Institution: Harvard Business School (USA)
Course: Leading Global Businesses Program
I applied and was successful for a grant to attend Harvard Business School.
The grant process was relatively straightforward but equally thorough. I enjoyed the interview process and certainly felt a degree of satisfaction when the grant application was successful.
Not long after receiving the grant I was promoted to Managing Director of Korvest Ltd. As a result, I deferred the study until I was settled in the role. Attending Harvard Business School has always been an aim of mine and I was very excited when I was accepted into the 2-week residential course in Boston. The topic of study was “Strategy: Building and Sustaining Competitive Advantage”. Flights were booked and everything was ready to go – and then along came COVID-19. The course was deferred for a year. Harvard Business School then made the decision to move the course online. This meant living on East Coast US time for 2 weeks, but it was well worth the late nights. The course started around 9:30pm each night and finished around 4:30am. I somehow managed to balance work, sleep, case reading and the course for this period and it was well worth it.
From the very first session I was captivated. The course case notes were relevant and many of the companies were well known, some even Australian. The lecturers were very engaging – not an easy task when there are 80 people from 30 countries attending via Zoom. They made it work well considering the circumstances. I learnt something every session. There was a distinct effort to simplify the learnings. Each topic could be related back to our business and many of the learnings and tools have already been intertwined into our strategy process.
I am very grateful to ILF for the opportunity and would encourage any aspiring business leader to apply for a grant and expand their horizon.
