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MBA: Leadership talks

29 April 2015

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Up close and personal: how to get beneath the boardroom veneer of business leadership speakers. Leadership talks are staple fare for MBA …

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Up close and personal: how to get beneath the boardroom veneer of business leadership speakers.

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Leadership talks are staple fare for MBA programmes. CEOs on the circuit know what to expect and are polished in delivering their wisdom to eager MBA classrooms. But at Cambridge, the approach is different – closer interactions and more informal settings help students and leaders communicate more effectively. From its Cambridge Leadership Seminars, which enables students to listen to and dine with leaders, to the Leadership In Action course, students can get up close and personal with those who have made it at the top.

The Cambridge Judge leadership experience can also lead to great things. Lord Dennis Stevenson runs the MBA’s Leadership in Action course, and invites business leaders to share their insights and experience. Alongside Marc Bolland, CEO of Marks & Spencer, and Nigel Wilson, CEO of Legal and General, this year’s speakers included Rupert Pick, a CJBS MBA graduate whose marketing agency Hot Pickle was set up with the help of Lord Stevenson.

Says Rupert:

During a Cambridge MBA Leadership in Action course Lord Stevenson said anyone with a good idea should come and see him. So we did, and Dennis immediately saw the potential and encouraged us to explore how it might become a permanent business.

Lord Stevenson explained why he was so keen to help Rupert. He said: “I invest in the person, not the idea, and I have to like and trust that person. You’d have to be demented if you didn’t have some level of belief that the idea could make money, but the absolutely key issue is the person.”

So what sets the Cambridge MBA apart is its up-close and personal approach to leadership insights. But don’t just take our word for it: meet the students who’ve used the inspiration of unprecedented access to business leaders to forge successful careers.

Yenson She

Current MBA student

Yenson She
Yenson She

What’s your story?

I was a management consultant with five years’ work experience by the age of 29. As an undergraduate, I did an exchange in the US that I loved because it brought me into contact with so many different people and nationalities. After graduating, I worked in Hong Kong for a cosmetics company and then went to Proctor & Gamble as a research manager, then to Roland Berger, but I began to think about my career and an MBA.

What’s impressed you?

It is the enormous wealth of knowledge, experience and backgrounds of those around me here in the MBA class. Diversity is top of my list – I now have friends in 30 different countries. The staff care about providing the real, multi-stranded MBA experience. I didn’t just want to focus on the classroom studies in any business school, I wanted something more than that.

Has meeting the leaders been all it’s cracked up to be?

I have attended Cambridge Leadership Seminars, which involve lecturers followed by dinners at Trinity College with first Peter Harris, founder of Hotel Chocolat, then Sadeq Sayeed, a former banker from Nomura’s acquisition of Europe businesses at Lehman brothers. Their speeches were truly motivational but it is in the dinner setting that you get so much more. When someone addresses you at a seminar you get to know maybe 10% of who he or she really is. But at an informal dinner setting, when there are maybe only 15 of you, you really get a sense of who someone is, their personality, where they came from and the events that shaped them.

It was clear with both of these men that not only were we able to learn from them, they were taking a very strong, genuine interest in us and welcomed the contribution we made to their own experience. I was fortunate to walk to the dinner with Peter Harris and we conversed about customer behaviour. It was the time and the interest he showed that was so impressive – he made me feel we were on a common platform and that he could learn from me, that I was an equal contributor to the conversation.


Khaldoon Bushnaq

Current MBA student

Khaldoon Bushnaq
Khaldoon Bushnaq

What’s your story?

I am an engineer by practice and have worked on a number of mega-projects around the world, such as the construction of concourse 4 in Dubai’s International Airport. I have also worked as an investment associate for an ultra high-net-worth individual, where I was responsible for structuring private equity real-estate deals in North America, Europe and the Middle East.

What’s impressed you?

This is a one-year intensive MBA programme with a truly diverse student body. The unique background, nationality and professional ambitions of each individual, both students and faculty, are what impressed me the most. You have to prepare yourself to be immersed in a multilingual, multicultural and international educational experience in the classroom, or during the Venture and Global consulting projects, or simply while having dinner with your peers in a formal hall at of one of the colleges.

Has meeting the leaders been useful?

Leadership at Cambridge Judge Business School is nurtured through various discussions and conversations that take place in the classroom. The transformation from potential to leadership is realised in the leadership talks where you not only get to hear the personal story of these global leaders, but also dine with them at one of the university’s prestigious dining halls.

I have had the pleasure to meet prominent leaders from all walks of life at the leadership talks, such as Sadeq Sayeed, the CEO of Nomura International, and Lord Bilimoria, the CEO of Cobra Beer. They both excelled through their careers by being both entrepreneurs and intrepreneurs and their stories were inspirational. What struck me most is their genuine interest in learning more about every student attending the talk and how willing they are to go the extra mile to help out.


Pradita Astarina

Current MBA student

Pradita Astarina
Pradita Astarina

What’s your story?

I was at the heart of the Indonesian government and, at 25, was an Associate Director to President Yudhoyono. When his presidency ended in 2014, I had envisaged continuing to work in a management role, possibly in the private sector, so I opted to do an MBA, principally because I would like to master the area of business, government and international economy in the future.

What’s impressed you?

Cambridge has such a vibrant atmosphere, full of energy. You’re surrounded by students of a very high calibre so you learn from your peers. Leadership talks really complement my rigorous academic experiences in Cambridge MBA. Moreover, leadership dinners provide a perfect and profound surrounding to interact closely with the speaker.

Has meeting the leaders been useful?

The opportunities to meet business leaders give a perfect complement to your studies. In the Lent term I attended a strategy lecture by Lord Bilimoria. It was such a great experience to hear about entrepreneurship strategy from the person who had already nailed it. He encouraged the MBA candidates to have guts, maintain our own credibility and integrity (never compromise our own values) and enjoy the serendipity when the determination meets opportunity.

I also had a group lunch with Bradley Fried, one of the speakers in the strategy course. He is a role model who has successfully combined a private and public sector career, as a Partner of McKinsey & Co in New York and a former CEO of Investec Bank. It was an amazing experience because I had a chance to ask direct questions to him about his prior experience in banking and investment firms.