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07 Jul 2021, 08:00
| FROM Cambridge Admissions Blog: Taking parental leave as a startup CEO – Sponsoo Founder and MBA alumnus |
 I just returned from the first out of four months of (part-time) parental leave. While I was spending time with my wife and my newborn son, I had lots of opportunities to think about my situation – wondering why it was still relatively uncommon for startup founders to officially take some time off. Here are my thoughts – I’d be happy to hear yours! Why is it so uncommon for startup founders to take parental leave? After the birth of his oldest daughter, Mark Zuckerberg made global headlines when he announced to take two months parental leave. Two years later, he did the same for his second child. However, Mark Zuckerberg’s case still remains an exception to this day. But why? Why is parental leave still such a controversial subject, especially in tech leadership roles? In my small (non-representative) sample of about a dozen other startup founder-parents, none of them officially took time off. Some were even surprised that it is possible at all if you’re self-employed. With 10+ years of leadership experience in several startups, I learned the hard way how difficult it is to let go of work tasks. There’s always a strategic project to manage, an important deal to close, or a new product feature to develop. The pressure to deliver results to your shareholders and to keep the company growing is always there. This obviously conflicts with taking time for the family. However, while there’s ample opportunity to help your startup grow, there’s only one chance to be there for your partner and your newborn baby directly after birth. And, in hindsight, I’m so glad I didn’t miss it. We need to challenge the expectations of the startup community The startup community is increasingly vocal about “mental health” and “equal opportunity for male and female founders”, yet when it comes to actually taking time off for the family, it is awfully quiet. Dear startup community, “mental health” is more than just writing some snappy blog posts, hiring expensive coaches or occasionally going on a one-week meditation retreat in an instagramable natural reserve. If you want your founders to remain happy and stable, you should not just (grudgingly) accept, but actually promote taking longer periods of family time. After all, isn’t this the “new work” we’re all so passionate about? And yeah, I totally believe that this is also an issue of gender equality. Male founders can theoretically go back to work directly after their child is born (although they shouldn’t), but female founders don’t have that choice. The only way to balance the scale would be to actively encourage founders of all genders to take some time off. On a side note, this would also fight the outdated perception that raising children is primarily a mother’s job. And why stop at just taking some time off! Here in Germany, both parents can together take up to 14 months of paid parental leave. Again, this clashes with the startup community’s expectation that founders should be available as much as possible. Many founders (including me and my friends) feel that they would be evaluated as “not fully committed” by investors if they don’t live up to this expectation. I’m grateful that this doesn’t apply to my current investors in Sponsoo, who were fully supportive of my plans to reserve some months for the family. To be fair, I didn’t take full parental leave, but just scaled down my work to part-time (to about 30% of the hours I usually work). I would wish that the decision how much time to take is fully within the realm of the soon-to-be parents, and not constrained by the startup ecosystem or shareholder expectations. Be creative, be flexible To address the obvious: Yeah, it’s clearly not possible to just leave your startup unmanaged for an extended period of time without prior planning. But who does that?!? If you are a founder, your startup is your other baby. No one leaves their baby without ensuring that it is taken care of. If you’re part of a team, and have enough planning time ahead (and usually you have about 9 months…), it should always be possible to find a way that works for you and your startup. To just throw some ideas into the room: Work part-time. Work flexible hours. Work from home. Temporarily hand over some responsibilities to other team members. Find an interim manager, if necessary. Split your time off into several smaller chunks. Be creative, be flexible, and make things happen! Turn the startup ecosystem into a (more) family-friendly environment So, what remains? From my personal perspective, it was great to have the opportunity to take some time for my family. I don’t think that Sponsoo’s growth suffered at all from my (partial) absence – quite contrary, I feel much more energized and able to focus on my work. If I had a wish, I’d love to see more founders take family time, and be vocal about it – so that others are encouraged to follow their example. In my ideal world, running a startup and having a rich family life wouldn’t be at odds. In my ideal world, the startup ecosystem also wouldn’t miss out on all the would-be founders who were forced to decide between family and founding a startup, and selected the former. What are your thoughts on parental leave for startup founders? I would love to start a discussion!  This article first appeared on LinkedIn written by CJBS alumnus Andreas Kitzing(MBA 2013-14) at Sponsoo – the #1 marketplace for sports sponsorship. For more Career insights from Cambridge MBA alumni and Founders visit our Cambridge MBA Entrepreneurship web pages> |
14 Jul 2021, 03:00
| FROM Cambridge Admissions Blog: My Cambridge MBA Global Consulting Project (GCP) with United Nations Defeat-NCD Partnership |
 I had the privilege of doing my MBA Global Consulting Project with the United Nations Defeat-NCD Partnership. My teammates and I – Dhananjay Dixit, Jim Chang, Tim Belitza, and Yoshin Nakamura – successfully developed a business case and investment pitch for a set of satellite cancer centres in Rwanda, to improve health outcomes impacted by non-communicable diseases. Our team helped the government of Rwanda and relevant stakeholders determine the order in which they should implement their chosen NCD initiatives and which potential funders to work with. The Cambridge MBA GCP project provided me with the opportunity to apply many learnings from courses like Strategy, Corporate Finance, and Management Praxis, in a tangible and impactful way. With a wide range of impressive projects to choose from, I picked a project that aligns well with my background and my future career aspirations – global health strategy. The project validated not only my desire to continue to work in this space, but also my ability to contribute productively now that I am equipped with skills and tools from my MBA year. The Global Consulting Project was one of the main reasons I chose the Cambridge MBA programme and I am glad I did! The highlight of the GCP for me was my team! It is really important for me to be a part of a team that I will work well with and have fun with. Our skills and strengths complemented each other’s perfectly, allowing us to learn from each other and deliver a really strong deliverable to our clients. I know that they are lifelong friends who I can count on to support me throughout my future personal and professional development. More Cambridge MBA GCP and Practical Project insights and experience >  |
16 Jul 2021, 04:00
| FROM Cambridge Admissions Blog: “Doing Good” and “Doing Well” are not mutually exclusive – my Cambridge MBA MIINT experience |
 It was the early weeks of the Cambridge MBA and we (all 174 of us) were just acquainting ourselves with one another. Few of us had interacted over some Zoom sessions earlier that summer, but we had barely scratched the surface of the immense collaboration that was to follow. During the course of this entire year, we would all have worked in multiple teams together. Definitely, one of my absolute highlights for this year, would be representing Cambridge Judge Business School in the extremely prestigious and coveted Turner MIINT (MBA Impact Investing Network & Training) competition. MIINT, a seven month-long competition, is a collaboration between Bridges Impact Foundation and Wharton Social Impact Initiative It was the early weeks of the MBA and this was the first year that Cambridge Judge would be sponsoring two teams for the MIINT competition. So one Saturday morning, over a Zoom call, we split up 10 enthusiastic impact-driven individuals into two formidable teams. Our team comprised some of the smartest minds I have engaged with in Charlie Foster, Stephanie Esuola, Yann Grandemange and Ashish Khanna. We were divided by our diverse cultural and professional backgrounds, but united by a strong passion in impact investing and the sentiment that “Doing Good” and “Doing Well” are not mutually exclusive. During the sourcing stage of the competition, we were extremely lucky in our access to the University of Cambridge research and entrepreneurial structures focusing largely on solving environmental issues (e.g. Cambridge Zero, Centre for Circular Economy, Cambridge Cleantech and Cambridge Institute for Sustainable Leadership to name a few). We were also benefited immensely by access to the entrepreneurial ecosystem courtesy of Cambridge Judge faculty, Dr. Chris Coleridge. As a result, we were able to source over 60 companies as potentially excellent investment opportunities. All of these start-ups were radically different from one another – from a sustainable fashion tech to battery as a service (BaaS), but were aligned in their goals of a better world. By mid-December, we were able to screen all these companies and narrow down to five potential investment opportunities, which we split among ourselves as the SPOCs. It was during the next phase of the project, i.e. the due diligence phase, where we had the amazing opportunity to talk to the founders of impact-driven start-ups and discuss business ideals, innovative technologies and impact measurement. Eventually, we zeroed-in on representing “Zedify” at the competition. Zedify is a zero-carbon last mile delivery company operating in multiple cities in the UK. While we ultimately were not successful in proceeding past the semi-finals of the competition, participating in MIINT has been one of my biggest learning endeavours this year. While I have worked in Mergers & Acquisitions before, impact measurement and sustainability in business was not something I was well acquainted with. We had some fantastic study material, made available to us by the Turner MIINT people, and were also able to tap-into previous knowledge, experience and skills of our selfless Cambridge MBA cohort. It is the last few weeks of my MBA, as I bitter-sweetly write about how I spent seven enriching months of this MBA year. For incoming cohorts, I would highly recommend future students to seriously consider taking part in this amazing opportunity. Capitalism is evolving – today’s “buzz” of social innovation and sustainability are tomorrow’s indispensable business pillars. The MIINT team also worked with the wider Cambridge Judge Business School community including Cambridge Social Ventures and mentor and Fellow of Social Innovation Belinda Bell. The Turner MBA Impact Investing Network & Training (MIINT) is an experiential lab designed to give students at business and graduate schools a hands-on education in impact investing. For more insights about Prizes & Competitions during the Cambridge MBA year visit our news archive > |
19 Jul 2021, 03:00
| FROM Cambridge Admissions Blog: Going Native – my Cambridge MBA Global Consulting Project with Native Design |
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[url=https://i2.wp.com/www.cambridgembastories.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GAWANKAR_Tripti-2-1-resized.jpg?ssl=1][img]https://i2.wp.com/www.cambridgembastories.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GAWANKAR_Tripti-2-1-resized.jpg?resize=610%2C406&ssl=1[/img][/url] [b]What was your Cambridge MBA Global Consulting project experience like overall?[/b] Doing an MBA is about charting out a transformational journey. I wanted my journey to lead me from the world of finance to the world of Design Thinking. The Global Consulting Project (GCP) with [url=https://native.com/][b]Native Design[/b] [/url]at Cambridge Judge Business School gave me an amazing opportunity to do just that. I had the chance to work with a leading design consulting firm which let me challenge both sides of my brain. My creative and analytical skills were put to the test and I could get hands on experience in a field that excites me. [b]What MBA learnings did you apply during the project period?[/b] We used our modelling skills along with market research skills. Identifying market opportunities was also something we learned while working on the GCP. From our digital business class, we were able to map potential customer journeys as well. [b]What were your takeaways and Cambridge MBA learnings after the project? [/b] Our four-week project was akin to a mini-internship. It was amazing to see what all we could accomplish in just four weeks – We looked at the future of the world, discovered trends that could stick in a post COVID-19 world, designed commercial solutions for the client and devised a pricing strategy. [b]What was the dynamic like across the MBA team on this project? [/b] Working with extremely diverse and talented people in the cohort is a different form of learning in itself. You learn from their experiences and you also learn to work with people who are very different than you, which can be very challenging especially when time constraints are involved. [b]What was the highlight of your GCP for you?[/b] The Cambridge MBA Global Consulting Project is designed to give us experiential insights into our dream jobs at leading companies. The highlight for me was that I got to do some which was a world apart from my previous experience. I could leverage my transferable skills and I also got to learn so much as our clients gave us masterclasses in various design techniques. It was a chance to metamorphosize into something completely different. [b]What client outcomes do you think were delivered successfully? [/b] We were able to give them very interesting insights into the world of education through the lens of leading universities along with innovative ideas to commercialise technological solutions that would make the customer’s life easier. Tripti worked with MBA classmates [b]Isam Khan, Rachel Osnos [/b]and [b]Hikaru Oikawa[/b] at Native Design. [b][url=https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/programmes/mba/curriculum/experiential-learning/global-consulting-project/gcp-experience/][b]More Cambridge MBA GCP and Practical Project insights and experience >[/b][/url][/b] |
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