In March 2008, a group of 23 Columbia Business School students visited Bucharest, Romania, on a Chazen International Study Tour. We stayed at the InterContinental Bucharest, from whose balconies journalists watched as the country's famous revolution took place in late 1989, toppling Communism and ending 34 years of Communist rule by the infamous Nicolae Ceausescu. In the two decades since Ceausescu's overthrow and eventual execution, Romanians have tried to emerge from his grip and form a functional democracy. Despite great strides, political discord has stymied economic progress throughout the country's post-Communist history, hampering development in infrastructure and education and bringing about considerable fiscal woes. However, based on what we learned during the study tour, we believe that the country is poised for success over the next two decades if its current leaders continue to focus on development and reform.

Romania's economy has grown at a steady rate of more than 6 percent per year since late 1999, when accession to both the European Union and NATO first began to seem feasible. We witnessed an impressive display of wealth during a trip to Bucharest's Bamboo Club, a soaring 3,000-person capacity nightclub visited by lavishly dressed men and women arriving in luxury cars. Yet despite its growth, Romania continues to face a variety of economic and political challenges, including a fractious political system hampered by corruption, a widely dispersed population and weak infrastructure.