Promises, promises

Dear readers,

I'm aware of the fact that I promised to post sooner than this, but I have unfortunately not managed to keep it up. Seriously wondering whether there are still any readers left, I have nevertheless decided to post some experiences and stories from the past few months. Hence, going forward you will first get some past experiences, travels, what-we've-been-up-to's and only after we finnished catching up will we move on with the more recent events.

As a short update: I graduated with my class on the 3d of July in Fontainebleau (so I'm now officially a proud MBA of the class of July 2008) and we have moved back to Singapore where I am now looking for a job.

I already miss the MBA, my classmates, and life in the bubble... be it on the Fonty campus or on the Sing one. This year was totally crazy, hyperfast paced, dynamic as hell, constantly stimulating, and as fun as can be... man, did I love and enjoy my year at INSEAD!!!

Angela is also back to work in Singapore (with an occasional business trip to Shanghai or Jakarta.)

I got to go now, but will start posting our past journeys soon.

All the best to you all J'08s... and when in Singapore, do let me know, there's a bunch of us out here!

Impressions

Amazing, it's weekend again...

Next week will be fun. It will be Japan & Korea week on campus. Our fantastic Japanese and Korean classmates have joined forces with their fellow nationals of the senior class and are preparing a whole score of events, theme-parties, dinners, and surprises to present their countries. I very much look forward to next week.

Little over one month in the programme, and the mass of readings start to become normal: the cases become routine, 2 chapters of the economics book before dinner, one finance chapter after dinner... yeah right!! The truth... still not adjusted, still haven't found the rhythm, still struggling to absorb the massive amount of stuff. It gets better though. "Is it fun?" you might ask, well: "yes it is, it's fantastic!!"

With so many things to do, so many choices to make, and with time in such short supply, I find myself learning and perfecting my abilities to prioritize, to focus on vital things, and to appreciate all the moments. On wednesday I managed to finish my readings at 2300h. With so much time left, I decided to watch a movie, something that I hadn't done in a long time. I watched "Blood Diamonds" on the Macbook with my Grado's supplying the sound. The movie is very good (even if you don't like Leo de Caprio too much.) Last night I went to a great party in Villa Vivante. We stayed there until 4 in the morning, having fun with many other students. Consequently, today I struggled to stay awake during Microeconomics...

On Tuesday we had dinner with my studygroup. We had good food, bad service though, and good conversations about safety in Brazil, Venezuela, and politics in Lebanon. Our first graded group assignment scored 5 out of 5 by the way! It wasn't the toughest assignment by any means, but we believe that it's a sign of many more good things to come...

Last weekend Angela and I went back home to visit family and celebrate a birthday. It was great to be back, even if it was short. This weekend people decided to spread out all over the place... One of my groupmates is off to New York, another to Beirut, a large gang chartered a bus and is en route to Oktoberfest in Munich, some people are flying to Ibiza, and I'm sure that there are one or two other exotic happenings going on. We decided to spend a beautiful day in Paris instead and on Friday we will have a house full of people for joint extra practice in statistics, accounting and economics. If the weather stays good, we'll ignite the barbeque and have lunch in the garden.

We have started to plan our P1-P2 break trip. The idea is to go to either Rome or Barcelona. Stay tuned for updates!

Networking wise, there were a few companies on campus that attracted my interest. I spoke to reps from Rolls Royce, Barclays, and Standard Chartered Bank. They all have interesting executive recruiting programmes I might want to learn more about. So far my mind is revolving around two dominating career interests: senior leadership in an interesting Industry or International Organization, and Strategy Consulting. On 4 October I'll have my first career councelling session with an experienced executive coach, so I look forward to getting his perspective on my thoughts.

Bon, je crois qu'il est l'heure pour aller dormir...

Up to Japan & Korea week, the MRC case, 12 angree men, a McKinsey speaker, and hopefully many more fun classes!

Orientation week Part II: MBA Participant

It seems so long ago that I last posted on this blog... Thankfully Angela has taken over the lead! I've got so much to share, that I don't know where to start. I'll try to break it down in a few sections for easier digestion.

ACADEMICS
So Business Foundations (BF) ended, Orientation Week (OW) went past, and P1 picked up in full effect. Angela posted before about BF so I'll skip that. OW was a combination of Intro's to the courses, the teaching methods, and the material. Potentially this could have been a relaxing week, however the free time that I had, I spent in bed with a flu... for the rest OW was about welcomes, setting up laptops, doing all sorts of admin stuff, buying books,etc... The best part of this week was the last day on Saturday (Saturday seems to count as a working day at INSEAD) when we had an outdoors day to bond with our studygroups. After OW, P1 started in full force. Lots of prereading, and case preparations for each class, followed by interesting classes, groupwork, problems, and a new cycle starting with prereading, etc... I still need to get used to this...

MY GROUP
Just like in BF I have a great studygroup. An Englishman, a Brazilian, a Lebanese, an American, and me. We get along very well, we all want to learn from each other, and we respect our differences and skills. We'll be spending a lot of time together, so I'm really pleased with my group! The only unfortunate thing is that we don't have any women in our group. With 29% women on campus and studygroups of 5, the odds would be for having at least one woman in our group!

WELCOME
During OW, we were officially welcomed on campus by the Deans and by the President of the Alumni Association (who also happens to be the President of the Rothschild bank in Canada.) Nice welcome words to participants and our partners, good champagne to celebrate it, and a good cocktail afterwards.

PARTIES
Yes, there were a few...
The international INSEAD crowd makes each party look like there is a "young and vibrant" UN assembly on a fun quest!
Friday after Business Foundations we took over the Aussi Pub in Fonty; Saturday night was spent in one of the most exclusive clubs in Paris, On Sunday I passed, but there were at least 3 or 4 different parties... Last Saturday (right after OW) we had an extremely good party sponsored by Bain & Company at Chateau de Vaux-le-Penil (just imagine free champagne & rum & vodka from 22.00h until 04.00h the next morning, great music, a stunning castle, and free buses to take you back home!)
Next Saturday we'll have our party sonsored by OPERA Solutions at Chateau de Tavers, and they say that that party will be even better! Saturday the 14th will be the Shangri-La Fiction "Tarantino theme party." It seems that the Party scene is on at INSEAD and that there is fierce competition as to who actually throws the best one!

RECRUITING
Recruiting companies come to campus almost every evening. It's hard to choose which company presentations to go to after classes, because every day there are 2 or 3 invitations in our mailboxes. On Monday I went to Google, today to Bain&Company, tomorrow I'll go to Booz Allen, and Friday to McKinsey. I had to pass this week the invitations from SAP, Merill Lynch, J&J and BCG. Luckily they are here primarily for the P4s, and they'll come back for us in April, and May. All this attention is of course fantastic, but I'm sure that in due time it will also be stressfull, since there will be more MBA graduates in each class than there will be jobs offered via recruiting.

CLUBS
Yesterday night Angela and I went to a Wine&Cheese tasting. Most Clubs and activities are open for both partners and participants. In fact, partners are included in every aspect of campus life, so that is great! The Cheese tasting was initially a partners event, but since they had a few slots left, I was allowed to join, which I thankfully did.
We signed up for many clubs. Angela will write more about her prospective activities (amongst others she will play in INSEAD's women "soccer" team.) I signed up for a few Clubs with the aim to network in specific areas like Emerging Markets, Consulting, and International and Humanitarian Affairs. I also signed up for the Real Estate Club to learn more about investing in real estate. And, I signed up for the Sailing Regatta.
I hope that I'll be selected for one of the 2 boats that will compete against other B-schools in the MBA Regatta later this month in Italy. My going to INSEAD meant that I had to pass on a wonderfull opportunity to join Rick and Hans on the ARC Ocean Race from Las Palmas to St Lucia in November. I would have loved to cross the Atlantic together with these two guys, but you can't do everything at the same time. Sailing for INSEAD at the MBA Regatta would be extremely cool, so I hope that I'll make it. With many outstanding sailors (even an ex-Olympic sailor) as classmates, though, I'm not sure whether it will happen! I'll keep you posted, take care!

Recognition of European MBA's in the US

Amazed, an American MBA applicant told me that he had only recently discovered INSEAD. Until that moment he had never even thought of looking outside of the US for his selection of b-schools. He simply believed that the only worthwhile options for doing a good MBA were American schools. What surprised me is that he had decided to apply to only INSEAD in the end.

How can this be?

Look at the MBA rankings from the Economist, FT, and other research units. Europe and recently also Asia (CEIBS ranks 11th on FT's 2007 listing) have some of the best b-schools with names up there with Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Yale, and Wharton. With star-faculties, and super-international student and alumni communities, I believe that European schools have often a lot more to offer than many absolutely-less-international US schools.

London Business School, right in the Financial heart of Europe; the prestigious IMD in Switzerland; and what about Spain with 3 top b-schools (IE, IESE, and ESADE.) It is quite a while ago that Spain only attracted Latin oriented students. Nowadays Spanish b-schools are on the wish lists of many students from all over the world. I personally love the ESADE case on creativity featuring my favourite Spanish chef 'Ferran Adriá.'

I see many signs of the strong brand recognition of INSEAD in the USA:
- The last time I looked at my class' citizenship map the American (co)nationality was the largest amongst the class' population with 59 students, about 10%.
- INSEAD students get the opportunity to spend 2 months at Wharton, but many decide not to do it even though they may at one time want to spend some time in the USA
- INSEAD alumni find their way around the world, including the USA!
- (in all modesty:) This fairly new INSEAD MBA blog has been viewed by as many Americans as by people from other countries!

Unfortunately not everybody in the Far West is yet aware of what Europe and Asia have to offer. To cut this story short, the message that I want to share with any American MBA applicant who is still deciding where to go to, is: keep in mind that there are many international alternatives to the best US business schools for you to choose from.

...these were my 2 cents on "options"

Back to the ESADE case: chef Ferran's food laboratories are most avantgard-ish and innovative. Unfortunately his restaurant is already fully booked until the end of 2007! Wouldn't it be great to spend a weekend in Barcelona and then end it with a great dinner at El Bulli, right before starting my MBA in Fonty? Check out www.elbulli.com


"Don Ferran, seguro que ahora merecemos una invitacion para una cena en su restaurante en Cala Montjoi, no es verdad? no deje de mandarnos un mensaje"
:-) :-) :-)