Steven has just started his MBA program at IE Business School. We shall be following him throughout his year on the program. Here is the first installment:
Steven - IE current student
Hi Steven! You’ve just stated the International MBA program at IE. How are you settling in?
Hi there! Yes, everything is going well and the work has certainly started to pile up. I’m living in a flat 15 minutes walk from campus and I’m sharing with two fellow students. Madrid is obviously a great city to live in and the fact that the campus is so close to the centre means that we are enjoying the city a lot.
Tell us a little about yourself and why you decided to join IE.
I am originally from Belgium. I started my professional career at PwC where I worked as a Tax Consultant before moving into Management Consultancy in a global project for Philips, OSRAM and GE to develop joint collection and recycling schemes for energy saving lamps. After a year I then moved to Accenture as a Finance Consultant but then, although I enjoyed the work, I came to the conclusion that what really drives me is starting up my own venture. I feel that doing an MBA at IE Business School, a school that promotes entrepreneurship, is a great first step in starting up my own business.
What about an interesting fact about yourself…
Well, the fact that I have 5 brothers – 4 older and 1 younger – is quite special. You can say that I had to struggle a lot at home but I also learned how to fight for the things I want.
Although classes have just started, what have been your favourite so far?
I have really enjoyed the entrepreneurship management classes by Professor Peter Bryant. He teaches in such an interactive way that he helps you get a good insight into how successful companies begin. There are so many elements that go into starting a business and Professor Bryant has gotten us to focus on a few key success factors already through the case method. We’re shortly going to begin our business plan project where we will be divided into our areas of interest (IT, services, biotech etc) and then we have to design a business plan from scratch.
What kind of extracurricular things have you been up?
Apart from the networking events and conferences, I organized a Belgian Beer Fiesta in my apartment last week where we offered 20 different types of beer to sample. We also went to Salamanca last weekend with some fellow students which was a lot of fun.
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