by Maria Panayiotou, Senior Recruitment and Admissions Manager, Executive MBA
The Executive MBA is a transformative programme designed to help you realise your leadership potential. You’ll receive business knowledge, leadership skills and networks to accelerate your career, wherever you decide to take it; in London or Dubai.
To help you develop your global perspective, as part of your programme, you will be attending one of our Global Business Assignments (GBA). On these trips, you will be accompanied by a member of the programme team, a faculty member and students from other Executive MBA classes.
Mariana Santagada, EMBA Programme Administrator shares her GBA experience.
“The purpose of these assignments is to enable you to broaden your business experience, grow your global network, apply your skills and explore a new culture. Currently we have trips available to Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Beijing, Dubai and Moscow. The Global Business Assignments are structured in different ways. If you choose Buenos Aires, Dubai or Beijing as your destination, you will be visiting a number of local companies; if you choose a GBA to Cape Town or Moscow, you will be assigned to work with a local company as a consultant for the whole week.
Last year I co-managed the GBA in Buenos Aires where I was joined by 72 students and Professor Dominic Houlder. The week began with a visit to the IAE Business School where two of their professors gave presentations ‘ Argentine Paradox’ and ‘Financing in Emerging Markets’.
The rest of the week we had several speakers including economists and a CEO from a telecommunications company. We visited the largest e-commerce company in Latin America, went to the offices of the most important media company in the country and listened to the VP of Strategy for the energy company Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF).
During this week, we learned a lot about a country which has been economically volatile for over 30 years and how organisations and people are fighting to survive the instability and the devaluation of the Argentine pesos that, until this year, used to have different values: the official change and the black market change. Most of the students who went on the assignment were coming from countries with stable economies that had never experienced the type of instability Argentina has.
But it wasn’t all just work and learning during this week. We took the students to a tango show, we were invited to a cocktail reception at the British ambassador’s house in the best area of Buenos Aires and students had most of the nights free to explore the city and the culinary it is so famous for.
Taking part in any of these trips is an experience that students don’t forget. They get to mix with other Executive MBA classes and have the chance to interact with different cultures and professional backgrounds and create friendships that last a lifetime.
Every global business assignment is an adventure of its own. When it comes to making a decision about the trip, make sure you choose according to what you want to learn in the long term, be open minded and enjoy the experience.” Mariana Santagada, Executive MBA Programme Administrator