I joined the EMBA-Global Americas & Europe programme for personal development and to hone my leadership skills. Having worked in London for companies like Enso Ventures and UBS Investment Bank for more than a decade, I had already developed most of the technical skills required to achieve my goals. However, one thing you are not taught in bigger organisations is how to actually build one – and all organisations are made up of people, not just processes and procedures. To be effective in building and growing a successful organisation, you need to understand what is at stake and more importantly, have confidence in yourself to deliver on it. That goes well beyond management and includes many things which are not obvious or intuitive.

I currently run a seed-stage fintech company, providing a first of its kind subscription-based ‘income smoothing’ service, intended for freelancers and gig economy workers. I am responsible for a wide range of functions including strategy, operations, finance, fundraising and stakeholder management. Throughout the EMBA-Global programme, I found the leadership classes to be incredibly useful and relevant to my career. Leadership & Organisational Change with Paul Ingram was a great kickoff to the programme, and Storytelling in Business with Ron Shachar taught me the importance of the human element in storytelling when presenting a corporate narrative. In the marketing course with David Arnold, I learned foundational frameworks and insights that could be immediately applied to real-life business situations. These were just a few examples of the courses in the programme that I attended and found to be top-notch.

I would say that my classmates were the highlight of the programme. Through EMBA-Global, I have met so many talented and interesting people from around the world and from different backgrounds. My classmates are all very impressive people – each in their own way.  I learned so much from them, both in class and through our conversations outside the classroom. I was also surprised by how much impact they had on me and my career. We had lots of great times and fun together on the programme and I found myself gaining new perspectives and having instant access to knowledge in nearly any area of expertise through our conversations. Now I have an amazing network of people I can call whenever I have a question, as well as many new friends for life.

Another benefit of the programme is that the curriculum strategically starts us off with a number of general leadership and discovery classes that shine light on what your strengths are and where you can improve further. This was essential not only in establishing my learning path, but also in developing my own personalised career roadmap for decades to come.

For those considering the EMBA-Global programme, I would say to keep your mind open and be prepared to rediscover yourself. This programme is truly a journey and you never know what you might discover or where it will take you. But no matter where the journey takes you – it definitely will be something bigger and more exciting that you could have imagined.