Inside the program with Stuart Minnaar

During the first few days of Launch Week, someone used a phrase that has been resonating with me since: Doing an MBA is like sitting in a cockpit – so many buttons to push! Do you push all the buttons to see what happens, do you only push the ones that you know or do you push the seemingly interesting ones? I think there are 2 types of students navigating the MBA; I am clear on what I want and I want to get clear on what I want. And the button pushing happens accordingly.

As the programme kicked off, I soon realised that I was drinking from a firehose. There definitely was no time to process everything (content from classes, exercises from assignments) and/or do anyone of the non-MBA activities (party, travel, exercise…dare I say have fun). Fortunately, I was in the Type 1 camp, I was clear on what I wanted. This helped as it allowed me to filter to choose in favour of what I needed as oppose to what I thought I wanted. I only pushed the buttons that I needed, and being ok that there are some that I am choosing not to push even though they looked exciting.

This enabled me to remain focussed. It is a 10 month programme, less holidays, breaks and trips, it is an intense 8 month programme. It is very easy to be overwhelmed by the workload and new-ness of it all, blink twice and you will be a staring at elective options 5 months later.

I knew that I wanted to explore how business can be used for the good of people and planet. For this there are a few fundamentals that I believe in:

• I am not comfortable with business as usual: we pursue profit at the expense of people and/or planet. Increase in profit equals success
• Business is the best vehicle for a society to prosper
• Businesses that focus on a double-bottom line will outshine competition in the future
• We need to shift to business as unusual that focus on a more sustainable business model
• As a business school student, exposing yourself to this shift, places you in an advantageous position for career (and life).

For these reasons, and the desire to get hands on experience in impact investments, I started the student-run impact fund at the school. We grow in early-stage startups by focussing on double bottom-line investments. This has allowed me to meet with most of the top Spanish accelerators (Wayra, Ship2B, Social Next, Unreasonable Institute), business angels, VC (KFund, Samaipata, Cabiedes, JME, Active Investments), other impact funds (Creas, La Bolsa Social, Vivergi, GAWA Capital, Triodos) and law firms (Cuatrecasas, Baker McKenzie, Vivancos). In addition, Fundie has given me a solid stepping stone to the next phase of a career in impact investments.

In closing, I would say: be proactive in getting clear on what you want, take initiative in making things happen, create the opportunities that you need, tap into the resources that you see everyday and push the buttons that you need. With time, you will hit the right one.

To find out more, please visit Stuart’s website.