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From Military To MBA: ESSEC Grad Ships Career To Unchartered Waters

Matthias de Larminat swapped battlefield for business classroom

Sat Oct 31 2015

BusinessBecause
Matthias de Larminat, a former mountain climbing French infantry officer, swapped the battlefield for the business classroom.

He enrolled in the Global MBA at ESSEC Business School in 2012, after a lengthy career in the military which included deployments with NATO in Afghanistan, the United Nations on the Ivory Coast, and as a team commander overseeing 150 soldiers in the French army.

Matthias, who has four kids, also served as head of real estate finance for the French military, responsible for buildings, training camps and army bases, with a €200 million yearly budget.

Since graduating from the MBA in 2013, he has also worked for the Djibouti Economic Development Fund, which provides financing for small and medium sized businesses in the African nation. More recently he landed a job as general manager for CMA CGM, the shipping group with 20,000 employees, in Gabon, also in Africa.

You’ve worked in Paris, Djibouti, Bolivia and Gabon. How did the MBA prepare you for a global career?

The ESSEC Global MBA is mainly focused on strategy and how to make a company global. It looks at local and global issues, such as cultural differences, legal constraints, organizational pitfalls, and political issues.

As a result, we dealt with intercultural differences and ways to maximize benefits from this diversity. This started from the class mix: we were less than 30, but a representative sample of all continents. This mix was a great learning experience: imagine yourself in Bolivia with Chinese and Japanese classmates who don’t speak the local language, in a sector you have never touched before. This is clearly a pragmatic way to build self-confidence and to get used to dealing with diversity.

You have a lengthy background in the army. What skills are transferable from military to management?

An army officer shares common managerial practices with a business manager: the military officer has to be honest, organized, competent, and just.

According to my experience, the main similarity is the final goal of the activity and the environments; uncertainty is everywhere. As a result, an officer has to be a leader — more so than a business manager — making decisions fast, under strong pressure to preserve the life of his soldiers. This decision making ability is highly valuable and is often what organizations expect from their business managers.

In such environments cohesion is also a key success factor. Thus, team building and the capability to build trust are important.

How does running a public finance unit compare to the private sector?

Be it public or private, it is all about maximizing money in a constrained environment. That means taking risks.

The first thing which is clearly different is the objective: the final goal was not profit but to ensure an adequate level of service with a restricted budget. The main goal of public finance is to maximize productivity and investment for the benefit of the society. It is hard to value the ROI.

In the private sector, it is also a matter of maximizing the ROI but the final goal is mainly about profit maximization.

What does a French military officer do in his downtime?

As a former mountain climbing infantry officer, I enjoy skiing, climbing, and walking.

But the main part of my free time is devoted to my four kids. It’s not always that easy to balance professional and personal life.

Having taken the decision to move abroad, I am very happy to discover new countries and cultures with my family. After Africa, the next step is Vietnam, where we are moving for two years by the end of November.

You advised Grameen-Veolia Water on a sustainability project. Should more MBAs be involved in social enterprise?

I believe that studying social and sustainability cases during an MBA is very important, as it provides a social approach for future managers. 

MBA programs don’t aim to provide social enterprise leaders, but leaders with social understanding. Thus, I do believe it is necessary to give space to such study in MBA courses, but it has to remain a restricted part of the program.

Student Reviews

ESSEC Business School

Student

Verified

5/12/2023

On Campus

The best intercultural university

There are more than 50 nationality in the grade, so there are opportunities to interact with people from all around the world. In terms of academics, the BBA course offers diverse courses for the 1st

Student

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6/04/2022

On Campus

Creativity, adaptability and entrepreneurship

The Master in Management program at the ESSEC Business School allows the students to choose their courses accordingly to their preferences and their professional targets. We can also go through international exchange and take part in internships with companies that are also partners with the school. The school is also next to the city of Paris.

Prithwiraj

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17/11/2021

On Campus

Top business school in France

Doing PhD in essec took some time, to be precise about five years. But the experience was very good and cost effective too. There are opportunities for the student for teaching assistantship and that helps both financially and in career. In the final year I could manage to teach marketing to M1 students and this helped shape my career

Student

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30/10/2021

On Campus

Great college

The program is well suited for early professionals with an engineering degree preferably or a degree in economics. I would suggest taking the ceasure irrespective of the experience level as it helps you take your time to adjust to the job market.

Student

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30/10/2021

Blended

Good school in France

I am currently enrolled in M2 in Essec business school. I am specialising in marketing management. The Grande Ecole programme is valued in France and my school ranks very high up. There are a lot of opportunities for internships and CDD.

Student

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9/02/2020

The program curriculum

BBA program. The program is really practical and useful, provide us many international opportunities. Like internship and humanitarian experience, and the flexibility is also really cool, we can choose different campus and tracks as we want.

Véronique

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11/12/2019

International Course

This school is very international and business oriented. Highly recognized by the companies The campus has been renovated and is very functional and modern from now on. Excellent atmosphere. Reputation of essec is a plus

kevin

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11/11/2019

Friends, Career opportunities.

The program I did gave me the opportunity to start in Singapore. I got the chance to know all the students that started there and we bonded and made some friends for life. The career opportunities that ESSEC also gave me were unbelievable.

Student

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25/09/2019

Practical and useful

I think the best thing about Essec is that it's not focusing on academics rather it emphasizes on future job mindset and professional experiences.. The classes are interesting and we have plenty of workshops attributing to different sectors.. The campus is very nice with a good cafe and wonderful library. The only problem is the location of the campus. It's quite far from Paris.

Kartik

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14/02/2024

On Campus

Amazing experience! Must try

I think its a very amazing school with great and experienced faculty. Also the alumni network is very solid and useful. The school has a great balance of studies and work experience which is really essential for a student.

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