great events

If thinking about going to Business School, there are other things to consider apart from the academics. Location and Reputation is important, since it will attract great speakers and provide for great events where to get fantastic insights from real-world businessmen.

Monday, I had the luxury of attending the laund of the Institute of Technology at the School. It is a joint venture together with UCL (University College London), and the highlight of the event (apart from the presence of the Dean, the Provost of UCL, many professors from both institutions and a lot of CEOs of hi-tech companies) was a conference by Rajiv Dutta. CFO of eBay during some 5-6 years, later on was assigned as CEO of Skype when it was acquired by the Bay area auctions behemoth, and for the last month or so has returned to the States as President of Paypal. The topic was the influence of technology and innovation in business
, and his views were pretty interesting. The rate of change is increasing exponentially, so we should see many more advances in the next 10 years, almost as many as there were in the whole 20th century. A bit scary as well....he claimed he is being paid to think every day about the consequences of all this for his business.

Of course, the networking opportunities afterwards were very good, and I tried my best to master what people say is the best one gets out of business school: a network.

On the same page, but on a different topic, yesterday we had a panel including Niall Fitzgerald, former Chairman and CEO of Unilever. He shared his views on Corporate Social Responsibility, the Role of Business in Society, and Ethics in general. More great insights, and great networking opportunity on the reception afterwards.

Unfortunately, i had to run out of both cocktails because I had to meet my group for a Case Competition we are engaged in. But the speeches, and the people I talked to, were amazing.