My Global One-Year MBA Program at Hult International Business School

Hi! My name is Gabriela, but you can call me Gabi, Gaby, or Gabby. My background is in Corporate Communications and Social Responsibility, but last year I decided to challenge my personal and professional beliefs, expand my frontiers, and become a global citizen. In this article, I am going to share some of the experiences I had during my Global One-Year MBA program at Hult International Business School in Boston, USA.

This has been the most important, challenging, and rewarding year of my life in many aspects. It has been a moment to truly step out of my comfort zone in order to further improve my management and leadership skills. I successfully completed my MBA program in August 2018. During this journey, I had the unique opportunity to study with 140 students from 34 different nations! Considering all the programs at school, we were approximately 600 students and 80 different nationalities.

Submerged in this global business environment, I had the remarkable chance to study and work with people from different backgrounds, cultures, and generations. The Hult DNA—a set of skills that have been paving my journey until here—served as a solid foundation for how to work with all kinds of people. From the list of 18 skills divided into three main areas: Adaptive Thinking, Interpersonal Influence, and Team Collaboration, I would especially highlight the following behaviors that most marked my year:

1.     Display a Growth Mindset: The passion for learning and personal improvement is something that I will always carry with me. After this one year, I am even more eager for new challenges and breakthroughs. I have also learned how to see failure as an opportunity for greater future achievement.

2.     Generate ideas that are new and different: Innovation is when you take courage to transform your ideas into a reality that will make people’s lives better or make this world a better place to live. Throughout the program, I was challenged to do more and do better. This experience showed me that everyone can be innovative, creative, and entrepreneurial.

3.     Demonstrate an awareness of personal strengths and limitations: This experience leveraged my self-awareness capacity. I got to know myself better, which allowed me to exercise my strengths and overcome my limitations.

4.     Listen carefully to others: I have learned the difference between hearing and listening. I had to practice this skill many times with my teammates until I really learned it. For me, active listening is also a symbol of respect. It is when you put yourself in someone else’s shoes, look them in the eyes while talking, and exercise empathy to help others.

5.     Work well with all kinds of people: At work, at home, anywhere. People are different, they think differently, and this is how it will always be. Teamwork, global mindset, and diversity were a great part of my job during my MBA. Although it was not easy and required a lot of negotiation and push-pull strategies, it was possible to work well with all kinds of people, especially because we were all aiming for a common goal. The most important rule here was respect.

During my MBA program, I had the chance to learn core business knowledge, develop leadership skills, and experience business culture by studying the following program courses: Accounting, Managerial Economics, Leadership Skills/Coaching, Organizational Behavior, Research Methods, Operations Management, Financial Management, Business & Global Society, International Marketing, and Global Strategy. Additionally, I had the opportunity to specialize in Marketing by attending the courses: Digital Marketing, Inbound Marketing (by HubSpot), Entrepreneurial Marketing, and Customer Acquisition Through Digital Marketing.

Moreover, I got involved in different projects and activities besides the regular program courses that also contributed to this learning and growth process. Some of these initiatives were:

Hult Prize

I participated in the Hult Prize—the world’s foremost platform for the creation and launch of sustainable and impact-centered startups emerging from universities, offering a grand prize of USD1 million. Together with my team (Dani from Brazil, Jhojan from Colombia, and Sharika from Barbados), we came up with a business model for harnessing the power of energy to transform the lives of 10 million people who are currently living without electricity. The process of coming up with a solution for this global issue required a lot of design thinking from us. Our project was designed in partnership with Singelu providing an intelligent lighting system for smart cities, and Watts of Love distributing solar lamps to vulnerable communities. We had the chance to pitch our proposal to the Hult Prize's judges in the regional classification phase held in November 2017.

Hult Business Challenge 

With a team, I developed and presented a business solution to help General Mills (consumer goods industry) increase their sales throughout the US. From December 2017 to April 2018, my team (Bena from Thailand, Juan Luis from Venezuela, Daniel from Brazil, Shishir from India, and Irene from China) and I worked on a proposal to boost the company’s profits. Based on data and analytics regarding new trends in the food industry, we focused on the organic market. The opportunity allowed us to refer and benchmark a successful Brazilian organic franchise. I was responsible for pitching our proposal to the General Mills’ sales director and managers in April 2018.

International Culture Festival

In February 2018, I organized and managed Brazil's booth during the International Culture Festival at Hult. Together with many of my Brazilian friends at school, we took this great opportunity to share our culture, history, traditions, food, and music with the other international students.

One World Strong Foundation

I volunteered as a member of the One World Strong Foundation’s organizational committee and worked as a bid assistant at the Inaugural Benefit event held in March 2018 to launch the nonprofit organization in Boston. One World Strong’s mission is "to establish a vibrant international community of survivors of terrorism, hate crimes, or traumatic events that provides peer-to-peer hope, support, and mentorship to anyone impacted by these events". It was a fulfilling opportunity to meet incredible people and support this relevant cause.

PwC Pitch Challenge Workshop

I was selected to take part in the PwC Pitch Challenge - Boston Chapter in April 2018. My team (Emma from the USA, Ana Catalina from Colombia, Polina from Russia, Bhavin from India, and Haroune from Morocco) and I prepared a client presentation for a real-life challenge and simulated giving the pitch as management consultants. The challenge was to present a global business strategy in order to implement multi-tower Shared Services Centers for a PwC client. The workshop was led by Marc Seipp and Steffen Roggenbach, PwC’s senior management consultants.

Toastmasters International Hult Club

During the academic year, I led the Toastmasters International Club at Hult. The aim of the club was to empower students to become more effective communicators and leaders by training them for public speaking and developing a higher level of active listening skills, resulting in greater self-confidence and personal growth. At our weekly meetings, we managed to build an environment of trust, confidence, and freedom. In every meeting our Club members had the opportunity to practice their storytelling skill by sharing stories about their lives or related to the special meeting topics.

MBA Graduation Toast Speaker

I was voted as the 2018 Academic Program Speaker to address my MBA peers during the Graduation Toast on August 24. In my speech, I did a brief retrospective of some of the moments that marked this adventure. I finished with these words: “I can only wish that those examples of respect, courage, willingness to find solutions in the midst of diversity, and the sense of community may inspire and lead us in our next choices and challenges. And remember: we are not finished yet. In every day, there is a new opportunity to learn and be transformed into a better version of ourselves.”

Finally, and most importantly, this amazing experience would never be possible if I did not have the support of my family and friends. I appreciate everyone that helped me make this dream come true: God, my family, and my friends. My big thanks to all my classmates (I learned a lot from all of you), professors, Dean Mary Dutkiewicz, and Hult’s academic body who supported me along this journey.

Forever grateful.

Thank you! Obrigada! Gracias!