week courses in UCLA's main campus in Los Angeles as well as in Singapore, Shanghai, and Bangalore over a 15-month period. The aim is to expose students to business environments in Asian countries and help them establish more networks and connections for their future endeavors.

A total of 34 students have been selected for the next program, and the students are represented by a dozen of countries worldwide, from North America to Europe to Asia.

"Response for this program has been phenomenal," Olian said, adding Taiwan students will benefit tremendously from the program as it provides an Asian as well a Western perspective in studying business.

Olian specializes in human resources management and business alignment of management systems. In particular, one of her focuses centers on creating award systems for outstanding employees as a way to raise the overall performance of the company.

Speaking on corporate governance, or managing a company in the most transparent manner, Olian said it is needed for a company's operational effectiveness. She said efforts by many Taiwan companies to improve corporate governance were commendable.

Taiwan companies have become increasingly aware of the importance of corporate governance, and many of them have appointed independent directors -- some of them world-famous business leaders -- to sit on their boards to see to it that abusive business practices, such as false accounting, do not happen.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world's largest made-to-order chip foundry, for example has hired Carly Fiorina, former chairwoman of Hewlett-Packard, to be an independent director. Far EasTone Telecommunications, one of the island's leading mobile operators, has hired Kurt Hellstrom, former head of the Ericsson Group, as an independent director.

"I think corporate governance is critically important due to two reasons," Olian said. "One is for the integrity of the firm. Independent thinking helps the firm strategically as it gets different perspectives. It also provides some checks and balances in case there is an insolent view of the way things are running."

Corporate governance is also important as companies operate in an international environment, Olian said.

"As companies are increasingly looking to have global relationships, corporate governance adds credibility to the practices of management," she said.

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