What were
you doing before the MBA and why did you decide to come to the ESSEC MBA in International Luxury Brand Management program?
Before the
MBA I worked for 4 years in Spain in Finance. Although I had always been
attracted by the fashion luxury industry I thought working for a bank for a few
years would be a good experience. After a couple of years I started looking at
the possibilities of changing careers and started my research on the different
Business Schools. ESSEC MBA seemed like the perfect fit: it was opened to any
kind of background and it was the only one with a specific focus on the luxury industry where I wanted to redirect my career.
I was impressed by the quality
of the partnerships the school had with the fashion houses and luxury
conglomerates which was a very important point to develop a good network.
Finally, it was in Paris, and I thought that if I needed to learn about luxury
it could only be in that city.
Please
describe your career path since graduation. What is your current position and
responsibilities?
Just before
graduation I was hired by Alexander McQueen as Project Manager. I moved to
London in November 2012 and have been working with them since then in business
development and strategy.
What in
particular in the MBA in International Luxury Brand Management helped you
prepare for your career path or qualify you for your current position?
The MBA
gave me a great and unique understanding of every dimension of the luxury
industry. The teachers, as well as the many executives who collaborate with the
program, are true experts of the business. Learning from them sets an essential
basis to start a successful professional career on this industry.
The alumni
network is also an extremely valuable asset of the program. I received great
guidance from many of them in terms of how to look for jobs, how to approach
the companies and what are the different positions that I could be interested
in. They also put me in contact with many other people so they help you develop
very important professional relationships.
What is
your best memory from your time in the ESSEC MBA program?
It is hard
just to pick just one… But I have a very good memory of the field project at
the end of the program.
I worked
for almost two months with three other students and it gave us the opportunity
to put in practice everything that we had learned during the year. We realized
that we knew much more than we thought!
Most
importantly, before the MBA I had only work with finance people and in the
project it was four of us from very different countries and very different
backgrounds: design, finance & communications. It helped me a lot to
understand how more creative people work and it was a bit of a taste of what
was going to come later at work.
What advice
would you give to current students in the program?
I would
tell them to enjoy as much as possible the exceptional opportunity they have.
They are now with many potential future leaders of the industry and they are
living in the best city to learn about luxury. I would tell them to be curious
about everything, to visit all the expositions they can and to meet as many
people as they can. Every day is going to teach them something new and it is
going to go really fast.
I would
also tell them to not stress about what we all stress by the end of the program
which is finding a job… if they work hard and are passionate about what they
want to do they are going to find the perfect job.
