It has been 17 years since I stepped into the corporate world, as a starry eyed youngster trying to make it big in this world. Financial services and banking have always fascinated me and in all these years, I have been associated with this industry, engaging myself primarily in the distribution of financial services.
Looking back at my career, I recall with pride that I have always relied on my skills to spearhead the distribution of financial services and the latest innovations that were brought forward in the industry from time to time. In the last fifteen years, I had initiated twelve new start ups and successfully delivered in all the assignments. Kicking off new businesses has come to be my forte.

At this crucial juncture of moving further up in the senior management, I realise that running businesses with turnover in excess of $ 500 Mn needs a deeper understanding of the nuances of planning and strategising. Challenges such as sustained brand management, managing change, dealing with wider cultures and driving innovations, although found in small and mid cap corporations, pose a greater challenge in large cap corporations.

A Global MBA would provide me with a platform wherein I can broaden my comprehension of the day to day running of large businesses while on a cross-cultural pedestal and operating in the security of a classroom. The case-study approach adopted by most of the global B-Schools would give me hands-on experience of critical thinking and the multifarious discussions with professionals from across the world would help me broaden my perspective and appreciate these nuances. I believe a global MBA would further restructure my thinking and prepare me for an international career in emerging markets across the world.

"Why do you need an MBA?"

*Edited*

This contest made me realize that I really need to focus on effectively communicating why I am pursuing an MBA. I thought it would be easy to write my essays, but now I know that I need to refine my strategy. Thanks for the reminder!

AWESOME NEWS! Johns Hopkins Carey Business School reached out to us just now and they want to provide an application FEE WAIVER to 1 winner! If any of ya'll plan to apply to Carey, let us know and we'll take that into consideration when we announce winners!!

Best,
Bea

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep."
Breaking the barriers of gender and an orthodox culture, I managed to travel quite a distance from my first job, at an early age of 17, as an insignificant government official, through the painful burning of midnight oil to complete my graduation with a full time job in hand, to graduating from a b-school and eventually growing to spearhead several successful projects of financial service distribution.

I have been working in the rural space for 6 years now. During this time, I have led more than thirty budding Non-Governmental Organisations working for rural poor into financial inclusion, worked with more than a dozen rural organisations in building their operational and financial systems for expansion and I now see them run successfully. Over time, I have developed a forte in dealing with start-up enterprises and Incubation of such enterprises has come to be my USP.

While start-ups come with a specific set of challenges, established businesses face several other challenges such as brand management, sustainability, keeping up with innovation and competition, expansion, large group management, to name a few. This is the domain that I am a novice at.

A global MBA, I believe, would provide me the right platform to understand decision making in established businesses. By bringing together people from across the globe and coupling it with world-class faculty, the program would provide an excellent opportunity to exchange insights on the methods of operating in various business situations - evaluating risks, appreciating the presence of various stakeholders, strategic decision making and the profundity of its impacts on these stakeholders across space and time, managing change - especially with business expansion.

By bringing in such broadness of perspective, I believe, the program would prepare me to take my next challenge in life - administer established organisations.
I intend to apply this knowledge back in the rural organisations that I incubated to start off, I would prepare them for exploring the untapped rural markets, where financial inclusion is still a farce, brands are still unrecognised and industrial infrastructure is still unheard of. My aim is to help build businesses in these communities thus contributing to a balanced economic development.
This is my way of contributing to the society. My journey has already begun and I know I have a really long way to go. I am only looking for a catalyst and I believe an international MBA would be just that.

WOW WOW WOW! Everyone, I have been absolutely blown away by the quality of everyone's responses. This was so hard to do that I had to pull Eric, our founder, to help select the 2 winners. In his words "I'm so proud of our community, these entries were incredible!" I completely agree.

After reading each submission, we've decided that the two winners are...::DRUM ROLL::

sumayahlaura and arunpanda22!!

Congratulations to the two of you - your essays on "why do you need an MBA?" were engaging and wonderful! I've passed your username and email addresses to Lauren from Precision Essay, who will be reaching out to you both shortly with information on how to signup for the bootcamps.

ALSO, if either of you plan to apply to Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, please let me know and we'll pass your information to our contact there, who will WAIVE your application fee!

Congrats again to everyone who submitted, we are so blown away by the high quality of all your responses. I hope this prompt helped you in your MBA journey and gave you great practice for your apps as well as our BTG 2012 Scholarship (apply here: https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/scholarship).

And to our winners, we hope the Precision Essay MBA Bootcamps get you that much more prepared and therefore that much closer to achieving your dreams!

Best,
Bea

Yay! This is fantastic! Thanks you so much for this wonderful opportunity, I can't wait to get down and dirty with my mba application with the help of the Precision Boot camp.

And what a strong group of people to be chosen from. Every story I read made me feel re-inspired to be part of the mba community. They also made me a little nervous realizing how competitive next years rounds are going to be.

Thanks again and much love to this community.

wow! I won !!! nice!!javascript:emoticon(':D')

Lemme be frank. Before I went to sleep yesterday(ya time gap you see 1500h pst is nearly 0300hrs in India)i went through all the essays that were submitted. Some real strong essays there. I had no hopes of winning. Thats why i was a bit late in checking the mail too!!javascript:emoticon(':o')

now i know this since i have attended a real bootcamp.
getting in is much easier than getting out. so if getting in was this hard may god save my soul gettin out!!

allthe best to all other applicants esp theperegene,313mogul,bksai369,sam2304,tco2012, scholardream, penguinfoot, anibaheti.
you guys have got real great essays!!
best of luck for b-school apps!!
thanks beakim for hosting such a thoughtful competition wit such an introspective question.
And last but not the least thanks to precision essay for the wonderful prize.

thanks again

PS:hey chicken lady see ya at the bootcamp!!

Awesome arunpanda22 and sumayahlaura !!! Congrats !! Utilize the bootcamp to the full extent To be frank I wouldn't have participated as drafting essays is the most time consuming job if not for the bootcamp and Beatrice as well for sending out PMs. This was definitely a start for me. Thanks to both Beatrice for organizing the competition and Precision essay for the wonderful offer to BTG members

Congratulations, winners! Now that's a start - you win in a public forum! I agree too: some entries were really competitive. It sure does look like the rounds are gonna be tough . Good luck anyway.

Your thoughts are so quintessential to mine. good to know that I am not alone in the race, where so many prowessed soul reside....

ilovemyself wrote:I believe human potential is unlimited. My goal in life is to the best person I can be in all aspects, namely, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. I feel when I can improve in all of these aspects, you would magnify your energy and be able to reach your highest potential.
I feel the need for an MBA as it will help me gain the necessary business skills which would help succeed as an entrepreneur. I see myself as a spiritual entrepreneur, helping serve the society and at the same time making money for myself. Apart from this, an MBA would add solid credentials to my resume and the brand would help me build credibility with my customers.
Also, the amazing and diverse peer group in a top MBA program would help me learn about different people and cultures, which in turn would help me broaden my perspectives and understand the world better. I see an MBA as a wonderful learning experience in this amazing journey called Life!