Executive MBA case study: multitasking masterclass
I do not like routines, status quo or conventions — that’s not my thing. As soon as I feel I have discovered everything there is for me to discover in one place, I want to go on to the next thing.
I was born and grew up in Senegal. In my late teens, my family moved to Canada, so I have dual citizenship, and I might soon have a third one here in Switzerland, where I work as a digital transformation lead for EMEA at Roche, run biotechnology start-up Nemosia and participate in an executive MBA programme called EMBA X, run jointly between the University of St Gallen and ETH Zurich.
It is all about prioritisation, self-management, and correctly identifying where I can add value. If I cannot add value, I delegate — and, of course, [there is] a lot of multitasking.
I always knew I wanted to go to business school at some point, but I never found the right time to have a break in my career. I was also struggling to find the right programme. I really wanted an experience that was not purely business, but offered a bridge to technology, as my background was computer engineering.
Another reason that the EMBA X programme was right for me was the relatively high average age of the participants, because I was looking for that meaningful exchange and networking with my fellow students. The course is 18 months long and we have classes on Fridays, with on-site sessions for a week or two every other month.
What I really like about our cohort is that it is so diverse. We are from so many different industries, and I constantly encounter perspectives that I had not considered before. It is very rich and challenging — we actually challenge our professors quite a bit as well. Sometimes, we have extra sessions just to conclude debates and dive deeper into topics. The course has an emphasis on sustainability aspects, which is also something I really liked. We have even worked with a couple of non-governmental organisations during the programme, which I did not expect going into it.
My start-up, Nemosia, is a spin-off from research by two graduates from ETH, whom I met before I started this EMBA. We are developing molecular imaging solutions for early detection and monitoring of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. We envision that, in the next 10 years, brain scans will be part of the general public’s health check-up routine, even if there are no visible symptoms.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Patricia Nilsson
