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Why MBA: Harvard Business School

London-based private equity manager had offers from Harvard and Wharton

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Klaus Koenigshausen

When Klaus Koenigshausen found himself with offers from the world’s top-ranked business school, Wharton, and the third-ranked, Harvard, he chose Harvard for its superior network in the private equity industry.

Koenigshausen, 27 is winding up life as a manager at Bain Private Equity in London and heading to Cambridge, Massachusetts in a few weeks to begin a full-time MBA.

He says he always thought he would do an MBA at some point, but was “back and forth” on actually applying. Then, in October last year he decided to give the degree a shot. “I’d been in private equity for two years, and thought it was a good time to decide what I want to do with the rest of my life,” he says.

Koenigshausen applied to Wharton, Harvard Business School and Insead. When he got offers from Wharton and Harvard he pulled his Insead application, feeling a two-year programme was better for deciding on his “life journey”.

He attended welcome weekends at both Wharton and Harvard, which took place after the second round of the application process, in April. His first instinct was to accept Wharton but he made a “180 degree turn” after the welcome weekends, during which he “came to appreciate Harvard”. He also talked to people in his firm and at other firms in the industry.

“In the end it was because I know I want to come back to Europe, and Harvard has a larger European network, especially in private equity” says the native of Düsseldorf, Germany, who specializes in large-cap leveraged buy-outs in Western Europe.

“The MBA can’t help me to get a new job or to increase my compensation because I’m already in the industry, but it will help in terms of networking”, he adds. “Harvard has a bigger brand here than Wharton. I don't know why that is”.

He met a lot more Europeans at Harvard than at Wharton, but emphasises that people at Wharton were friendly, open-minded, “humble people with interesting backgrounds”.

He didn’t worry about turning down the world’s top school: “If you're in the top five it doesn't really matter…. the gap between the top schools is very small”. He points out that one of the key drivers of rankings are salary increases on graduation, and that perhaps more people at Wharton went into the financial industry this year.

He expects that finding the right balance between working and networking will be the biggest challenge at business school. “The network is the long-term pay-off”.

If he stays in private equity, the alumni network should come in handy for sourcing new deals. If he starts his own company, then fellow alumni could become potential investors, partners and customers.

The network consists mainly of classmates who move on to interesting positions, according to Koenigshausen. Alumni are more useful as mentors than for getting a job. But he’s skeptical of wowing non-Harvard grads when he's done: “I don’t believe in name-dropping with non-alumni as it rarely opens doors in my experience”.

Comments

26 June 2009

"Why I Chose Harvard Business School"

This is a disappointing title and article.

Everybody knows that HBS is higher ranked than Wharton. It doesn't matter if the FT (or any other ranking list for that matter) favours the latter over the former. HBS is HBS. No sane person (particularly someone from PE or wanting to enter the PE world) would reject HBS over Wharton.

Anonymous

Klaus seems to be a typical HBS adcom 'dream admit:'

- Male
- White
- Bain PE
- 27 yrs old

Why is it that unless you work for a PE firm or a top tier I-bank or strategy consulting firm you are deemed a 'fit' with HBS?

Come on, please admit outstanding individuals outside of these traditional/feeder career paths.

Anonymous