That Career Boost Called MBA

AN MBA FROM SDA BOCCONI CAN PUT YOU ON TRACK FOR ALL KINDS OF CHANGES. GRADUATES OF THE VARIOUS MBA PROGRAMS TELL ABOUT THE IMPACT THEIR STUDIES HAD ON THEIR CAREERS

Those who have attended it often say that an MBA changes your life. The question is: to what extent is this still true? According to the statistics provided by the SDA Bocconi School of Management concerning the MBA graduates of 2015 (latest available survey), after earning their MBAs, 90 out of 100 students saw changes in at least one of the three following variables: country, industry, function. Furthermore, one in three MBA graduates experienced change across all three dimensions.
 
But, beyond the numbers, it is the point of view of those directly concerned that measures the impact of an MBA on one's career. Fabio Stefanini, 34, attended the Full-Time MBA class of 2014. He had come from a 5-year experience at Eni. After his MBA, he joined Amazon as senior product manager and is now in charge for Italy of the Amazon Pantry project: "The MBA was a plus for my career, not only because of the position it allowed me to reach," the alumnus explains, "but also because it allowed me to change industry, from oil and gas, where I always worked in procurement, to e-commerce. A leap that would have been very difficult without the MBA." Thanks to the SDA Bocconi Master in Business Administration, Fabio also realized "that the world of consulting, which had originally been my dream, actually wasn't for me."
 
A similar experience is shared by Emanuele Orlando, 37, who graduated from the Executive MBA in 2015. At the time of entering the MBA program, he was working in the oil and gas industry as commercial director for the U.S. multinational Gilbarco Veeder Root. While attending the MBA, he got a career advancement as strategic business director of the company and then he decided to leave the industry to do something else entirely: "Since April, I've been head of international sales at Gruber Logistics, a transportation company,” he says. "I will be leading an international team of 30 people." Why this change of route? "The ability to analyze many case studies and the opportunity of having classroom peers from different fields gave me the urge to explore new ones." And he adds: "I became an executive at 32, but after eleven years in the same company I wanted to experience new challenges, because I was a becoming a bit of a fossil. Sometimes, in multinational corporations, directives tend to fall from the top giving less room for intervention by managers in the full of their personal career development."
 
Pietro Leone (Global Executive MBA, class of 2010) was already CEO of marketing and communications when he began the program. He has not changed industry, but experience has allowed him to question the processes of the company he subsequently joined in the same position, Geometry Global. "The way we mastered the strategic functions of the companies at the MBA recommended I'd review the way we worked. We have come to fully re-evaluate the company's value proposition, by developing new processes, a new product, and consulting services that bring more value to our customers. Thanks to this work, from June I will be global COO of Geometry Intelligence, a service that we have now launched in five EMEA nations." To return to the initial question, "I do not think the Master has changed my life, but it has certainly taken me from where I was to what I could be."
 
We have therefore seen changes of industry and changes of function, as the data from Full-Time MBA program confirm; unpacking the data, it turns out that 79% of graduates changed industry after earning their MBAs, while 77 % changed position, and 55% were transferred abroad. This was the case of Gianluca Borghi, an Executive MBA after attending evening classes, who in January this year was appointed Montblanc's Retail Manager by the the Richemont Group headquartered in Paris: "I had great support from the company, and I seized on the potential inherent in such an experience," the alumnus explains, who previously served as sales, corporate business, retail franchise and supply chain director in Milan. "They saw an opportunity in me as well, and, as soon as I finished the master, they offered me to do an international experience. My role is managing the network of monobrand stores on the French territory. " What did the MBA teach him in particular? "A deep focus on marketing and a new approach to problem solving. And these are fundamental Aspects in the retail world."
 

Source: ViaSarfatti25