Business school speakers

One of the untold value-adds of the MBA are the ton of speakers that come through. In any given week there are 4-5 speakers/companies at least. Since we're in London, which is a central hub for European business, a lot of executives are swinging by anyway. So we get access to lots of CEO's and VP's and the like, and hear what they think is the latest stuff in their given industries or companies.

Sometimes I attend because I want to go work for XYZ company. But more often than not, it's just intellectual curiosity. Last week I attended a panel of speakers on the video gaming industry - one of the speakers had sold his company the week before for $75M but STILL kept his speaking appointment at our school, and was a really sharp guy. This week I'm attending two lectures by different companies about consulting to private equity (very educational).

The pics above and below are a good example. General Mills came through school and talked us through a marketing case for one of their product lines; in this case, Old El Paso. In general, the students benefited from learning, and General Mills had the opportunity to raise awareness at our school and hopefully attract some top talent. Fascinating stuff! No, really, it was.

In a nutshell, Mexican food didn't exist in the UK about 5 years ago. And over that course of time, it has risen to be - let's call it relatively well known - to 70% of the population. And they don't have the benefit of Mexican restaurants to help raise awareness. But it didn't happen overnight - they had very flat adoption, then a huge spike after a successful new tv commercial, then flat for a while, then a huge spike after the next marketing promotion. They were really smart about it, and they could measure the impact of each incremental thing they did.

Last pic is their "afterparty" / networking session - free champagne and haagen-dazs (another General Mills brand).