The IFDC in St. Petersburg IESE held the VIIth International Faculty Development Conference (IFDC) hosted by the Faculty of Economics of St. Petersburg State University, Russia. This meeting takes place annually in a different Central or Eastern European countries to bring together the alumni of the International Faculty Development Program (IFDP) The conference objectives are to share new projects and ideas among colleagues and to reinforce the ties between institutions. This year's IFDC brought together 35 participants from Russia, Croatia, Romania, Poland and Bulgaria. The conference was opened by the following attendees, who kindly occupied the presidential table: Nataliya Mosova, representing the Vice Rector for Inter- national Relations of St. Petersburg State University; Pedro Valades Cabello, Cultural Advisor at the Spanish Consulate in St. Petersburg who welcomed the conference and congratulated IESE for its success in this program of interna-tional development. He said that it was a pleasure for him to be a witness to such an International Conference organized by a Spanish University and called the attention of other institutions to follow IESE's example. Following these words, Vladimir Churov, ­from the Committee of International Relations of St. Petersburg­ spoke, followed by Ivan Boiko, Dean of the Faculty of Economics of St. Petersburg State University, who mentioned that it was an honor for him to hold the sev-enth IFDC in his University and thanked IESE for the IFDP and for the Russian faculty trained through this Program. Representing IESE, Luis Mª Huete, Academic Chairman of the IFDP, declared the 1999 IFDC officially open. During the two-day confer-ence, presentations were made by conference participants, IESE representatives and guests. The first was María de la Puerta's about MBA. Others were made by professors Luis Mª Huete and Víctor Pou. Luis Mª Huete also conducted a workshop with participants teaching the importance of hav-ing goals as a mission for the century ahead. Four presentations were also made by the IFDP alumni: Tatyana Kastrel (IFDP 96, Russia) spoke on "Reinventing the Profession: New Management for the New Russia"; Mijenka Demel (IFDP 93, Croatia) presented "Management Communication in a Transition Country"; Irina Skorobogatykh (IFDP 95, Russia) gave a talk entitled "What MBA does Russia Need?"; and Lavinia Rasca (IFDP 96, Romania) spoke on "The need for Lifelong Learning for Reaching Managerial excellence".