The Cambridge MBA has two exciting consulting projects.

One is called the CVP (Cambridge Venture Project) and the other is the GCP (Global Consulting Project).  GCP starts from next term, so today I will talk about the CVP.

CVP started from mid-October, yes, soon after the start of the course because we cannot wait!?

This year, 152 classmates are divided into 32 teams, and each team independently acts as consultants for venture companies. Cambridge is famous as the most entrepreneurial city in Europe; there are more than 1000 start-up companies in such a small area. If you have never visited this city, you may not imagine how amazing it is!

Thus we have a lot of potential clients here, so every year the School usually connects each team to different clients.

In this project, I’m surprised by the “ultimate” diversity of the team members. Actually most MBA schools mentions the diversity of their students, but I would say Cambridge is different from them. Almost all the teams consist of TOTALLY DIFFERENT NATIONALITIES and TOTALLY DIFFERENT BACKGROUNDS. Do you think it is possible in other top schools? This is Cambridge.

For example, I’m a Japanese actuary, and my teammates are a Canadian management consultant, a Spanish marketing expert in healthcare industry, a Chinese salesperson from India business, and an American who is a specialist in  IP litigation damages. Male 3, female 2. This is almost the definition of the word “diversity”, isn’t it?

As a result, there are lots of differences in opinions, frameworks of thinking, ways of getting things done, etc… But we are luckily mature students who have enough professional experiences, which is another great aspect of our MBA life, and that means we respect and learn from each other. Perhaps I have learned as much as, or even more, from teammates, classmates, and countless other activities in Cambridge, than from in-class lectures (sorry, teachers…).

I cannot mention the details of our project (because of confidentiality), but I’m excited, glad to be here, and 100% sure that this year will be an unforgettable year for me.

Yesterday, after a meeting with teammates, I went to a debating event at CUS (Cambridge Union Society; one of the most prominent debating societies in the world, as you may know). The theme was the Presidential Election in the U.S., which was a really controversial and interesting topic. Here, we have so many attractive events, which I cannot tell you about in a short amount of time, so I will write about societies and activities in Cambridge next time!