Author: Liz MCCARTEN

Sometimes it’s important just to get off the train There are many reasons to do an MBA. Re-branding your experience in order to change careers, meeting incredible people from all over the world or simply learning something new through a leading academic curriculum. All those reasons are magnified when having the opportunity to do such…

The Unconventional Background Looking for an international experience for my young family and I, my alumni friends in Portugal insisted that the best fit for me would be, by far, INSEAD, due to its incredible diversity of students and the seamless two-campus experience. Indeed, my background did not include any of the conventional ‘consulting’, ‘industry’…

A bit of fun along the way “No Guts, No Glory” beamed the poster from my teenage bedroom wall – an incongruous cartoon Garfield the Cat poster picturing him pivoting at the top of a ski slope. I recalled this message as I walked into my first factory manager role aged 31. I tried to…

Is life after INSEAD like playing golf? Why did my life journey bring me to INSEAD? In 1999, I was a country manager in consumer goods in Malaysia. At that time, I wanted to change function to venture capital outside Asia in financial services. So, doing an INSEAD MBA was the logical path for me.…

A spaghetti life: Medicine + INSEAD +… Before INSEAD, I had diligently followed a typical medical path – six solid years studying medicine, then another 7 working as a junior doctor, combined with post-graduate training. It was hard work and well contained within the bounds of medicine – a life that could have almost continued…

I read Classics at Eton. I did two years national service in which I had the distinction of guarding HM The Queen and Rudolf Hess, though not, as you might imagine, at the same time. My next step was studying at Oxford. I read law at Magdalen College with a job in prospect in a…

How I found I needed to always wear two hats to find the right balance I can hardly believe I’m about to attend my 25th year INSEAD reunion this year. Has it been that long already? I so look forward to going back to Fontainebleau and spending time reminiscing about the past and catching up…

Life is about taking opportunities when they present themselves I graduated from INSEAD nearly thirty-four years ago. This is simply incredible to me. If someone had asked me when I left university (forty-years ago!) how my working life would pan out, there is no part of it I would have guessed. My first job was…

‘Doing good’ in a lot of wonderful ways Ever since I graduated from electrical engineering in Brazil, I used to say: “I’m going to do an MBA so I can gain some business skills that I didn’t get from an engineering degree”. When seven years later one friend asked me: “So, when are you actually…

Real estate in London became REAL I was born and grew up in Bulgaria’s second largest city Plovdiv, which is considered to be the oldest continually-inhabited city in Europe and one of the oldest in the world. This year Plovdiv is also the European Capital of Culture. I embarked on my international experience by enrolling…