What a week it has been ! Am sure this is one statement that my fellow colleagues at the MBA program would vouch for

We had an enthusiastic bunch of 54 highly inspired and focused individuals who had come to HSG with a purpose. Most of us were either from CH or DE, but the mix was amazing : 23 nationalities (country of origin), varying industries / educational backgrounds and more than 25% Ladies ! Definitely a great achievement for the MBA Admissions Team : Hats off to You ! and Thank You for making it possible to live such an experience !

I just returned to CH after a fantastic 2-week business trip to China. Any guesses where this is ?

Prof. Simon Evenett and Prof. E. Wiengarten kicked-off the proceedings with some inspirational speeches followed up with the IT service and the ‘ hot ‘ photoshoot .
Check out our group snap here : aren’t we all set up for the 2-year journey together !

Road – to – Rio : you will hear a lot on this in the coming 2 years ! We’re gonna rock !

Marius Boesch set the tone for group dynamics : he led us through some very interesting team building exercises which were quite amusing and fun ! We also had some team-work on how to select the Class Speaker, and one important outcome from this exercise was the name we selected for our batch : Road-to-Rio !

The first module was International Management, and our guru Prof. Winfried Ruigrok introduced us to the world of Cross-Cultural Management, International Organization and Global Strategies. One of the things we’d never forget : Aguilla, Delfenius and Zante – You all were amazing ! This exercise opened our eyes for sure, on the complexities of getting your act together in a Global environment. I’ll not spell out any details here (lest it ruin the fun for the coming batches).
‘ Guanxi’ and ‘Guoqing’ – these are additions to my Chinese vocabulary, and which am sure has thrown interesting insights into business etiquettes in China. Then we all got into serious mode with Prof. Ruigrok throwing down the gauntlet of a Quiz exam : must say it has been many years (decades ?) since I really got into this mode of study ….Phew, what a relief to get done with it ! This was followed by a very interesting business case discussion which again brought to the fore our team work, analysis and presentation skills. All in all, a very intensive and enthusiastic start to the MBA program ! Oh, btw I forgot to mention that the MBA management team had hosted a nice Apero on one of the evenings…was good to know each other a bit more (I decided to commute from Winterthur, so was more like a day scholar, but there were many who stayed in St. Gallen for whom I’m sure had a great experience to the Uni-mode of life…looking forward to these in Barca !)
We wound up the week with the first LEAD session from ESADE…and before we realized, the weekend was beckoning us ! What a helluva start ! Oh btw, Congrats to our Class Speakers : Julia Minici and Maher Badaro. All the best !

Next stop : Barca here we come !