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Hi Jon,

Following your great feedback earlier I hope to have your take on another question: Which recommendators to use?

This is the basic of my background:

2010 - Graduated with a MSc in Political Economy + 1 year part time in a major Development Financial Institution/PE-fund
12.2010-06.2012 - Worked as a financial reporter in an international financial news agency
07.2012-07.2013 - Co-founded (CFO) a startup (got funding from Angel and EU and nominated by Startup awards as best Nordic startup)
08.2013--> Investment analyst in a PE-fund focusing on East Africa (pro bono position)
11.2013--> Project Manager in the largest national online business daily (cannot mention by MBA-plans)

My future plans are to work in the impact investing industry (open to consider both as an investor or/and within business development).

Most B-Schools prefer 2 references, and the questions is which I should use for which schools?

I am currently considering LBS and IESE in Europe, and Tuck, Columbia and Wharton/Harvard in the US.

In my view I have 3 choices:

- Former Managing Editor from when I worked as a financial reporter
- Fellow team mate and CEO in the startup (is he even credible?)
- Managing Director in the PE-fund (6 months WE however might reduce the value). As one of my colleagues (Investment Manager) is a Columbia alumni I consider using him for Columbia.

What are your thoughts on this? I ask you as I have noticed that you, in addition to knowing very well the US-market, also have started covering the major EU-schools.

Best regards

Jon,

Appreciate your rapid feedback!

When you say colleagues, do you mean both the CEO of the startup and the Investment Manager in the PE-fund?

The CEO of the startup could really highlight some great aspects such as leadership skills, team work, international abilities etc? And as the Investment Manager has supervised me, rather than worked beside me, I would like to change the "colleague".

Moreover, if I were to get a recommendation from my Angel, would that count more at certain schools than would a recommendation from say the MD in the PE-fund that I am currently volunteering?

Apart from the above mentioned recommendations I see two alternatives:

1) The Dean from my MSc degree (Phd from LSE). So far he has provide a strong letter of recommendation as we got pretty close (I was a class representative and an active participant in many of his classes). Here is part of his recommendation:

"At MSc level, Mr. X consistently performed well. I came to know him as an eager and active student. He demonstrated great analytical capacity, the ability to extract relevant information from large amounts of data and explain it in a simple manner, and strong skills in terms of both oral and written presentations (...) I am confident that his combination of an MSc and his four years' work experience makes Mr. X a strong candidate for an MBA program, and I fully support his application."

2) The Green party's national spokesperson (co-leader of the party). I volunteered as a political writer for the party and was responsible for advocating their business- and development policy, working closely with the party's leaders. Among others I wrote about how to increase sustainable investments in developing countries, and as I wish to work with impact investing in developing markets this very well illustrates my interest.

You are making good arguments as always, Jon. I appreciate your feedback.

Seems like I have 3 different options to choose from then.

Would you say there are any schools more fond of "politics" than others? I.e. would Wharton or Harvard be especially drawn to a profile where one might state that one has made som influence in making shifts of the largest, public pension fund in the world? Towards a more sustainable direction.

My reference from the Green Party can confirm this effort of advocacy, which might indirectly be a reason why the national government has decided to allocate som parts of this enormous fund into sustainable/social investments.

Regards