Erwan Le Pavec – Smurfit MBA Blog

Learning to analyse and love Financial Statements

Among the MBA courses and options, there is one that I really enjoyed. This is the course on Financial Statement Analysis given by Professor Eamonn Walsh. For the first time, someone was able to connect the strategy of a company or an industry with its financial statements in a concrete form following big principles, abstracts and visual ways. Thus, it presents the financial statements of companies in an original sense in order to make them smarter. It mobilizes all the knowledge we had in finance and accounting since the beginning of our MBA.

The course goes back and forth between macroeconomics and finance, between a global understanding of the issues and to carry out some technical treatments needed for the evaluation of a business. Concrete examples illustrate the course with economic situations in certain countries or certain sectors or industries such as pension which was interesting as it opened the debate during the course.

This comprehensive option ends with an project of a company evaluation. It is a complete and rich project which make me think about the Transactions Services activities that some firms realized such as PWC, E&Y or Deloitte.

This course is also a base on which we can rely in a buyout. Everything is orchestrated by a professional, dynamic and enthusiastic lecturer. The mastery of the subject by the teacher would almost make us forget how evaluation can be complex. Fortunately, what is conceived well expresses clearly and often appears as a simple at the end.

Erwan Le Pavec

FT Class 2014

Ireland – Realising the Potential

The CV book launch event, “Ireland – Realising the Potential,” was a beautiful evening that provided an opportunity to meet alumni and expand networks to people from varied companies. The evening was prepared far in advance by student representatives and the MBA Careers team, who contacted and invited many companies to attend. This was a special time for MBA students on the full-time and executive programmes to get together and meet guests from prestigious companies.

The evening began with a cocktail hour before welcoming two Smurfit MBA alumni speakers, Julie O’Neill and Fintan Slye, who gave accounts of their professional life leading up to becoming senior leaders in the pharmaceutical and energy sectors. By listening to them, we realized the extent of the opportunities available after an MBA. The speakers provided strong messages about passion, independence of thinking, and finding courage in his/her convictions, which are the characteristics of a leader who unites people in business. These human values derive business as well as innovation, entrepreneurship, performance, incentive, investment and infrastructure development.

Listening to them, we found there are a number of routes available to each of us.
The evening continued with Dean Ciaran O’hogartaigh providing a strong message to keep, maintain and build this special link with other students who are future alumni, with the school and companies.

The evening ended with the distribution of the 2014 CV Book, the resume synthesis of the Smurfit Business School’s MBA cohort which celebrates its 50^th anniversary this year.

Everyone met afterword around a friendly nightcap.

As the Dean said: “Stay connected, Stay plugged in.”

Erwan Le Pavec

Full-time MBA 2014

France

L’Oréal, Sodexo, Imerys…oh my!

The Carnet Alliance is a group of 12 business schools, including UCD Smurfit Business School, which develops links between employers, students and schools.

Recently, I participated in The Global Talent Day, an event organised by EDHEC in Paris, France, with the help of my Career Manager. The event brought together business schools from Ireland, France, England, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Scotland to meet with French companies including L’Oréal, Sodexo and Imerys.

As well as attending a series of company presentations, the event provided an opportunity to discover a wide range of sectors through roundtable discussions and question and answer sessions.

Through meeting other students, developing new branches of networks, and obtaining feedback from a recruiting firm, I gained direct contact to domestic firms and took advantage of the multi-national event. I made the most of the network with the help of Smurfit.

Erwan Le Pavec

FTMBA 2014

France

A course in Financial Reporting

Financial reporting was the first course we had at the beginning of the MBA. This arduous discipline is perhaps the one which will follow us throughout our career. Don’t we read financial results through numbers? It is a basic building block of our program that our lecturer taught us very well. Beyond the accounting technics, she always made sure that we develop a critical approach to financial statement figures and a culture of business. This is an important thing.

The interpretation of accounting rules that will surely explain her willingness to step back. The presentation of significant accounting policies, the study of the recent financial crises, the analysis of financial reports, the study of governance, the practice of exercises pace the different courses and individual or group assignments that we have. It is an intense discipline. Learning accounting in a short time is always a challenge.

Fortunately, lectures occur in a good state of mind and we have fun. The lecturer is available to help us and drive us in our learning. Moreover, a rehearsal session took place before the final exam. Breaks are made to address current news published in the press. I thought the course was well structured and taught and it gave us the tools to move comfortably along in business in the future. Exchanges and interactions during the course are also very informative. I will remember many things including that “all is not geology and geography!”

(The Financial Accounting module on the Full Time UCD Smurfit MBA is led by Prof. Niamh Brennan).

Erwan Le Pavec,

FTMBA 2014.

Discover a place by walking through its history.

When you arrive in a foreign country, one way to discover it might be by walking through its history. Thus, I can suggest visiting Kilmainham jail in the west of Dublin centre. The visit lasts 45min and carries you back to another time.

Just before that, you could start the visit at the GPO (General Post Office), in O’Connell Street. Some events occurred there and are related to the jail. Moreover, it would be a chance to see the famous Spire of Dublin.

The Kilmainham Jail visit begins with a projection of a well-made movie about the jail. Numerous prisoners were sent on to Australia. Numerous Great Irish men from the time of Independence were also jailed in Kilmainham before their execution.

A guide conducts small groups of tourists in the jail corridors. History is well told. You really feel the atmosphere of the place, with its wet walls, its small cells and how prisoners could live at that time. The great famine is also linked to that place. The visit and the small museum before leaving the jail explain why.

Some places are very particular with specific stories like the Connolly one. You’ll learn about Ireland with this visit and its famous leading figures.

Erwan Le Pavec.

FT MBA 2014