In our entrepreneurship class, Christopher Pommerening, Partner at Barcelona Venture Capital Fund and serial entrepreneur talked about his experiences and gave us great feedback on the business ideas we pitched to our class.

Just before that the ESADE Media Club brought in the Senior Manager for Strategy&Planning for Yahoo! Europe. In a one and a half hour session he covered a lot of ground talking about the online media industry, valuation of online businesses and the strategic challenges Yahoo! is facing.

In the evening, marketing club, brought in the head of Marketing & Sales of the Italian sports goods manufacturer Tecnica. In a another one and a half hour we learned about Tecnica’s multi-brand approach and positioning strategy in the exciting sports sector. All in all a pretty cool day and many thanks to all my colleagues at the clubs working hard to get these speakers on campus!

Three friends and I made a spontaneous decision to participate in the Georgetown Strategy Worldcup when we had lunch together out on the ESADE terrace one day. A week later we received the case prompt for the first round. It was about Germany’s planned subvention for the Opel/Magna deal and how Daimler should react to these plans. The case reflected the emphasis of the competition – combining strategic decisions with public policy issues. Some days after submitting our presentation we received the good news that we were selected as one of 5 teams (out of 29 initially) that was invited to Washington DC to participate in the final round.

With this invitation we also received our new case prompt. We were to analyze the situation of GMO authorization (genetically modified organisms) in the EU with regards to changes that have recently been proposed by the European Commission. We started working on it right away and were quite startled by the complexity of the topic and by the huge amount of information out there.

We finally left Barcelona for Washington on Wednesday with the submission deadline just 18 hours away. It would be the quickest flight all of us ever had. 9 hours went by very quickly as we were frantically producing slides on the plane. We submitted just in time and had about a day to prepare our presentation. We finally presented on Friday, April 9th. We had 15 minutes, a real challenge to cover all we had prepared …

Luckily we were the third team to present, so we had the chance to see two other teams presenting after us. All of us were very impressed by the presentations of the other teams from Duke, NYU, University of Maryland and Georgetown. So it came as a little surprise to us, when at 4pm our team was announced the winner of the Georgetown Strategy Worldcup!

It honestly was an amazing experience. Working in a team of friends with complementing strength is really rewarding. We met a lot of new people, also because the Georgetown MBA was also so nice to invite us to their annual MBA formal Friday night. We partied hard and on top of that DC spoiled us with clear skies and some perfect spring days!  What a weekend …

What made preparing a lot easier is working together with my fellow students. Many have organized prep sessions in their study groups or formed other groups with complementing strengths. But most amazingly about 200 pages of summaries, Finance formula sheets etc etc found their way to my mailbox in the past few days. I can hear people discussing finance and operations issues on tables and on the hallway and have not met anybody that wouldn’t be willing to help someone else if he or she can. So thanks to everyone that shared knowledge, I really appreciate it!

• Sunday, 7^th FEBRUARY, 11.30 a.m., breakfast on a friend’s terrace at about 20 centigrade!
• Sunday, 7^th FEBRUARY, 2.30 p.m., starting to go through my readings on the beach …

About the readings or classes in general this term: while the first term leveled the playing field (basic finance, accounting, marketing, etc) this term goes more into depth. Sunday’s readings for example were for Global Context of Management. A class I really enjoy because topics are discussed that I think every MBA student should think about. Today’s GCM class is about income distribution, last week we discussed corruption and next week we’ll find out more about international law when we look at Pinochet’s extradition. I really enjoy discussing these topics with my classmates, which is working out well in this class being split up into three groups (20 each).

And that’s it for this post. There are midterms going on and interviews are happening or are just around the corner …

So after one week I can say, it will be quite a busy term but definitely worth it. Plus, Barcelona keeps on proving to me what a great place it is to live in:

• 2,5 hrs to go skiing in Andorra
• First BBQ of the year on the terrace mid-January
• Lunch on ESADE terrace every day of last week

I can definitely get used to that!

The purpose of the trip was to see different consulting companies that were not able to participate in our Fall Career Week. Also we tried to get in touch with smaller boutique companies that usually get less coverage during application periods but provide excellent opportunities in either certain industries or geographies. I liked the fact that we were able to learn more about these companies that covered a wide range of what is out there in terms of consulting:

• Bain & Company
• Navigant Consulting
• Solon Management Consultants
• KPMG
• Bearing Point
• Analysis Mason
• Oliver Wyman

Of course we also seized the opportunity and got a couple of pints while in London. Thursday night we met up with ESADE alumni and former collegues of some classmates working in London now. Besides the fact that it was a fun night, it was also an excellent networking opportunity, which one of us was able to convert into an interview in January!

Another upside was that I was able to get some Christmas shopping done between company visits (and that really paid off as I had no time to do so ever since then, but more about exam week after Christmas…)

Merry Christmas to everyone!

The ESADE Mo Bros, supported by our Mo Sistas, started November clean shaven. After the first week the fearless uncovered their Mos and where soon followed by their fellow classmates in an effort to sport the most impressive Mo.

Every participant paid a small fee to enter the contest and to lay a foundation of funds to be donated to a charity of our choice at the end of the month. We supported by our Mos were walking billboards for men’s health issues and were able to raise some more funds. The month is not quite over yet, so the final amount we were able to raise has yet to be counted.

This very special month culminated in a Mo-Down last Friday. ESADE Mo Bros and Sistas met in a bar to find out who grew the most impressive Mo. The two charming ladies behind the bar of cafe Berlin not only served us drinks but also a verdict on who would be honored “most impressive” Mo. I hereby want to thank the winners and fellow classmates Brad and Ziad for their inspiring Mos!

Stay tuned for an update on the amount ESADE was able to raise! Looking forward to next year. I will miss you Mo…

www.movember.com

Including pre-term, I attended or am still attending the following classes: Accounting I and II, Finance, Economics I and II, Business Law, Marketing and Project Management. Being a business major, none of these subjects were completely new to me. However, and this is what I expected from an MBA, the way of teaching these subjects is new to me.

Professors make us apply what they teach us by providing us with cases, giving us homework (a little too much maybe…) and/or group assignments due end of term. Take economics, for example. I remember it being one of the dullest subjects I have ever taken when I was in university. Now we are working on a paper analyzing a company of our choice and all the macroeconomic and industry related factors that affect the performance of the company – finally applying the theoretical concepts in a real life context.

Another example: Marketing. A subject that I had pretty much no exposure to as a Corporate Finance consultant. All I remember from school are the 4Ps to be honest. Luckily marketing is more than that. Our professors do a great job painting a lively picture of the concepts supported by cases and by far the most fun performance of a professor I have ever experienced.

In short, although I have a strong business background, but coming from a traditional European university, the MBA gives me a chance to revisit certain concepts and see them in a new, way more interesting, light. And that’s one of the reasons I’m here.

Including pre-term, I attended or am still attending the following classes: Accounting I and II, Finance, Economics I and II, Business Law, Marketing and Project Management. Being a business major, none of these subjects were completely new to me. However, and this is what I expected from an MBA, the way of teaching these subjects is new to me.

Professors make us apply what they teach us by providing us with cases, giving us homework (a little too much maybe…) and/or group assignments due end of term. Take economics, for example. I remember it being one of the dullest subjects I have ever taken when I was in university. Now we are working on a paper analyzing a company of our choice and all the macroeconomic and industry related factors that affect the performance of the company – finally applying the theoretical concepts in a real life context.

Another example: Marketing. A subject that I had pretty much no exposure to as a Corporate Finance consultant. All I remember from school are the 4Ps to be honest. Luckily marketing is more than that. Our professors do a great job painting a lively picture of the concepts supported by cases and by far the most fun performance of a professor I have ever experienced.

In short, although I have a strong business background, but coming from a traditional European university, the MBA gives me a chance to revisit certain concepts and see them in a new, way more interesting, light. And that’s one of the reasons I’m here.

So I spent most of my time during the last two weeks getting ready to apply for consulting internship positions. Application deadlines are only three weeks away and many top-tier consulting companies will be at ESADE career days next week.

Career services stressed the importance of starting to work on our CVs and Cover Letters from the first workshop held during immersion week. That was almost eight weeks ago. It took a looming application deadline for me to finally wrap up my cover letter.

However, that was just the beginning. Case interviews and how to prepare for it has become the main issue by now. And this is where ESADE Consulting Club comes in.

As with most business schools, the consulting club at ESADE is one of the biggest (120 members) and most active clubs on campus. One of its goals is to prepare us for the dreaded consulting interview. Last week I attended three meetings / workshops organized by the Consulting Club. Besides the regular Wednesday meeting we have a case study methodology session Thursdays plus a very valuable “crack the case” workshop held by an ESADE alumni on the next five Saturdays. Of course all of this doesn’t make up for actually practicing the cases on your own or in mock interviews. I guess I’ll find out how good my preparation really was soon enough…