Professional Development – Smurfit MBA Blog

The Beginning of a New Phase

This week another phase of my life is coming to an end. I submitted the Capstone Project Report, the last assignment of the MBA. Myself, Eoin, Emrecan, and Cathal were the first team in the class to submit the report. We did our project with a start-up company called Mobstats. The company provides an artificial intelligence (AI) solution for sport clubs to increase fan engagement. Our project was to develop the company’s business plan, particularly focused on market and competitor analysis, marketing and sales plan, pricing guidance, risk assessment, and financial projections.

The Capstone Project is a unique opportunity to put in practice all the learning from the MBA in a real business environment. Especially for students pursuing a career in consulting, the experience reflects what they would face when dealing with clients, from setting the scope of the project through the engagement letter, to delivering the final product using different frameworks. The diverse background of my team combined with the experience we had in the international consulting trip to Iceland surely maximized the learning from the Capstone Project.

Now that we are ready to go back to the real world, a new phase begins. New expectations, challenges, and goals are now being set by each colleague in the MBA class. Some colleagues have already accepted a job offer, others are still doing interviews, some are starting their own business, others will travel the world before returning to the world of business, and a few will continue their student journey. Regardless of the situation, we all share the same sense of accomplishment from successfully finishing the MBA.

An important stepping stone was achieved, but we all know that our journey does not end here. New challenges will involve as much effort as required in the MBA. Everything we learned throughout the MBA will help us to succeed in the next stages of our career. However, we need to be aware that our learning process does not end with the three letters on our CV. We all need to be open to continue to learn as the world continues to change.

Marcelo Cardozo de Mello Boccuzzi FT MBA 2017/18

“They think its all over…. it is now”

2 weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak at a Smurfit MBA reception attempting to debate the future of big brands and the importance of innovative communication with Damien McLoughlin. I’m going to be nice to myself and call it a draw – but irrespective of the outcome, it made me think of what a journey this MBA has been. 2 years ago I do not think it would have been me in front of that crowd. After the talk, several potential 2018/19 MBA students approached me to gain some insights and find out the best and worst bits of completing an Executive MBA. It caused me to think about it properly, possibly for the first time as it has been a whirlwind 2 years. Outside of the Executive MBA, I have moved job, moved into a new house and any day now our 3^rd child will arrive into our family. So it’s been hectic. But it’s been a positive experience too.

I didn’t go on any international trips during my 2 years so maybe my highlights are more mundane than those who experienced Reykjavik, Lima or Yale. For me, a large highlight is the fact that I have been in a position to implement so many of the learnings I have made directly into my work. Not only is this very professionally satisfying but it keeps the entire programme relevant and current. Take Group work as an example. Group work never appealed to me – but the setup of the programme forces you to engage with it from Day 1. With Semesters, Global Virtual Teams, Block Week assignments and Capstone, I have been involved with 8 Groups during the 2 years. Not only have I have learned a huge amount about working with teams, from basic communication to the setting of roles, but I have also learned an awful lot about myself. I hope I have added something to the Groups I was in too. They are more than capable of letting me know if I haven’t. I can use these experiences, both positive and negative, in my current job. The current and real life experience focus of the EMBA, driven by not only the lecturers experience and their use of current case studies but more so by the discussions and arguments that took place between my fellow classmates, each with lots of experience in completely different industries to me, help shape this.

Surreally, my last act in my Executive MBA (apart from Capstone of course), was to cook a chicken casserole in Ballyknocken House along with Catherine Fulvio and a group of business students from Smurfit, Yale, Haas Berkeley, IE Madrid, Egade Mexico, Fudan China and Hitotsubashi Japan as part of the ‘Future of Food’ GNAM Block Week. A memorable experience to round off a memorable 2 years. It’s time for the next chapter now. Reintroduce myself to normal life – I’m looking forward to not feeling guilty about sitting down and watching TV without a nagging thought I should be reading something.

On Day 1 of Initiation week in August 2017, the first person I met on the course was Osgur Ó Ciardha. It was fitting that he was also on the Future of Food week and so we bookended the 2 years nicely. Since we first met he has secured a new job and become a TV star! I look forward to hearing of many more success stories from my classmates into the future.

Robert Slattery, EMBA 2016/18

Life in the Emerald Isle

A cook to prepare food, a maid to clean my house, a chauffeur driven car to take me around, clothes washed and ironed for me to wear, this was how life was for me back in India. Fast forward a few months, I found myself in Dublin, learning to cook even the most basic stuff, vacuuming my floor and putting clothes to the laundry, all of this in the middle of an intense start to the MBA program. Life had certainly taken a 360-degrees turn.

However, as time progressed, with the help of my roommates – Himanshu, Anita and Bhavya, who are also in the MBA program, I was able to settle in quickly. Suddenly, the place seemed familiar, I discovered the food I cooked was edible and I could manage to keep my place clean enough so as to not get kicked out from the on-campus accommodation.

In the second semester, one knows that one can get through the various modules, no matter how challenging they appear to be. With optional modules available, I learnt immensely from modules such as ‘Negotiations’ and ‘Strategy Execution’ which are relevant to my career path. In this semester, you realize that the end of the course is not far away and start preparing for life, after the MBA. In my case, I was mentally preparing to returning back to my business and the learnings that I could potentially implement. Having set up my own company three years ago and having made a million mistakes along that journey, I am extremely satisfied with the learnings from the MBA and know that I can contribute massively to my business once I get back.

For me personally, it has been that the relationships that I developed further that matters to me the most. Starting with my roommates, to my classmates who were on the trip with me to South America, it has been a pleasure to get to know them better. On the recent international business trip to South America, I fell sick because of the altitude and was diagnosed with Vertigo, a condition due to which I could not balance my body and as a result, could not stand or walk. It was with the help of classmates on the trip, especially, Thom and Himanshu, that I survived and was able to make it back safely to Dublin.

I was happy to get involved in some of the MBA clubs in the last few months. Recently, as part of the social outreach team, we visited the Carysfort National School, where we conducted a ‘Bizworld workshop’. We essentially introduced these kids to the business world, explaining some of the basic business terms and concepts. We explained, in simple terms, things like, how to identify a problem and come up with an innovative solution, how to set up a company, how to assign company roles and finally, how to make an effective business plan. We then, made them understand the world of funding and trained them to pitch their ideas.

On the final day, these kids had the opportunity to pitch their idea to ‘Dragons’ (some members of our team who played the role of a VC) and get investments. They also pitched their ideas to the students from the previous grade to get funding. The entire social outreach team was mind blown with some of the ideas that came up. The level of creativity shown by these students in coming up with an idea, choosing a company name, designing a logo, creating marketing collateral, was way beyond what we expected. It was an eye-opener for me and a very satisfying experience.

I was also fortunate to explore the country in the last few months with my family. Visits to Galway, Cliffs of Moher, Ring of Kerry, reiterated the fact that I chose the right country to study. If I had visualized paradise all my life, this would be it. Of course, I cannot finish before I mention the amount of fun I’ve had enjoying the nightlife in Dublin. Come Friday night, my Instagram stories are filled again, I wake up at 8am on Saturday morning and it suddenly strikes me… I have strategy class in an hour – and off I go again!

Jayanth Veerendra, Full Time MBA 2017/18

Learnings from year 1 for Newtalk scholarship winner 2013 Niall Twomey

One year down (almost!), one more year to go and what a year it has been! Looking back on the past twelve months the experience has been both fun and challenging. I don’t think any applicant can fully appreciate the opportunities the Smurfit MBA offers until they experience them first-hand.

The MBA is all about teamwork, and understanding your strengths and weaknesses in a team setting is vital in order to develop your career. The calibre of your fellow students is second to none. You quickly realise you are being given the opportunity to work with future leaders from different industries. Through team interactions I have come to recognise that because I have only worked in the IT sector my opinions were actually quite fixed and need to be challenged and matured. My teammates certainly helped me there.

The style of classroom learning is very different to anything I have experienced before. You are expected to have completed a large amount of self-study and research before class. This means the classroom is an interactive learning experience where you learn from your lecturer and your classmates through discussion and debate. You realise that you need to be on top of your game in order to participate, but it is a lot of fun to challenge yourself.

The academic content is just one strand of the MBA; the leadership development programme, speaker series and society events are just as important. The connections to industry mean that your network goes far beyond your classmates.

Having the good fortune of receiving the 2013 Newstalk MBA scholarship has opened up the Smurfit MBA experience to me, and one which I will always be grateful for. The opportunity to be interviewed by Bobby Kerr on his “Down To Business” show was a great way to finish off the first year.

Niall Twomey

EMBA Weekend Year 1

Time to think …

There is an element of the MBA experience that gets lost in the noise of commentary on hours, deadlines, hand ins and team meetings. The full time MBA gives you back some time in your life to think. To think about what you want to do, to think about what you have done and to think about what makes you tick. Any perspective student should know the amount of hours required on the MBA programme is a often overhyped. MBA graduates you will meet remember the pinch situations where they had to work until the wee small hours of the morning for three nights in a row, or they remember a chronic three week period in semester 1 where they had 5 projects hanging over them. But the reality of the situation is that this is the exception rather than the rule. There is a steady flow of work that (if you keep on top of) is eminently manageable. The MBA experience gives you more time out then your current career. It is NOT like having a fulltime job and there IS an element of reliving that college experience where you used to have time to think, chat and pursue some new interests and side projects.

As an entrepreneur I find this time invaluable. In the “real world” It’s hard to get time to think about new business ideas and exciting innovations. In the MBA bubble you can find that time again and more importantly, when you do find that time you are far better equipped to turn day dreams into realities should you choose to do so. You start refining your ideas from the minute they pop into your head, what are the barriers to entry? Is it an attractive Industry structure? What is the value proposition? How easily would this be imitated? Do you have access to resources required? It also helps that you now have 35 new people in your life that you can bounce ideas off and develop some thoughts you have had on your career, or a business idea or even a further course of study after the MBA (God forbid!).

So don’t let talk of “surviving the MBA”, the “divorce course” and “say goodbye to your family for a year” influence your decision complete an MBA. It is challenging but doable, and if you are at a bit of a crossroads in life, the programme will give you the time and resources to figure out the grand plan for you. That plan will change daily by the way but at least you will be thinking about it….

Trevor Whelan

Full-time MBA 2014

Breaking Through the Career Ceiling

Why I did an MBA:

Before the MBA I was working as IT consultant on multi-million European-wide deals. When we were finalising these deals, I found myself in a room with the EMEA heads of HR, finance, marketing etc. I was representing the EMEA lead for consulting. I was keeping up with these high-power conversations, but only just. I had hit a career ceiling and to progress my career further, I needed to break out of my consulting zone and get on the same level as these domain specialists.

The Smurfit MBA was how I did this.

What my head knew but my heart denied:

The content of an MBA isn’t difficult; it’s the breadth and depth of knowledge that you have to consume in a compressed time that’s the challenge.

What everyone says, but I didn’t believe until I got there:

You learn quite a lot from your classmates, and yes – you get out what you put in. Push yourself out of your comfort zone and you will be rewarded.

What I learned most:

Over the years, I had already worked out many of the concepts from the MBA in my own head, from first principles. The MBA put structure and a formal nomenclature on the fuzziness, allowing me again to work with other domain leaders.

What shocked me about the MBA:

In the last 5-10 years before the MBA I had gotten used to being the “smartest guy in the room”. In the first couple of weeks in Smurfit, I realised I was in the lower 50-percentile of the class. This was quite a shock to the ego.

My favourite moment on the MBA:

We had a presentation from the conductor of a concert orchestra. I didn’t engage initially – I wasn’t going to apply for the job. But he slowly explained his role: to coordinate 80 primadonnas, all who believe they are better at their job than he is at his. All who think they could work better without him, all who wanted to give their own 90 second opinion, some of whom were just passengers, and somehow his role was to add value so the whole was significantly better than the sum of the parts.

EUREKA! I realised these were the same challenges that I faced in my role as a programme manager, and therefore certain knowledge and skills are fungible.

It was these insights that were the highlights of the MBA.

What I did with my MBA

I was hired by a major IT organisation to improve their “Value Engineering:” to create business propositions for large deals, especially where the CIO was convinced. The CFO & CEO needed to see some financials, albeit based on the technology, and with real numbers before getting on board.

The job offer was routed through the Smurfit MBA Careers Office and the mandatory requirements for the position included an “MBA from a top European business school.”

Luke Beare

Full-time MBA 2009

Senior Director | Industry Strategy & Insight, Oracle

Conscience as a Business Tool

It’s strange, even unnerving, to hear a CEO speak about society, about community, about the need to do not just what is profitable, but what is right. Last week our EMBA class heard from Niall Fitzgerald, former CEO of Unilever and corporate success par excellence, on how modern capitalism was failing because of a fundamental lack of values – and perhaps even a lack of morals.

The title of his address, “You Can’t Have Successful Business in a Broken Society,” invited a certain level of skepticism among some of my more cynical classmates. I think it’s fair to say that most of us would see a certain degree of truth in the tired cliché, “nice guys finish last,” and that few would feel the modern corporate environment is a warm, fuzzy place where everyone just tries to be friendly and get along. But I would be confident that Mr. Fitzgerald’s central point reached even my most jaded colleagues – it’s not a question of whether businesses should be more ethical, but that they must be more ethical in order to survive.

In this globalised world, short term approaches to growing profits, using resources or managing workers will simply no longer work, we were told. Gouging customers will merely open opportunities to more reasonable competitors. Today’s factory workers in low-cost economies are also the consumer class of tomorrow’s growth markets. And as for reckless exploitation of the environment – if China’s population were to reach a Western standard of living at today’s rate of resource usage, we will need nine more Earths to meet this demand. Clearly, if a business (never mind humanity) is to survive in the 21st Century, a long-term approach is needed.

Having listened to Mr. Fitzgerald’s address, I don’t think any of my classmates can now doubt his central point. If anything, I think, his cornerstone argument in favour of a long-term, responsible approach to the challenges of the modern era needs to be widened beyond business, to encompass society as a whole. After all, during the boom period in Ireland until 2007, the very banks who are now pilloried for being reckless were being criticised for not giving out enough mortgages. Undoubtedly, business in the West needs to take a good long look at itself. But the same might be said of society in general.

Eoin McDonnell

EMBA 2015

Ireland

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

Coaching to the Finish Line

Coaching provides a safe space for MBA participants to explore challenges that may be causing interference by focusing on personal development in a programme that is by nature competitive and challenging. It allows space for thinking, reflection and exploring more of the emotional intelligence aspect of leadership. Now in my second year of coaching MBA participants at UCD Smurfit, I have found the participants to be very smart people from a range of countries, backgrounds and industries.

All have a shared ambition to be the best that they can be and to reach their potential. There is a formula in coaching from The Inner Gameby Tim Gallwey which reads:

Performance = (potential – interference)

At the heart of the coaching work that I do is a conversation. This conversation is led by the coachee’s agenda and my primary role is to listen and understand the coachee’s story. That story can include career development, values, patterns in their working life, motivation, managing stress and managing opportunities.

For the coachee, the sessions provide time and space to talk out loud about what is top of mind for them, in other words what is their inner game. We all have an inner game, so exploring aspects of this with a coach allows the coachee to bring into focus what they are thinking about and how they can work on it.

There is always an inner game being played in your mind no matter what outer game you are playing. How you play this game usually makes the difference between success and failure.Tim Gallwey

Working with a coach, they explore reality, look at goals for the short term and longer, explore options for change and agree on actions for the future.

The beauty of the programme is that each coachee has access to three coaching sessions, which allows time for the coaching relationship to develop, for reflection, for actions to take place and be reviewed, and for themes to emerge.

As we start 2014 I am looking forward to my coaching sessions in the coming weeks with the MBA participants. I am excited about what actions they have taken since their last coaching session and what new challenges and opportunities we will be working on together over the coming months.

Pamela Fay is a business and executive coach. Pamela has run her own business for ten years and qualified in 2009 as a coach.

“I’m a Red-Blue Peacock-Dolphin”

Not many people would understand what the title above means, but to any UCD MBA student, it conveys insight into my qualities as a group member and a leader.

Our Wednesdays have been packed with psychometric tests and learning resources, through the Leadership Development and Careers Programmes, intended to guide us through our pursuits of new roles and new industries as we develop into leaders post-MBA.

Other blog entries have discussed the activities of the first week, when we discovered a little about how we function in groups, and animals and colours were assigned to our individual qualities. Inevitably, my results provided me the least endearing animal possible: the Peacock.

During a more recent Wednesday, we explored the Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI). This tool encouraged us to think about our motivational system, our behaviour, our strengths, and the ways in which we respond to conflict in a team setting. As Wednesdays go, given the introspective nature of the tasks and the need to discuss others’ strengths/weaknesses, this was the most emotionally exhausting.

From SDI, the most interesting insight I gained into leadership was the fact that “assertive” (red) leaders are not necessarily the most effective: that at times “altruistic” (blue), or “analytic” (green) will lead to better results. I’m also glad to have had the chance to actively learn from my group mates’ experience of working with me; an opportunity I have never before had in the workplace. So with pride, I announce that I am a Red-Blue Peacock-Dolphin.

Niall Ó Muiré

FT MBA 2014

Ireland