Having missed opportunities to live and study abroad Lars, 23, set his sights on a university outside the Netherlands that offered the CEMS programme. CEMS is a strategic alliance of leading business schools and multinational companies, providing a global standard of excellence for the pre-experience Masters in Management.
Lars says that gaining a Masters before embarking on a career path is common in the Netherlands, but he decided on the ESADE Business School CEMS Masters in International Management because he would get the chance to perfect his Spanish, as well as studying on a programme where practical business projects and exercises are as important as theoretical business knowledge.
Lars, who gained his Bachelors in International Business Administration from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2009, modestly describes himself as “not too much of an entrepreneur”. However, the ESADE CEMS student has been running a small market research firm, Bozec Transaction Management, with close friend and partner Robin Sie, for two years!
The company has already carried out three projects successfully analyzing ways to reduce transaction costs between companies in the harbour of Rotterdam. They’ve even recently hired five Masters students as consultants!
Since Lars has been at ESADE, he says he has already learned a lot on how to analyze business from a practical level. He says, “The three biggest things I’ve learned are team work, prioritizing and planning, and business sense.
"We’ve had intense teamwork sessions with the diverse students and I had to learn quickly how to prioritise the overload of work. ESADE is great at building our business knowledge through letting us work on cases. It's as close to real life as possible!”
Lars groups the CEMS activities into academic, social, and career-related activities. ESADEhas organized soirees for the future business leaders to meet with other students, faculty and industry experts.
CEMS students also attended an EU-wide career conference in Budapest last November where 42 CEMS corporate partners were present, with 28 of them offering pre-scheduled interviews to students.
During the year, Lars and his team worked on a consulting project for Spanish serviced buildings provider analyzing how to make their cleaning services more efficient.
We asked Lars what is his favourite thing about studying at ESADE and he said that it's the people. “The university does a great job of selecting wonderful people. My colleagues are very international and sociable, and being able to create such a group is an asset to the school”, he said.
Lars is now preparing to travel to Singapore as part of an international exchange experience on the CEMS programme. He already has two job offers with strategy consulting firms in the Netherlands and has just come out of the final round interview at a third consulting firm in Holland.
He plans to spend his summer working with his business partner to come up with a business model to keep their market research company running in their absence.
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