The ESADE MBA Blog · ESADE Business School · Barcelona

Archive for the ‘Student clubs’ Category

Besides the two classes we had yesterday, we somehow also managed to squeeze in three good speakers on campus.

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!

One of the most exciting things when you do an MBA are the opportunities outside of the classrooms. You can engage in sports or business clubs, go to different guest speakers, fairs etc. One of these things are case competitions that many MBA schools are hosting throughout a year.

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 …

After a hectic Term 1, one might have expected Term 2 to be slightly more relaxed. However there is still so much going on and so little time. From the very first days we had to prepare for the “Winter Career Week” when some very important multinationals would come meet us on campus. Big names such as Clinton Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, Luxottica, Nestlè, L’Oreal, LVMH and others were there. Doors of great opportunities opened to many students. Many of us had follow-up recruiting interviews and the preparation for those was – and still is – very intense.

Schoolwise, the two new subjects I prefer are Finance II and Strategy. I believe that understanding the principles of finance and risk valuation is key to becoming successful managers regardless the sector. I am very impressed with professor Luisa Alemani. Today we had our Finance II mid-term exam and most of the class showed a good understanding of the principles taught so far. Strategy professor Luis Vives is equally engaging. In his class we analyze business cases, comment on business decisions while taking into consideration all the various forces surrounding corporations. I am working with an Irish, Canadian, German, Mexican / American and another student whose number of nationalities, I don’t remember exactly…three of them were American / Polish / Dutch. In this term, we are obviously more organized and structured in the way we approach our workload. We all have to fit in our schedule the individual job search, so our time management is much more efficient compared to the previous term and duties are better distributed.

Next week some of us ESADE students will be part of the GSMA Mobile World Congress, the biggest mobile expo in the world, which takes place in Barcelona on an annual basis. This has been achieved thanks to the effort of the ESADE Technology Club and its president, student Daniel Helmhold. I am very excited about this event. More GSMA and club related news on my next post.

Hasta pronto!

If you drive northwest from the doors of ESADE for about 1 hour, you’ll come to a small town called Manresa.  There, I discovered Moltacte—a discount designer fashion outlet that provides social rehabilitation and employment to mentally ill people.

Moltacte opened its doors in 2008 in the midst of the financial crisis and has managed to survive thanks to its founders’ steely commitment to the social mission.  ESADE professor Alfred Vernis introduced a group of us MBA students to Moltacte in the fall in order to discuss its need to validate and improve the economic aspects of its model and ensure sustainability.

Since then, we have entered into a formal consulting relationship with Moltacte and begun work on a business plan.  We (the students) are managing all aspects from start to finish, from people management to number crunching.  After establishing a good client relationship and clarifying our scope and deliverables, we designed the processes our team would use to complete the project.  Currently, we are implementing the research and assessment phase.

For me personally, Moltacte takes my learning from the classroom to the real world of social enterprise, where finding balance between the economic and social goals requires creativity and tough decisions, where people are the key to results, and where my new MBA tools are only as good as the quality of application.  It’s also a unique way to bond with truly impressive peers in the Net Impact club.