An MBA from Cambridge is in many ways a personal masterpiece in progress. Crafted to fit your personality, with the best experts guiding your journey. We too, the students, are expected to be wise enough to choose how to shape our learning and create this masterpiece.
Don’t get me wrong. Our schedule from 9.00 till 5.30 is written in stone. Even if you get married, have a baby, get knighted or get shot, you are expected to be back in class the next day! With sweets, evidence and details of course! What we choose to do for the other precious 16 hours a day is a luxury for many of us – the options start at 7.00 a.m when you can opt to go rowing, work-out with MBA classmates or attend a breakfast hosted by a top consulting firm.
Now in November, that feeling of being lost and that fear of missing out on a class, club or activity is fading. My ambitious plans of “doing it all” are also mellowing down. The fact that it can be a tad difficult to become an international rower, debater and corporate leader (who has attended every MBA social!) within a span of 12 months is something that just has to be accepted. I have now opted to lead and participate in events that truly inspire me:
So I’ve been chosen as Chair the Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) at Cambridge Judge Business School, representing the MBAs in this wider network is a great privilege.
My background in transforming ideas into successful companies and leading large charities means I have some leadership and strategy responsibilities. To lead WLI this year is my chance to bring in even more opportunities for learning and success for my brilliant cohort.
While organising events and presentations for my brilliant peers also means that I receive constant support and feedback on how and where my efforts should be.
I’ve further had the opportunity to interview and learn from amazing industry leaders such as Martha Wikstrom, former CEO in Fashion for Compagnie Financiere Richemont and Managing Director at Harrods Department Store, London. As I’m spending many hours every week, inviting corporates and senior industry leaders for talks, seminars and mentorship, for WLI on behalf for the school, I understand more and more how efficient communication and pitches to senior, often board level leaders should be.
Attending the Cambridge debate society and spending long hours later, debating, for example, the Greek financial crisis, means I’m also learning the importance of unlearning and being flexible. If I have anytime left, I enjoy attending various university events and catching up with my cohort.
Important too, the simple pleasure of spending time talking to my class mates over a cup of coffee about the trade-offs, business and philosophy makes amazing “food for thought”. Cambridge MBA is above all a collaborative MBA and my experience this journey so far has been fantastic. So my individual MBA masterpiece is a work in progress and I have no idea of how it finally look like. I’ve got, however, a pretty good feeling about it.
