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DBi Italy

Sarah Story is a full-time MBA student, specializing in Marketing, Strategy, and Operations. Prior to Stern, Sarah was a home furnishings designer. Post-MBA, she plans to work in marketing or supply chain management within the retail industry. At Stern, she is co-president of the Luxury and Retail Club, and a board member of the Graduate Marketing Association and Stern Adventures. Outside of school, Sarah enjoys swimming with a local masters swim team and attending concerts.

One of the primary reasons I chose to attend Stern was because of the extensive DBi, “Doing Business in…”, opportunities. I was not able to study abroad during undergrad, so I was excited to take advantage of the many 1-2 week intensive courses that are part of this program. I was thrilled that my course lottery results allowed me to have this incredible opportunity to study for a week in Milan, Italy with a focus in luxury retail. I am so grateful to have had this experience; there were many laughs, amazing food, and new friendships.

We were given a warm welcome at the hotel with an “aperitif” hosted by Stern. About a dozen of us went to a group dinner afterwards, which was a great way to introduce ourselves in a smaller group and have some time to get to know each other before the class officially started. It was quite magical to walk up to a restaurant requesting to seat 12 people, and be seated in a private dining room that also functioned as the wine cellar.

The first day was class packed with great lectures, an impressive coffee break, and was capped off with speakers from Ferrari and the CMO of Gucci, who also happens to be a Stern alum. (The aforementioned comment was, thankfully, NOT said while he was there.) After class, we began our in-class project: visiting a short list of luxury retailers to examine how they treated their shoppers, whether purchases were made or not, and the overall experience of shopping in these stores. It also became a regular occurrence to find classmates at Camparino, the Campari Bar, after class, located near our hotel.

On our second day, we headed off early to visit the Mantero Silk Factory, located just outside of Como. Seeing the printing process in action, both with traditional silk screens and digital printers, was enlightening for many. We learned how so many luxury companies from around the world, not just those in Italy, seek out the talent and expertise of the Mantero factory. Of course we all panic-shopped (there was limited time) at the sample store and came away with some great finds for ourselves and gifts for others. Upon returning to campus, we were greeted by a room full of the most beautiful, soft wool textiles and raw fibers, for a talk from a Loro Piana representative about what makes their textiles and apparel so highly coveted. After the talk we continued our “shopping safari,” visiting the last stores on our lists. Each team chose to divide and conquer differently – some shopped as a group, some split the list in half between team members, and some shopped at all the stores independently. 

Our third day was focused on brand extensions, particularly in the furniture category. We explored the history of design and manufacturing excellence of Italian furniture companies and the differences of how they are structured in design, manufacturing, and distribution compared to American furniture companies. In the afternoon we visited the Cassina, Versace Casa, and Dolce and Gabbana Home showrooms and heard from the CEO of Cassina, the design director of Versace Casa, and the Vice President of Luxury Living Group, which is the parent company of Versace Casa and Dolce and Gabbana Home. After a long day, we had a class dinner in the canal district, and mostly avoided a very rainy evening!

The final day, we heard from Paolo Pedersoli of Jakala, a consulting firm that includes a focused division in luxury and design enterprises. Before lunch, we finalized our findings for our group presentations, and presented our findings with the class in the afternoon. Gucci was one of the stores that several of the groups were assigned to visit, and the general take away was that the shopping experience was not as expected. It was quite entertaining and interesting to hear how each group’s experiences differed, and how some brands were presented in a positive light from our guest speakers, yet the shopping experiences were not reflective of that or very welcoming to customers.

The course wrapped up with a stellar group dinner, a close walk from the hotel. One of our classmates had a birthday on that Friday, so several of us toasted him at midnight in the hotel bar with some champagne: the perfect way to celebrate the end of the course.

I could not be more grateful to have had this experience. In addition to the course, I added on about a week of personal travel throughout northern Italy. I absolutely fell in love with Italy,  and I cannot wait to go back to explore more of Milan and the rest of the country.

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Sweet Dreams Are Made at Stern

Sheron is a recent Stern grad from the two-year full-time program in the class of 2023. She was previously an engineer in the oil and gas industry and will be transitioning to consulting post-MBA. On campus she was involved in many clubs including ESA (Entrepreneurship and Start-up Association), AHBBS (Association of Hispanic and Black Business Students), MCA (Management Consulting Association), STA (Stern Tech Association), SWIB (Stern Women in Business), PEVC (Private Equity and Venture Capital Club), and Cellar.

If you are looking to live out your Eurythmics dreams to “travel the world and the seven seas,” you’ve found the right place. Stern offers so many different international opportunities to travel through school-sponsored programs or just casually with classmates.

DBi programs—which stand for Doing Business in—are 1.5 or 3 credit courses that take you to places such as Morocco, Australia, Argentina, Germany, South Africa, New Zealand, and others over a week or two. There you’ll learn about business in the local economy through classes at a partner university, company treks, and cultural excursions. Stern Signature Projects feature international consulting engagements that can take you to Israel, Guyana, and other countries to support business development for different organizations.

There are also longer-term study abroad programs at partner schools all across the world. I studied at London Business School for an equivalent semester, and I would not have traded that experience for the world.

Stern’s student body is incredibly diverse, and so is London Business School’s. The European location of LBS attracts a different type of diversity, which made the classroom discussions vibrant with multiple perspectives. It was very interesting to compare the viewpoints of Stern and LBS students to grow in my thinking about different business approaches and issues. Similar to Stern, the professors at LBS all had office hours and were more than happy to chat about topics on my mind from class. Whether you choose to study abroad or spend the full two years at Stern, be sure to connect with the professors. They are all super cool. Many have written best-selling books, host podcasts or TV shows, and are celebs in the business world.

The student clubs at Stern are all very accessible, and I had the same experience at LBS. Like at Stern, most of the club events were open to all members of the MBA student community and are free or only require a nominal fee to join. Stern clubs host visits to museums, company offices, theater shows, outdoor hiking trails, and favorite foodie spots. I got to experience these types of cultural and professional adventures with new LBS friends as well. From seeing Wicked in London’s West End to learning the art of Japanese Shibori to experiencing a traditional Sunday roast, LBS’s clubs provided a similar opportunity to build community and friendship while abroad. 

Through networking events hosted by the student clubs at LBS, I also met many students from Oxford and Cambridge’s MBA programs. I went to see my new friends at their campuses for a tour and class visit. I even attended the Oxford vs. Cambridge polo match, which was my first polo experience and one of the highlights of my exchange semester.

Business school is an incredibly transformative experience academically, professionally, socially, and personally. Spending extended time abroad was definitely a time of growth in every way. If you have any thoughts about a full exchange semester, then go for it! You’ll be amazed at what you learn, who you’ll meet, and what you’ll experience.

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DBi Spain: Immersing in the Metaverse, Exploring Global business, Embracing Spanish Culture and Building Connections

Jenny Ng is a current Langone MBA student, specializing in Finance, Management in Technology and Operations and Strategy. Prior to Stern, Jenny worked in various industries, including retail bank, aviation, real estate and information technology; currently, Jenny holds a position at Business Operations in the Energy Management department at Con Edison of NY. At Stern, she is involved in Langone Student Government as Vice President of First Years and Asian Business Society as Vice President of Langone.

This past semester, I had the incredible opportunity to participate in Doing Business in (DBi) Spain with a diverse group of ambitious and like-minded classmates from both the full-time and part-time programs. It was an enriching experience that allowed us to immerse ourselves in an international landscape of an increasingly interconnected world to explore the opportunities and challenges associated with conducting business in other countries, considering economic, legal, political and cultural aspects. I had the pleasure to embark on an academic odyssey to Madrid, Spain, where our focus was on the European startup ecosystem, tech entrepreneurship, digital innovations in artificial intelligence and the metaverse, as well as trends, future prospects and leadership within the industry. DBi Spain delivered a truly immersive experience that extended beyond the normal classroom and that allowed me to enrich my understanding of global dynamics and international business while fostering lifelong friendships and connections.

Inside the classroom, we were privileged to learn from esteemed professors at IE Business School and engage in insightful guest lectures delivered by entrepreneurs and industry leaders in the technology, consulting and digital banking sectors. Having the opportunity to learn from industry practitioners and leaders firsthand equipped us with profound insights and knowledge about the opportunities and challenges in the European startup ecosystem and tech industry. We explored the advantages and disadvantages of developing a tech startup in Europe, all of which are very different from the U.S. entrepreneurial ecosystem. We also delved deep into the potentials and business value of the metaverse, a concept of an immersive virtual world that aims to disrupt the way we do things in respect to learning, working, entertaining, socializing, shopping and forming connections. Lastly, we also had the opportunity to do corporate treks at global innovation hubs where we gained first hand exposure to a startup accelerator and learned how companies are embracing digital innovation to unlock business opportunities. 

Outside the classroom, the program agenda included cultural and social activities that submerged us in Spanish traditions and customs; we enjoyed a captivating Flamenco show, engaged in an outdoor paella cooking competition with local IE students and networked with Stern Alumnus and at a picturesque atop of Irreverent Restaurant. The highlight of the activities for me was the outdoor paella cooking competition—a team-building challenge where we had to first earn gold through winning games to acquire ingredients, and then compete to cook the most enjoyable paella. Although we had no prior experience in cooking paella, because of leadership, collaboration, communication, shared vision and ambition, my team and I won third place, instilling a newfound confidence in my culinary skills in Spanish cuisine. 

Alongside the academic itinerary, my classmates and I had the privilege of further immersing ourselves in the vibrant city of Madrid. We indulged in delectable Spanish cuisine and scrumptious churros with chocolate, watched a memorable Real Madrid vs Rayo Vallecano game (2-1) organized by our classmate, admired the grandeur of The Royal Palace, and reveled in the exhilaration of Madrid’s bustling nightlife and retail adventures at stores ranging from fast fashion to luxury fashion. 

As I reflect upon these unbelievable experiences and unforgettable memories, DBi Spain was truly a rewarding experience that went beyond expanding my knowledge and broadening my perspective of business on a global scale; the program allowed me to embrace new cultures, expand my horizons, nurture my growth, while also build new connections and forge lifelong friendships beyond the confines of a classroom. Traveling with classmates from both full-time and part-time programs provided me an opportunity to expand my network beyond my immediate program, fostering a diverse and inclusive academic environment and promoting a sense of unity within the community. In sum, DBi Spain was an extraordinary endeavor in my MBA journey at Stern, leaving an indelible impact on my personal and professional growth—one that I would do over and over again.

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My Experience in the NYU Impact Investing Fund

Isabella Felipa Schumann is a recent graduate who specialized in Corporate Finance and Strategy. Prior to Stern, Isabella spent three years in development at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, followed by two years as an investigative consultant at K2 Integrity. During her time at Stern, Isabella was a summer associate at Partner’s Group, a private equity firm, and during the academic year, she served as an MBA associate at Connectivity Venture Funds, a venture capital firm based in New York. Additionally, Isabella participated in a variety of experiential opportunities offered at Stern, and was AVP of Sponsorship of Stern’s PEVC Club. Isabella now works at Global Atlantic Partners as VP of Strategy and Business Development in NYC.

When I started my MBA journey in 2021, I was interested in exploring opportunities in the investment space, but as someone with a non-traditional background, I was unsure where to start. I knew that NYU Stern would provide me with endless opportunities to explore investing, develop relevant skills to succeed in the space, and take career risks that I may not have taken otherwise. One of the defining experiences of my time at NYU Stern that allowed me to do all three things was the NYU Impact Investing Fund (“NIIF”). 

Why NIIF

I have always had a passion for social impact which has manifested itself through community service work, pro-bono consulting with a focus on social enterprises and female-founded startups, and working in nonprofit organizations earlier in my career. NIIF was the perfect way for me to explore the intersection of a personal passion of mine and my professional ambitions. Additionally, I had the incredible opportunity to work with peers from Stern, NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and NYU Law School. Being part of a group of dedicated and ambitious individuals from different backgrounds was a huge part of what made NIIF such a great experience. 

Getting Involved

NIIF is the only MBA student-run venture organization in the country, which means that NIIF invests real money into real startups that we as participating students are sourcing, completing investment diligence on, and pitching to the investment committee. The program is structured as a one-year course through Stern and participation starts with an application the Spring before the Fall semester start date. Once you begin with NIIF, you are split into teams representing six different verticals – financial inclusion, environment, healthcare, aging, education, and food systems. I was a member of the education deal team along with five other peers. 

Phase I: Investment Thesis

We began our semester by developing an investment thesis highlighting the areas of education that we would like to invest in and other non-negotiables for NIIF, including a founding team representative of the community the company serves, and demonstrated impact in lockstep with revenue. From here, our team tapped into our networks to identify impact-driven early-stage startups that were actively raising a new round of fundraising. Once potential targets were identified, the team interviewed the founders and identified the companies that were most aligned with the team’s understanding of impact and the expectations of NIIF’s investment committee. 

Phase II: Due Diligence

The second stage of the process is defined by a funneling process where each deal team presents their chosen company to the other teams and to the investment committee. From there, two deal teams are chosen to continue with the NIIF investment process while the other teams are split between competing in the MBA Impact Investing Network & Training (“MIINT”) and managing previous investments made by NIIF. As a member of a deal team chosen to move forward in the NIIF process, this third phase was followed by a longer due diligence process where my team and I spent the coming months working with the NYU Law School clinic and the founder of our target company on the complex due diligence process. This included legal, financial, impact, and competitor diligence and identifying relevant investment risks in each of these areas. This was where we were challenged the most as a team, and pushed outside of our comfort zones to understand and evaluate different areas of the business. 

Phase III: Presentations

Finally, our team was one of two that pitched a target company to the NIIF Investment Committee in an in-person meeting with the three committee members and the support of our peers. The presentation featured information on our company, deep dives into the diligence that we completed, an emphasis on the demonstrated impact of the company, and a complete risk analysis with insights on how to minimize risks. By the end of the week, we were notified of the investment committee’s decision on which of the two deal teams had received NIIF’s investment. 

The entire process closely resembled the various investment processes that I have seen in both the private equity and venture capital spaces. I was able to see many parallels between my work at NIIF and what I have seen in various internship opportunities across investment firms. I can confidently say that my NIIF experience will not only be a highlight of my time at Stern, but will also be instrumental in my career development. 

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My Experience in Leadership Fellows

Anna Gallagher is a current Full-time MBA student, specializing in Strategy, Management, and Leadership & Change Management. Prior to Stern, Anna worked in various HR roles at The Boeing Company. Post-MBA, she will join the Amazon Web Services HR Leadership Development Program. At Stern, she is on the boards of Stern Women in Business and Student Government. Anna is a Leadership Fellow, Board Fellow, and Forté Fellow. She is also a Stern Graduate Ambassador. Anna loves Broadway musicals and has seen 10+ shows as a Sternie.

This year, I was fortunate to participate in NYU Stern’s Leadership Fellows Program, an incredible opportunity for MBA students. The purpose of the Makhoul Family Leadership Fellows Program is for students to accelerate their growth and position themselves as leaders within their organizations after Stern. The program includes monthly classes and one-on-one mentorship. 

I loved that the Leadership Fellows program is highly experiential. For example, in several classes we role played workplace scenarios with the help of professional actors. Scenarios included a board of directors discussing a contentious issue with a CEO, a manager coaching a rockstar employee who refuses to work with the team, and an employee advocating for a promotion while being dismissed by management.

In another class session, we focused on understanding the experiences that have shaped us as people and as leaders. We first identified major events, achievements, and moments over our life. We then plotted these events across time and used a vertical axis to indicate the level of positive or negative impact each event had on us. In class we shared our “lifelines.” It was an incredibly moving session as my peers vulnerably shared their greatest heartbreaks and proudest moments. I got to know my classmates so much better and this exercise deepened the trust and respect we had for each other. I encourage you to do the “lifeline” exercise, too. I suspect it will be helpful as you prepare your MBA application and consider your post-MBA goals!

As a Leadership Fellow, you are assigned a mentor to meet with monthly. My mentor was a rockstar Stern alum and professional leadership coach. In our monthly sessions we discussed my career goals, values, and how I can apply class learnings to my daily life. In one of my favorite meetings, we role played a difficult conversation I needed to have and practiced taking the other party’s perspective. 

My Leadership Fellows section (one of many) was deliberately capped at 12 students. The small class size supported vulnerable conversations and gave me ample opportunity to participate in class exercises. Despite the small class size, my section was incredibly diverse including students from the full-time, part-time, and Tech MBA programs. 

If you are looking to gain self awareness, practice leadership skills in a safe setting, connect deeply with other Sternies, and receive regular one-on-one mentorship, then I encourage you to apply for the Stern Leadership Fellows program!

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Experiential Learning @ Stern: Endless Possibilities

Jeet Khilnani is an MBA2, specializing in strategy and leadership & change management. Prior to Stern, Jeet worked at Nomura in a corporate finance role, and Deloitte in an audit role. This summer, Jeet interned at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) as a Summer Consultant and will be continuing to work at the firm post graduation in New York City. Additionally, Jeet is the Co-President of Outclass (Stern’s LGBTQ+ organization), and a VP of Stern Student Government, Management Consulting Association, Graduate Finance Association, and South Asian Business Association at Stern.

One of the biggest drivers of the MBA experience at Stern is the countless opportunities to learn by doing. Stern’s incredible location unlocks access to almost anything you want to do – PE/VC, Startups, Healthcare, Consulting, Finance, Impact Investing and the list just goes on. Stern’s “Change Studio” umbrella is so wide and deep, I think most students would not even be able to list all the different opportunities available!

This was a key component of my decision to attend Stern. I was uprooting my life from India and moving thousands of miles away to a whole new world in the US. I wanted to familiarize myself with the culture and see the different facets of the business world before I started my full time job, both as a way to prepare for it and to ease the learning curve a little bit. Through my time so far, I’ve experienced three different experiential learning opportunities – Communication for Consultants, Operations Consulting – An Experiential Approach & Endless Frontier Labs. Each course came with an opportunity to learn something new about business, about an industry I had no clue about, and in the process, about myself.

  • Communication for Consultants: I decided to take this course in Spring 2022 right after I decided to pivot into consulting for my summer internship. I had no idea how consulting works, and I was coming from a near-shore role just before Stern. I instantly found myself attracted to a non-profit in the film and media space, and luckily, was matched to work with them. The challenge was mind-blowing – the non-profit had started a social impact film festival in virtual format during the pandemic, and now wanted to bring it to in-person format post-COVID. 

In addition to this, the goal was to identify and overcome challenges in communication from the clients – they sometimes confuse symptoms with the problem, and there’s a lot of reading between the lines involved. I thoroughly enjoyed working on this project, eventually culminating into a final presentation with the client being present in the room with us, and appreciating the recommendations. We’re all so excited that the festival will be in-person (with a virtual option) in 2023 in Boston, MA!

  • Operations Consulting – An Experiential Approach: After Communication for Consultants, I was craving more. And then came the opportunity to enroll in Operations Consulting during Fall 2022, and admittedly I understand nothing about operations. This course involves weekly visits to a new company and witness their operations during class time, followed by debrief and discussion thereafter. I was able to experience so many different industries in such a short span of time and I couldn’t be happier about it – a brewery, a global FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods), a sugar refinery, a port terminal, and a global cosmetics company. Learning how different (and how similar) their operations are, identifying problems and areas for improvement, and witnessing the different levels of adoption of technology has been so enriching!

While visiting all these plants, we also had to pick a business and do an independent project advising them improvements in their own operations – and we’re currently working with a grocery-delivery company to identify improvements for inventory management. It takes work, yes, but the learning and benefits are far greater and are setting me up for my career at BCG!

  • Endless Frontier Labs: EFL is Stern’s signature startup accelerator, providing mentorship opportunities to startups around the world. This year, EFL received 1100+ applications from startups, and selected 75 startups for the year-long program through a process of rigorous interviews and application screenings (so it’s highly selective!). The first step was to interview companies and fill out our evaluations. Post that, MBA students are matched with selected startups following a double-blind matching process, and I was matched with a groundbreaking startup in the EV charging space. Again, I found myself feeling a bit anxious since I knew nothing about the space. But the founder and team was gracious enough to coach me, and so far, I’ve been designing a go-to-market strategy for them. Next semester, we plan to raise the seed funding for this company and if all goes well, I will be able to take pride in being a small part of this incredible company’s growth trajectory.

I’ve learnt so much already – about the EV space, the charging space, how it all works, and the economics behind it. This is an invaluable experience that I will take with me wherever I go, and also a great way to test out the craziness of the startup world that always intimidated me. I really like it – and I can survive it (which I didn’t know before!)

As you can probably tell, this is only a small fraction of the endless possibilities that Stern offers you through its experiential learning opportunities. To me, this is what an MBA looks like in today’s ever-changing business world, where you learn in class and apply the learnings to a real-world project with implications that define the success of your clients, and you.

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Reflections on Graduation

Mara Walsh is an MBA2 specializing in Marketing and Leadership & Change Management. Prior to Stern, Mara spent four years working in merchandising at Abercrombie & Fitch, followed by two years in digital marketing at Wayfair. In addition to serving as a Graduate Ambassador, Mara served as a VP of Alumni Relations for Stern’s Management Consulting Association (MCA), VP of Admissions for the Graduate Marketing Association (GMA), and a Block Leader. Mara originally hails from Wilmington, DE and received her undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame. Following graduation, Mara plans to join Deloitte as a Senior Consultant in its NYC office. 

It’s hard to believe that as I type this post, I am just two short weeks away from graduating with my MBA from Stern. As I look back at my time here, I am overcome with gratitude for the people I’ve met and the things I’ve experienced. Before my time at Stern is done, I wanted to share some advice on how to make the most of your experience here. 

  • Join (a) professional club(s): I can’t say enough about how much professional clubs like MCA and GMA helped with the process of finding an internship last year. MCA’s “bootcamp” and study groups taught me and my classmates everything there is to know about case interviews, something I had no exposure to before Stern! GMA does an incredible job preparing students for behavioral interviews during “Mock Madness,” a week-long pre-interview bootcamp in mid-January. We have a special culture of paying it forward here at Stern, meaning that MBA2s really step up to help MBA1s achieve success in the internship recruiting process. I think professional clubs also offer a great opportunity to connect with classmates- I personally met some of my best friends from Stern during the fall of my first semester as I prepared for interviews. 
  • Take courses that challenge you: One of the great things about business school is that many MBA programs (including Stern) have grade non-disclosure policies, meaning that employers cannot know a student’s GPA until a full-time offer has been extended. Though it is important to stay on top of your schoolwork and maintain a certain GPA to be in good standing at Stern, the grade non-disclosure policy gives students the opportunity to take risks academically. For me, that meant challenging myself by taking quant and data analytics courses that aren’t necessarily in my wheelhouse, such as Data Driven Decision Making, Decision Models & Analytics, and Corporate Finance. Though these courses were difficult at times, I feel more prepared for my post-graduate career thanks to the skills I learned from them. 
  • Participate in experiential learning opportunities: I would recommend that any incoming student take at least one experiential learning course during their time at Stern; they are incredible opportunities to learn from senior executives and business leaders and explore NYC and other parts of the world. During the spring of my first year at Stern, I took the Branding & Innovation Consulting Lab course with Fran Gormley, an adjunct professor of Marketing. The course was an amazing opportunity to take on a brand strategy project for a real client, National Geographic, and meet with senior executives from the company on a weekly basis. I learned so much from Professor Gormley about branding and interacting with clients that I will take into my career as a consultant. 
  • Get to know your classmates! Of every suggestion on this list, this might be the most important. A big reason many people get an MBA is to build their network, and my Stern experience has certainly done that. More importantly though, I’ve built so many amazing friendships with my Stern classmates and made memories that will last a lifetime. From studying for finals and preparing for interviews to exploring NYC and traveling the world, most of the highlights of my Stern experience have involved spending time with and getting to know my classmates. Getting an MBA can be a lot of work, but don’t forget to prioritize relationship building during your time here. 
  • Take advantage of what NYC has to offer: Getting an MBA in the heart of NYC is academically, professionally, and socially rewarding. Take advantage of the resources at your disposal by attending guest lectures and club conferences, taking experiential learning courses that get you out into the city, and learning from professors at the top of their fields. In the midst of all that, don’t forget to have fun! Take a break from homework and interview prep and use your free time to go to a museum, attend a free taping of a late night talk show, stroll through Central Park, or see a Broadway musical. Many clubs will subsidize tickets to fun events and shows in the city, which makes it easier to enjoy NYC on a full-time student budget. 

Best of luck to any incoming or prospective students reading this! Applying to business school can be an intimidating and stressful process; it certainly was for me, but I couldn’t be happier that I chose to take the plunge and get my MBA here at Stern. 

 

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Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone in Business School

Sami Abdisubhan is an MBA2 who spent his summer internship at Anheuser-Busch. Sami serves as VP of Marketing & Operations for Stern in Africa (SiA), VP of Training for Stern FC, and Co-President of the Association of Hispanic and Black Business Students (AHBBS). He is specializing in Marketing and Business Analytics.

 

 

One of the values of earning an MBA is exploration. Whether it’s exploring a new industry, function, city, or experience, there lies opportunity in an unusually supported manner when at business school. A subset of this value proposition is something NYU Stern’s Dean, Dean Raghu Sundaram, said to us on our first day of LAUNCH, Stern’s orientation: business school is the best time in your careers to fail. Despite the irony that I’m paraphrasing, this was a moment that I’ve cherished from orientation. There is no safer environment to professionally experiment than business school. The stakes will not be lower! This line from our Dean helped me get through an experiential learning class I took in my first year called Consulting Lab: Branding and Innovation.

Coming into Stern, I wanted to pivot my career into consumer marketing with a focus on brand management. While brand management is effectively a general management function, there is a responsibility to own how a brand is portrayed and understood and that has always been my interest and passion in marketing. When available, I jumped at the opportunity to register for Consulting Lab, knowing it was an experiential learning class; experiential learning, as it sounds, is a format of learning obtained through real-life projects and business challenges. I saw this class as a way to train myself before my summer internship, brand management at Anheuser-Busch, in that fail-safe environment that Dean Sundaram mentioned.

When I started the class, I was very excited to hear from the client about the challenge they brought to us. There was a thrill to it: a large financial services firm was coming to us, graduate students, to support a project with which they genuinely needed help! A slight problem arose: I didn’t understand the challenge. The prompt was clear to me and I understood the need for the project from the client’s side – I just didn’t know where to start. For the most part, my project team was in the same boat and as the solutions-oriented people we are, our minds immediately went to products/changes the client could implement to fix the problem. However, we were quickly reminded that we didn’t understand the problem fundamentally and hadn’t gone through the right analysis to get there.

This start was not what I had hoped. Not just because of the slight project-related hiccup, but also because this is my aspired career. I’ve planned for this since I started writing business school essays. Was I wrong? Will my summer internship be a nightmare? These thoughts and questions had me considering dropping the class as some others – not on my team – had done. However, one of my goals before starting at Stern was to create a different experience than my undergraduate experience. In college, I wasn’t really involved in extracurriculars and didn’t challenge myself, both of which I regretted. The 20-year-old me would’ve dropped this class after the second session for no other reason than to avoid difficulty. Not this time. Again, harkening back to the idea of a failing to learn, I made sure to embrace being out of the comfort zone.

This does have a happy ending: in one of our group project meetings, as my team members were brainstorming, all of it clicked. I literally let out a big “Ohhhhhhhhh. I got it. ” From then on, we went to do very well in the class, presented a viable solution to the client’s executives and, after impressing, earned a good mark overall. Coincidentally, my summer project at Anheuser-Busch was incredibly creative in nature, focusing on advertising. My experience doing branding-related work in Consulting Lab was by far the most influential to my success over the summer and converting my internship into a full-time offer of all the classes I had taken first year. For that, I’m thankful I was able to reflect in the moment to think back to my MBA goals prior to starting and we were reminded during orientation that there is no other time to try and fail and to not run away from failure than business school.

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Course Spotlight: Stern Consulting Corps

Eric Bauer is an MBA2, who spent his summer internship at at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Eric holds leadership roles on the European Business Society, the Luxury and Retail Club and the Stern Student Government. He is specializing in Business Analytics, Finance, and Management.

 

When I started the process of choosing a business school to attend, location became a crucial part of the decision for me. Being that I had lived in Oklahoma for many years, I knew that if I was going to move away from home, I wanted to move somewhere that would provide me with the most professional opportunities and exposure to potential employers. Thus, NYU Stern became the obvious choice due to its unparalleled location.

Stern’s positioning in the heart of Manhattan has not only allowed me to network with countless potential employers, but it has also given me the option to round-out my curriculum with real world, hands on consulting experiences through the Stern Consulting Corps (SCC) and Stern Solutions courses/programs. Stern’s relationships with potential employers in the city, coupled with the fact that so many company headquarters are just a short subway ride away from campus, made these things possible. Since I had decided to make a career switch and recruit for a consulting role, the opportunities provided through these two experiential learning programs have become extremely vital parts of my course load and have been instrumental in my success with securing a full-time consulting offer.

 In the Spring semester of my first year at Stern, I took part in the Stern Consulting Corps program. As part of this 3-credit course, I had the opportunity to work with a luxury gym headquartered here in NYC to help strategize their expansion across Europe. The semester involved bi-monthly meetings with the client at their offices here in NYC and concluded with a presentation and hand off of our recommendations to senior executives and C-suite members of the company. During our weekly scheduled class time, we received feedback and pointers from our professors, one of which was a former consultant herself, which provided for a no pressure environment in which to ask for help, coaching, and guidance. The Stern Consulting Corps was a great way to gain consulting experience before heading into my summer internship, and I truly feel as though it gave me a leg up when I arrived on day one and was expected to hit the ground running.

The completion of my summer internship validated that consulting is what I want to do upon graduating, and so, after having accepted a full-time offer, I knew I wanted to keep working on real projects with real clients once classes started back up in the fall. This is what led me to enroll in Stern’s Fashion & Luxury Solutions course. With this experiential class, I am working with a Fortune 500 beauty products company to help craft a growth strategy for one of their prestige skincare brands. Similar to the Consulting Corps, we meet with the client at their headquarters and via conference calls as we craft our deliverables, and have our professor to bounce ideas off of and discuss uncertainties with during the weekly scheduled class time. This current project has proven to be a valuable learning experience and is helping me to continue to sharpen my capabilities as a consultant.

 While there are many classes to choose from here at Stern, for me, the ability to ‘learn by doing’ is such a great option and a real differentiating factor of the Stern program. In one short year, I’ve gone from having no consulting experience, to now having three projects under my belt, and I’m not sure this would have been as accessible of an option at many other schools. I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve had here at Stern, and the experiential classes are just one of the many reasons why I’m glad I came to NYU to earn my MBA.

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Mid-Semester Check in…

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This is how I ponder

It suddenly hit me that it is almost the end of the semester!  I am spending the bulk of my time at Columbia University, where I took advantage of one of the different experiential programs that Stern offers. I am taking a course on the public education sector in the US from K-12; it is divided into a seminar and a consulting project. One of the interesting parts is that it takes a multidisciplinary approach where I am studying with other MBAs, MPAs, Law, and Education students from different schools. It has been fascinating to see the different perspectives that we bring to the table, and to realize once again that this reflects the complexity of the “working world’’. The course focuses on the changes that are needed in public education, and I have learned a lot about organizational change and organizational design – concepts that can be transferred to any other company that I work for once I graduate.

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Up on the hill – mornings on the Columbia U. campus

In other news, a couple of weeks ago I had to choose my spring courses and it was one of those moments where I realized that this was it!  There is so much that I still have to learn, and so little time to do it.  This is my 2nd business degree, but I am only starting to scratch the surface. Being at Stern, working on different projects, interning, studying with my peers has been such an intellectually stimulating challenge. It also hit me that this is the last time I get to see my friends who are studying abroad next semester, and that now is the time to really make time for them. I am so excited to graduate, to go out into the world and to chart a path for myself. Yet, I would like to stay in this bubble a little longer. In Kinyarwanda they say: “akaryoshe ntigahora mwitama” – it literally translates into “the sweet doesn’t remain in your cheek” meaning that you cannot hold onto great times forever. I now understand the mixed emotions that the class of 2015 felt last fall.

To end on a happier note though, as I had mentioned in a previous post last year, I will be taking full advantage of the January break. I am going on a DBI in Israel, and after that I am planning on visiting a couple of countries with some of my closest friends.  I cannot wait!

Until next time,

Michaella