Studying at IESE Business School while supporting our team: Abhinav’s story
Abhinav Kumar is a part of our team at DnA Industry Solutions and supports us as a business development specialist. Parallel to this, he is in the final stages of pursuing his MBA at the Barcelona Campus of the globally renowned IESE Business School, one of the highest-ranking schools in its category. How is it possible to pursue his studies while supporting us at DnA in our projects? We asked Abhinav, and he gave us some insights into his life and experiences with his studies and the remote work environment at DnA.
Being passionate about new technologies and convinced that it is the way of the future, Abhinav originally obtained his undergraduate degree in Computer Science in his home country, India. He worked in the field for seven years, gaining experience in the logistics, high tech, and telecommunications sectors. While enjoying working with technology, he realized his interest towards people and leadership. This led Abhinav back into the classroom to educate himself further towards a global career. As he always considered an international learning environment as crucial, he ended up choosing IESE Business School for its reputation as one of the best business schools globally, for its known diversity in hosting people from a high number of different nationalities and backgrounds, and its location in Europe.
The student life at IESE Business School, according to Abhinav, is nothing short of a dream. The University demands a high level of academic rigor from its students, while offering a challenging and inspiring study environment with its case study learning model. The list of subjects studied and learned varies from problem-solving, leadership, and negotiation to capital markets, building and scaling businesses, product management, financial accounting, and B2B-relationship management, to mention a few. Another elemental aspect of the study program is the opportunity to create an impressive professional network. Different clubs are an important way of getting involved in varying topics, such as technology, consulting, energy, and responsible business.
While Abhinav is enjoying his studies in Barcelona, he is a part of our team at DnA, participating our projects when the opportunity arises. How has this been possible on top of his studies, amidst a global pandemic?
The Covid-19 pandemic has surely disrupted the way we work and interact with each other, forced businesses to move towards a more virtual setting, and has naturally affected Abhinav during his studies. According to him, however, this is where our team and business organization distinguish themselves in a positive way – DnA identifies as a remote first organization, enabling the team members a high level of flexibility in where they are located and where they work from. This has allowed Abhinav to stay in Barcelona for his studies and participate in DnA projects from there. Not having everyone working in the same place of course has its own challenges and requires a level of coordination and effort to keep everyone engaged with each other, but this is achieved by weekly team meetings to keep everyone up to date on relevant developments, and 1-1 meetings between colleagues when necessary. Coordination is also required to ensure that the external stakeholders are satisfied with the way that the organization does business. Whether businesses like it or not, it seems that the pandemic has started a greater move towards remote work and increased levels of flexibility. It may have become one of the significant factors attracting new talent.
How does Abhinav balance his participation in our team, studies, and life then? Although the MBA degree in principle has a somewhat fixed schedule, the workload varies from week to week. This works well with Abhinav’s position in supporting with projects at DnA: he has a level of flexibility in how and when he is available to participate, and this allows for effective coordination with the studies on a week-to-week basis, so that the workload is more evenly distributed. Sometimes he finds the time management challenging but deems this an important skill to learn for the future. Outside of his work and studies, Abhinav enjoys being in Barcelona, which provides plenty of activities, museums, parks, and areas to discover. He enjoys spending time exploring the city with his newly found friends from the study program, and regularly does excursions to other parts of Spain and Europe. A relatively new skill for him is playing padel, which provides another good way of spending time with friends.
All good things come to an end, in Abhinav’s case so does his time of studying in Barcelona. He is graduating in May 2022 and is looking forward to new opportunities. He wishes to always combine his love of technology with his love for people and leadership and plans to use his skills to build businesses and drive forward digitalization in challenging industries.
We love hearing that Abhinav enjoys his time working with us, but more importantly it is us who must thank him for his invaluable contributions. Not only has he been an amazing and valued member of our team, but he has opened the doors for other students at IESE to get in contact with us. Currently, we are seeking new members to join our team on the ground or remotely in an exciting and agile start-up environment in varying positions in the field of business development and digital manufacturing. If Abhinav’s story has inspired you and you think your skillset may be valuable in our team, do not hesitate to contact us.
Thank you, Abhinav, for everything!
