Considering consulting is one of the most popular MBA career paths, leaving a top firm like Accenture, where postgraduate salaries can be as high as $135,000, must have been a tricky negotiation of the mind. Perhaps, he just wasn’t cut out for the function?
“I didn’t enjoy it a lot, so I took the risk to leave my job and decided to enrol in an MBA,” he said. “I’ve always liked to learn new things and I was trying to change industries.”
That is not to say Robert wasn’t well versed in the role. He was a consultant at Scytl Secure Electronic Voting for over two years and after entering the company in a Junior position, he left their Barcelona branch in 2010 as a manager that oversaw eight employees.
The company is a global leader in secure electronic voting and Robert negotiated the sale of voting platforms to 52 Chambers of Commerce in France.
He left to link up with a branch of Accenture Spain but, after a year, decided it wasn’t for him. “When I quit, the market wasn’t booming so it wasn’t easy to find another job,” he recalls.
“In Spain, most opportunities were in the consulting sector so it made the change even more difficult. Changing industries or jobs is not that simple. I thought the MBA would be a good enabler.”
And it was. He has since landed a job with SABMiller, one of the world's leading brewers and a company that regularly snaps up MBA graduates. After studying at St Gallen, he never left Switzerland.
“I knew St Gallen very well because some of my friends have studied MBAs,” he said. “I wanted to stay in Europe. I was tempted to stay in Barcelona and there are a lot of great universities in Spain.
“But I thought there would be better opportunities in Switzerland. I’m also fluent in French so I thought that could be a competitive advantage as well.”
While gaining an MBA in Switzerland, Robert had the opportunity to return home and work in a finance strategy role at Cofidis, a French financial services company, during the summer. He thinks it was a good experience and picked St Gallen’s MBA in-part to stay within Europe’s job market.
But this is not Robert’s first career transition. He first studied Telecommunications and later, Civil Engineering, for six years. He was working at Scytl while still studying at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. His role was software-orientated; a field he has a passion for.
An engineering background hasn’t been particularly relevant to his new career path, and Robert confesses that an MBA is more applicable from a cultural rather than a professional prospective. But he has no doubt that studying at St Gallen was essential for him to make the leap into a procurement role at SABMiller.
Since joining the business last year, he has moved through the ranks to Procurement Application Specialist, a new position he refers to, modestly, as “a small upgrade”. SABMiller may be famed for Peroni and Coors Light beers, but Roberts’s role involves managing all the software applications for sourcing and contracts.
“Honestly, I didn’t expect this when I moved departments but I’m glad I made this change because it’s a really good experience,” he said. “I’m learning a lot and am in touch with all the departments in the organization. It’s been great so far.”
St Gallen’s reputation held him in good stead during the recruitment process. “The MBA was key (to get this job),” he said. “It’s a new industry, a new position and I have never been in procurement. But the MBA was crucial; I only knew about this opportunity because of an alumnus.
“The company values the St Gallen MBA, because most students that have been hired at SABMiller in the past have been successful and have fitted into the job.”
Consulting may be one of the dominant MBA Jobs, but studying at St Gallen allowed Robert to gain international experience and switch career paths. His goals were to change industries and land a finance role – ones he feels that wouldn’t have been so easily completed without an MBA.
“Considering how flat the job market is across Europe, it’s difficult to get a job in a new country,” he added. “It’s even more difficult to position yourself when you don’t have experience in the field.
“I had Accenture, but it couldn’t get me a role in procurement or supply-chain management. The MBA was a good compliment and enabled this change, definitely. I couldn’t have planned it. It went beyond expectations.”
After studying at St Gallen, he has established a new life for himself in Switzerland. Barcelona was tempting but after an MBA, a finance role in Zurich was too strong a lure.
It would take courage to leave behind Accenture. But an MBA has given Robert many more strings to his bow.
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