Wrapping up the school year at ESSEC...

ESSEC’s first class of Global MBA students are nearing the end of their rigorous, twelve-month program. These 24 students, who represent 12 nationalities, each brought an average of six years work experience across a range of functions and sectors to the program when they began.

In addition to their coursework in Cergy, the Global MBA students spent six weeks at ESSEC’s Singapore campus, studying and familiarizing themselves with the cultural, economic, and business climate of this Asian city-state.

Projects and lectures were frequently punctuated by visits to and from companies and practitioners. Particularly memorable speakers were Pierre Nanterme, ESSEC alum and the CEO of global consulting firm Accenture, Antoine de Saint-Affrique, another alumnus and the President of the Foods division at Unilever, and even the Minister of Educaton of Bhutan, who spoke to the students on measuring success and the principle of Gross Domestic Happiness.  Frequent treks to companies such as Apple, Google, Viadeo, IBM, Microsoft, John Deere, McKinsey & Co., and LVMH (among many others) exposed students to a fascinating array of industries and opportunities and forced them to flex their networking muscle.

And in keeping with the hands-on emphasis of the program, the students have had several opportunities to get immersed in the field. A week-long field trip to Russia allowed them to explore companies and culture in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and at present, all 24 students are at work on the ground in their International Immersion Projects. This month long immersion has taken them to locales as diverse as Egypt, Venezuela, Uruguay, the Philippines, South Africa, and India, where they are working on business projects and learning how things work in these major emerging markets.

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They’ll be back on campus to report on their work and wrap up their capstone in September before their graduation on the 21^st of that month. An exciting and successful year for a promising and accomplished group of MBA students!