Meet IE Business School’s MBA Class Of 2018 - Poets&Quants

Some of the MBA students of the Class of 2018 at IE Business School in Spain

Jack Ma is not a big fan of MBAs. The Alibaba founder – and Cheung Kong MBA – views the degree as a vestige of the 20th century. For him, the MBA teaches students what to do, but struggles to prepare them to fail forward and innovate. “Some people are really good at schooling, but some people are terrible at learning,” Ma told a Hangzhou audience in 2015. “For those people, we should give them a chance of the other side.”

Boy, would Ma love the IE Business School!

The well-behaved rarely make history and IE is “an unusual school for unusual people” who might struggle to fit the mold elsewhere. However, it is far from your proverbial entrepreneurial boot camp. Instead, it is a laboratory for the independent, persistent and never satisfied – the dreamers and doers who come to think critically, experiment, and reinvent. It is a place marked by imaginations, epiphanies, pivots, and transformations, where students question convention, grapple with uncertainty, and expand the possibilities. IE is the epicenter where a diversity of nationalities collides with a diversity of thought to produce a diversity of solutions. While the school is defined by entrepreneurial thinking, it often produces intrapreneurs who are hell-bent on turning ideas into reality – and possess the tools to do just that.

QUICK, HUNGRY AND POISED

They don’t call it “An MBA out of the ordinary” for nothing. “IE is quick to innovate, quick to change, hungry and poised, says David Bach, a senior associate dean at Yale University’s School of Management. It makes for a pretty intense work environment.”

IE Business School

That hardly scares the Class of 2018. “I wanted a school with entrepreneurship at its core, rather than an additional class,” asserts Alexander Troughton, who studied theology at Oxford before moving into marketing. “Unlike other schools, IE was founded by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs and I wanted that to be the focus of the school that I attended. I have the opportunity to build my own venture with investors, guidance and technical support as part of my MBA…what more do I want!”

Kojiro Takayama would certainly second that motion. This Japanese consultant paid visits to eight other top MBA programs – “INSEAD, Stanford, Haas, HBS, MIT Sloan, Wharton, Kellogg, and Booth” – before choosing IE. He views IE’s entrepreneurial spirit, coupled with its embrace of new ways of thinking, as the ticket to achieve his career goal: founding or funding tech startups that foster sustainable health initiatives. “I have developed my strength in marketing and the healthcare industry knowledge through my consulting career,” Takayama explains. “To move on to the next step, I decided to pursue management education to develop entrepreneurial management skills, as well as general management skills.”

Troughton sums up the IE difference this way: “one year course, international intake, highly-regarded, and entrepreneurship-focused.”

‘SOMETIMES, YOU NEED TO GROW WINGS AFTER YOU JUMP FROM AN AIRPLANE’

These men are just two members of IE’s Class of 2018, an impressive group of tech-savvy, unconventional thinkers looking to build leading edge companies…often from the inside out. This zest to create and grow also manifests itself in how these students live. Omar Rodríguez describes himself as a “Madrileño” (Madrid native) who is “in love with the world and new business experiences.” While Troughton touts being “entrepreneurial, ambitious and adventurous,” he also shows a humility by noting he still has “lots to learn.” For Sabina Iman, that learning comes from taking action. Her motto: “Sometimes you just have to jump out the window and grow wings on the way down.”

There is a joke around IE that you can only do two of the following during their MBA: sleep, socialize, or study. Based on their professional accomplishments, the Class of 2018 is probably foregoing sleep. Fady Moomen, once a physics teacher who studied medicine, followed Iman’s advice by starting (and eventually exiting) a business that created a new market entirely. As an assistant vice president of a reinsurer, Rodriguez led and mentored teams everywhere from the United Kingdom to China. And Takayama developed a new marketing framework in the pharmaceutical industry that was quickly snapped up by his consulting firm’s clients.

If you want to hear about sleepless nights, talk to Troughton. How is this for a set up? Just a month before celebrity chef Jamie Oliver was set to open his first pizzeria in India, the contractor quit on the project, which was already behind schedule. Picture this: “Deadlines had been missed, there was no communication with the brand, no systems in place, and at the time there was no chance of delivering the restaurant on schedule,” he rattles off. “Our marketing campaign was ready to go, the launch date had been set and our investors were coming for the grand opening.”

IE Business School Classroom

Although he had no experience with construction – let alone speaking Hindi – Troughton headed to India…and made the impossible happen. “I spent the next month trawling through the site, keeping up the pressure and motivating my team. Eventually, we completed the site on time and handed it over to our operations team for the opening.”

9 OF 10 STUDENTS HAIL FROM OUTSIDE SPAIN

IE Business School traditionally ranks among the most international of programs. The Class of 2018 was no different. This year, 91% of the class hailed from outside Spain, down two points from the 2017 Class. In a program designed to amplify cultural intelligence, this 91% mark favors comparably to one-year programs like HEC Paris (93%), INSEAD (84%), and IESE (84%). Overall, the class is comprised of representatives from 63 countries, slightly up from the 2017 Class. In addition, the 411-member class features 30% women.

Academically, the class’ average GMAT fell 10 points to 670, though the median held steady at 680. Like the previous year, business majors occupied the largest number of seats at 30% — though this rate was down three points. Engineering made up the difference, going from 20% to 25% of the class over the past year. Economics (12%), sciences (11%), social sciences and humanities (10%) found out the top five. Professionally, it is a carefully-constructed class with a wide array of industries included. Industry, energy and construction heads the class with a 26% share. Financial services (16%), consulting (13%), technology and telecom (8%), consumer goods (7%), biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and health (7%), and media entertainment (5%) also boast sizable blocs of the class.

Although IE is associated with entrepreneurship, the program’s strengths – unorthodox thinking, customer-centric focus, and a take ownership mentality – are highly coveted by employers. The Class of 2012, for example, enjoyed a $145,400 five year gain in pay according to Forbes figures. Not surprisingly, the program earned the second-highest score in the most recent Bloomberg Businessweek international student survey.

Go to page 2 to see in-depth profiles of incoming IE Business School MBA students.

IE full-time MBA students hail from over 60 nations.

Still, IE is undergoing a bit of a transition. Earlier this year, it named Martin Boehm as its new dean. He replaced Santiago Iñiguez, whose celebrated 15-year term saw the school pioneer online learning and turn the program from a regional afterthought to a world power with a clearly differentiated brand and a trajectory that could place it among the very best business schools. During Iñiguez’s term, student enrollment skyrocketed by 136%; full-time faculty almost tripled; and annual revenue nearly quadrupled.

SCHOOL INVESTING HEAVILY TO STAY ON CUTTING EDGE

Like any true entrepreneur, IE will hardly going to rest on its laurels, however. In a recent email to Poets&Quants, Tino Elgner, senior associate director of admissions for IE’s full-time programs, laid out several new initiatives. On the institutional side, he notes, the school has introduced #IEWomen to promote gender equality. “It is a special fund with an endowment of 6 million euros for scholarships aimed at women candidates,” Elgner shares. “The project will not only provide ongoing support for women to help them achieve their personal and professional goals, but also extend the Mentor Program.”

Elgner also trumpets IE Rockets, which he describes as “part accelerator, part angel investor, part very committed educational client.” Targeted to the higher education space, the program provides intensive support to help selected entrepreneurs quickly enter the marketplace. “We launched IE Rockets to lead the way during the coming technology driven revolution in higher education by creating a space where startups can develop their technological ideas with the goal to reinvent the way we teach,” he says.

IE also plans to build up its physical infrastructure to boost its capabilities and ambience. “In the next 2-3 years,” Elgner discloses, “we plan to have expanded our urban campus in Madrid through the completion of Madrid´s 5th Tower that will house IE University’s new teaching facilities. The new space will not only have a surface area of 50,000 square meters, and will be situated on the Paseo de la Castellana in the Spanish capital’s fastest growing business district, but it will also combine the advantages of an urban campus with excellent communications and ample spaces dedicated to university life.”

Tino Elgner

Even more, the school is investing heavily in breakthrough areas expected to drive change in business – and beyond. This is personified in the IE’s new WOW room, a technology immersion designed to educate as well as inspire. “The WOW Room has the potential to transform the learning experience through elements that include artificial intelligence, simulations in real time, big data analysis, interactive robots, emotion recognition systems, and the presence of experts using holograms,” Elgner adds.

BEFORE MASTERING FUNDAMENTALS, STUDENTS LEARN HOW TO THINK LIKE ENTREPRENEURS

IE’s break-the-rules and open-new-doors ethos is also reflected in the structure of its full-time MBA program. Let’s just say it is not your cookie cutter business school curriculum. Taught 75% in English with the rest in Spanish – the world’s third-most spoken language – it opens with an online pre-program, where students brush up on quant concepts and complete career development assessments. While such offerings are common in most programs, the core places a new spin on what’s truly important.

Rather than starting with leadership or finance, the core opens with Entrepreneurial Venturing and Entrepreneurial Mindset to steep students in the frameworks, tools, and motivations behind identifying opportunity, measuring value, and establishing operations and financing. Such models inform the rest of the core, which cover standard fundamental topics as well as delving into digital innovation and the interplay between business and government.

Once the core is completed, students enter the five-week lab phase where they can choose from labs covering areas like social impact, entrepreneurship, and general management. Here, students apply what they learned in the core to project-based, interdisciplinary situations where they can create, disrupt, and transform. Afterwards, MBAs can choose from over 150 elective courses, which account for nearly 45% of the curriculum.

DISRUPTING THE “OLD SCHOOL” EDUCATION MODEL

Perhaps the best known elective is the acclaimed Venture Lab. In this course, students can prepare their enterprises for financing and launch, culminating in selected investors pitching to prospective investors. At the same time, IE runs a Professional Fitness regimen throughout the program, which provides career coaching and leadership training to help students with both their short-term job hunt and long-term career progression.

For Rodriguez, this “original” program structure offered both a flexibility and a breadth that wasn’t available anywhere else. “I visited other European campuses and attended MBA presentations, but their structure was very old school and non-customizable,” he observes. “The IMBA at IE gives you the opportunity to create your own puzzle with many different pieces. To be able to go deeper in areas of my personal interest was a key decisive factor.”

This fall, the school also added a Tech Lab to provide students with hands-on experience with the tech revolution. “Students can now choose to focus on disruptive technologies and how to apply them to strategic decision making,” Elgner emphasizes. ”Students will immediately apply what they learn to solve problems that arise in distinct industries and will present their technological solutions to experts and business leaders.”

Area 31

In addition, the school offers seemingly every resource and event that a fledgling entrepreneur could ever dream of accessing. Want to build your venture while you’re studying? Apply to the Area 31 incubator, a free co-working space that can accommodate 100 student teams – not to mention sponsoring workshops, hackathons, and weekly pitch slams. Open to students and alumni alike, this ecosystem creates networking, mentoring, partnering, and financing opportunities that spur new ideas, prototypes, and ultimately commercial solutions.

A MELTING POT THAT FOSTERS COMMUNICATION AND CONNECTION

“At IE they don’t just talk the talk about entrepreneurship, they walk it,” observes Moomen. “They have been walking it since 1973 when the school was established as an entrepreneurial project itself. You can see this spirit in their curriculum which includes practical courses where you start your own venture, their Area 31 incubator and much more. This was important for me because I’m already an entrepreneur and I wanted to hone my skills and not just take a couple of theoretical courses.”

Beyond entrepreneurial thinking and startup life, IE also enjoys several other advantages. Notably, the program is based in Madrid, with its sun-never-sets social scene, warm summers and cool winters climate, iconic museums and culinary delights, and (of course) bullfighting and Real Madrid soccer. This cosmopolitan setting only enriches the diversity of the IE program, where students must learn to clearly communicate and comfortably collaborate with students from every corner. In doing so, they gain the advantage of being able to connect and lead in unfamiliar terrain.

“Emotional intelligence becomes essential for managing diverse teams in multinational companies,” notes Iman. “The IE IMBA program is the unique program which puts you in the diverse environment and helps you to understand the important details about managing teams from different parts of the world.”

This melting pot also creates a synergy at the school where contrast breeds a certain level of connection.

My main attraction in the IE IMBA is its people,” says Vimbai Faith Chamboko, an investment officer who grew up in Zimbabwe. “I love the diversity present in both the student body and the faculty that makes IE a melting pot of culture, race, academic and professional experience, beliefs and opinions.”

To read profiles of incoming IE Business School students — along with their advice on tackling the GMAT, applications, and interviews — click on the links below.

DON’T MISS:  MEET IE BUSINESS SCHOOL’S MBA CLASS OF 2017 OR THE PIONEERING MBAs OF THE CLASS OF 2019

Student	Hometown	Alma Mater	Employer
Vimbai Faith Chamboko	Mutare, Zimbabwe	University of Zimbabwe	Hamilton Capital
Sabina Iman	Baku, Azerbaijan	Azerbaijan University of Languages	Omnicom Media Group Azerbaijan
Fady Moomen	Cairo, Egypt	Cairo University	The Room Egypt
Omar Rodríguez	Madrid, Spain	Universidad Autónoma de Madrid	SwissRe
Kojiro Takayama	Tsukuba, Japan	University of Tsukuba	QuintilesIMS
Alexander Troughton	London, UK	Oxford University	IMM

Vimbai Faith Chamboko

IE Business School

Describe yourself in 15 words or less: I am passionate about living life to the full and pursue my goals tenaciously.

Hometown: Mutare, Zimbabwe

Fun Fact About Yourself: I have an appalling sense of direction and always struggle to find my way out of a mall or to where I have parked. Also, when using a navigation application, I can never figure out which is north, south, east or west and always head in another direction!

Undergraduate School and Major: Business Studies- Finance and Banking, University of Zimbabwe

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation: 

• Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe – Graduate Trainee
• MetbankZimbabwe – Client Services Officer
• Global Emerging Markets – Investment Analyst
• Hamilton Capital – Investment Officer

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far:  I was part of a small team that opened the doors to a startup corporate finance advisory boutique. Dealing with internal issues and challenges that are associated with a budding business, while also engaging clients and ensuring success for my clients with whom I had a meaningful relationship, was challenging at times. I had to push myself hard and think on my feet, but seeing the firm make progress whilst pleasing my clients at the same time, is immensely satisfying.

Looking back on your experience, what one piece of advice would you give to future business school applicants? I think that self-reflection and introspection is the first step any prospective applicant should take. You should think of who you are as a person and what your goals are. An MBA is a big investment in yourself that should not be taken lightly. Determine what you want out of a business school and which school fits in with your goals. Be prepared to put in some work into researching your target schools in order to determine what is best for you. Make sure your application essays reflect who you are and what your goals are. I advise that you find someone or some people to critique your essays – remember that you are competing against other top talent and you need to present the best application possible.

If applying to IE, make an effort to show who you are as a person. Show what makes you tick, different and what you have to contribute to diversity. IE is not interested in satisfying stereotypes; do not feel pressured to fit some mold. People here are genuinely interested in your story and everyone wants to know you and learn from you. The environment here is incredibly interactive and collaborative.

What was the key factor that led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA and why was it so important to you?  My main attraction in the IE IMBA is its people. I love the diversity present in both the student body and the faculty that makes IE a melting pot of culture, race, academic and professional experience, beliefs and opinions. Furthermore it was clear from my research that the programme leverages on this diversity and is both interactive and collaborative. I knew that I could form deep lasting social and professional bonds, develop strong skills that go beyond the traditional academic and technical skills, whilst comfortably developing my individual person.

What would success look like to you after your first year of business school?  I expect this year to be a transformational and soul searching experience. I intend to immerse myself in the whole experience, absorb it, and enjoy it. Success will be developing core competencies that include an ability to think critically and out of the box and developing an ability to leverage on diversity. Aside from developing a skillset that will enable me to become a global leader, I want to forge lifelong friendships with peers and develop a diverse global network of truly amazing individuals.

Sabina Iman 

IE Business School 

Describe yourself in 15 words or less: “Sometimes you just have to jump out the window and grow wings on the way down.” © 

Risk taker/Dedicative/Passionate  

Hometown: Baku, Azerbaijan

Fun Fact About Yourself:  Chocolate donut – the best occasional and non-occasional gift for me.

Undergraduate School and Major: Azerbaijan University of Languages/ Bachelor of Arts/English 

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation: Omnicom Media Group Azerbaijan

Client Services Manager

Client Services Director/Managing Partner

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: The biggest accomplishment – being a good colleague for my teammates.

Looking back on your experience, what one piece of advice would you give to future business school applicants?  Just take a deep breath and be yourself. Understand and accept your personality, find your own unique approach for application process. Listen to advices, but do not replicate.

What was the key factor that led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA and why was it so important to you? Leadership within Diversity. Emotional intelligence becomes essential for managing diverse teams in multinational companies. IE IMBA program is the unique program which puts you in the diverse environment and helps you to understand the important details about managing teams from different parts of the world.

What would success look like to you after your first year of business school? 

It will look like a victory over your own fears and uncertainties.

It will look like the stories told by people about you.

It will look like comfort zone without you around.

Fady Moomen 

IE Business School 

Describe yourself in 15 words or less: I am a physician and entrepreneur who is interested in the intersection of healthcare, business and technology.

Hometown: Cairo, Egypt

Fun Fact About Yourself: I taught physics and math to elementary school kids.

Undergraduate School and Major: Cairo University, Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation: Physician Cairo University Hospitals

Co-Founder The Room Egypt

Marketing Manager, SMC

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Starting and exiting a business with no prior experience in a market that didn’t exist before we created it and doing this in a very turbulent political and economical environment.

Looking back on your experience, what one piece of advice would you give to future business school applicants? I think the most important thing is to know what you want to get an MBA for and whether the school you’re applying for matches that. It’s okay not to have an exact sector for your job or startup in mind, but you have to know what you want to get out of your MBA. There are general MBA rankings and there are unofficial sector specific rankings (for example some schools maybe lower ranked than others in the general rank but much higher if you intend to go into luxury goods or consulting)

What was the key factor that led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA and why was it so important to you? At IE they don’t just talk the talk about entrepreneurship, they walk it. They have been walking it since 1973 when the school was established as an entrepreneurial project itself. You can see this spirit in their curriculum which includes practical courses where you start your own venture, their Area 31 incubator and much more. This was important for me because I’m already an entrepreneur and I wanted to hone my skills and not just take a couple of theoretical courses.

What would success look like to you after your first year of business school? Success would be starting my second business (preferably with my new friends from the class) with the confidence that comes from having obtained the hard and soft skills offered by this MBA.

Omar Rodríguez 

IE Business School 

Describe yourself in 15 words or less: Madrileño in love with the world and new business experiences.

Hometown: Madrid, Spain

Fun Fact About Yourself: You will never see me on my birthday in my home town Madrid. For more than 10 years, I celebrate it elsewhere since I believe it brings me good luck for the new year!

Undergraduate School and Major: Business and Management, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation:

• SwissRe (AVP, Asset Management audit)
• Santander Bank (Financial auditor)
• PWC (Assurance consultant)

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: During my time in SwissRe, I had the opportunity to lead, manage and mentor different project teams across the globe in locations such as UK, China or Switzerland. This experience gave me the understanding of how to utilize time and manpower resources in an optimal way. Reward in terms of recognition from peers and line managers was crucial to maintain self-motivation.

Looking back on your experience, what one piece of advice would you give to future business school applicants? Do a lot of research and make sure that a management role is what you really want in the future either in a corporation or in your own business. There are sufficient quality programs on finance, engineering or IT in case you want to develop your career in a technical field. Another piece of advice is to take very seriously the application process and give it enough time. Sometimes essays must be started from scratch until you feel fully confident.

What was the key factor that led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA and why was it so important to you? The main reason I chose IE was its original program structure. I visited other European campuses and attended MBA presentations but their structure was very old school and non-customizable. The IMBA at IE gives you the opportunity to create your own puzzle with many different pieces. To be able to go deeper in areas of my personal interest was a key decisive factor.

What would success look like to you after your first year of business school? I would like to look back with joy and pride of my MBA experience and being able to recognize the new skills, friends and experiences I obtained during the period. Professional success can be judged after 5 or 10 years, but in the short term it is the MBA experience what matters.

Kojiro Takayama 

IE Business School 

Describe yourself in 15 words or less: Born in Japan’s innovation center; motived to make a change in the world with science

Hometown: Tsukuba, Japan

Fun Fact About Yourself: I spent one-and-a-half years in Texas from when I was two years old. I went to a local nursery school, and most of my friends were Spanish speakers. I hope I still hold knowledge of Spanish in the back of my mind.

Undergraduate School and Major: Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Japan; Master of Public Health, Kyoto University, Japan

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation:

Oct 2015 – present: QuintilesIMS (formerly IMS Health) Tokyo office, Consultant

Apr 2014 – Sep 2015: QuintilesIMS Tokyo office, Associate Consultant

Apr 2012 – Mar 2014: QuintilesIMS Tokyo office, Analyst

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: My biggest achievement is that I developed a new pharmaceutical marketing framework and implemented it to pharmaceutical companies.

In 2015, I led the “area marketing” consulting solution development and created a marketing framework that enables district sales managers to create a local marketing strategy for balancing social responsibility and corporate profits. My supervisor presented the framework at the company’s largest conference to 800 senior managers of pharmaceutical companies and got positive feedback from them. After the conference, we started marketing the new solution, and our effort resulted in contracts for area marketing consulting projects.

I am proud of this accomplishment not only because I contributed to our company’s revenue but also because I offered a new direction for marketing to the pharmaceutical industry in Japan.

Looking back on your experience, what one piece of advice would you give to future business school applicants? I strongly recommend that you visit each single school you have shortlisted. During my application process, I visited 9 top business schools: IE, INSEAD, Stanford, Haas, HBS, MIT Sloan, Wharton, Kellogg, and Booth. Each school has entirely different culture and atmosphere which you cannot feel from secondary information. After my long school-visit trip, my target-school (or dream-school) list drastically changed, and I decided not to apply to several schools because their cultures seemed not to fit with me. Of course, the city in which each school is located is also important. Especially, through the visit to IE, I fell in love with Madrid.

What was the key factor that led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA and why was it so important to you?  IE Business School’s focus on entrepreneurship and the high reputation in this field made me convinced that IE best prepares me to achieve my career goal. My lifetime professional goal is realizing the sustainable society where people can reach what they need to solve their health problems at an appropriate cost through investing in technology-based startups or founding such organizations. I have developed my strength in marketing and the healthcare industry knowledge through my consulting career. To move on to the next step, I decided to pursue management education to develop entrepreneurial management skills, as well as general management skills.

Since IE offers great opportunities, such as Start-Up Lab and Venture Lab, to develop entrepreneurial skills and to apply these skills in the real world, I decided to enroll in IE Business School. I am confident that this is the best decision I have ever made in my life.

What would success look like to you after your first year of business school?  In the short term, I want to find a job that leads me to achieve my long-term career goal of investing in and/or founding technology-based startups in the healthcare industry. Such jobs may include being a venture capitalist, management consultant, and leadership position in a healthcare company.

Alexander Troughton

IE Business School

Describe yourself in 15 words or less:  I’m entrepreneurial, ambitious and adventurous, but I have lots to learn. And I love football.

Hometown: London, UK

Fun Fact About Yourself: I’m a qualified Jamie Oliver Pizzaiolo.

Undergraduate School and Major: Oxford University, Theology

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation:

Associate, IMM (Small London based Venture Capital firm).

Seconded to Jamie Oliver Brands India from IMM as Head of Marketing,

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far:  While working for IMM I was seconded to launch Jamie Oliver’s restaurants (one of IMM’s key investment in India) and building the first pizzeria was certainly my greatest accomplishment of my career. One month before the launch and behind schedule, our contractor walked out of the project and left the project in jeopardy. Deadlines had been missed, there was no communication with the brand, no systems in place, and at the time there was no chance of delivering the restaurant on schedule. Our marketing campaign was ready to go, the launch date had been set and our investors were coming for the grand opening. Although I had no previous building experience and could not speak Hindi, I took charge of the build and delivered the site on time.

It was on the first day that I understood the magnitude of the challenge ahead. There were 60 non-English speaking labourers waiting for directions, none of whom had been properly led by the contractor. On top of this, there was no record of what aspects of the build had been started or finished. The site was a skeleton with only the basics completed. The first step in changing the situation was to immediately create a core task-force consisting of myself, a translator and the head builder, with the purpose of conveying exactly what was needed. I assembled a 24-hour team so that no time would be wasted. I implemented simple completion systems and incentives to ensure that the team was ambitious, on my side, and keen to achieve our goal. I spent the next month trawling through the site, keeping up the pressure and motivating my team. Eventually, we completed the site on time and handed it over to our operations team for the opening.

Looking back on your experience, what one piece of advice would you give to future business school applicants?  Make sure that you apply to a school that can service your specific needs. Ensure that the school shares the same aspirations that you do as this will mean you will be around people who are of a similar mindset. Your teachers are just facilitators of discussion, it is your fellow intake members that you will learn the most off.

What was the key factor that led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA and why was it so important to you?  There wasn’t one key factor. It was really the package of the IE MBA course that sold it to me: one year course, international intake, highly-regarded and entrepreneurship-focused.

I wanted a school with entrepreneurship at its core, rather than an additional class. Unlike other schools IE was founded by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs and I wanted that to be the focus of the school that I attended. I have the opportunity to build my own venture with investors, guidance and technical support as part of my MBA…what more do I want!

What would success look like to you after your first year of business school?  After my more ‘front line’ focused experience in supporting the building of the Jamie Oliver Restaurant business in India, I hope to utilize my theoretical knowledge that I’ve gained from my MBA to either start my own thing or work within a small PE/VC house to continue the building of businesses (with a little more knowledge than before!).

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