Spiralone wrote:
GMAT: 730 (Q47 V43), IR 8, AWA 4.5
Nationality: Italian
Age: will be 31 at the beginning of the courses
Gender: M
Educational Background:
-Bachelor Degree in Mechanical Engineering from a Top25 Italian University. GPA: equivalent to about 2.5
-2 years Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the same Top25 Italian University. GPA: equivalent to about 3.0
-1 year Exchange program in a Top5 Spanish university during my Master's Degree
-4 Months Internship as research engineer in a Top20 UK university
-1 Month French Language Course in a Top10 French University (I won a 1500€ scholarship for studying French abroad).
During my study years I managed to become fluent in 3 Foreign Languages, which gave me the opportunity to pursue an international career after my graduation.
I speak the following languages: Italian (mother tongue), French (Bilingual), English (Fluent), Spanish (Fluent).
Work experience (at the beginning of the courses):
-1 year and 2 months as Design Engineer working in Belgium on an Aerospace Project for a global engineering consulting firm (21000 employees, around 2 Billion $ turnover)
-3 years as Key Account Manager working in London for a midmarket engineering and manufacturing company (1000 employee, around 200 Million $ turnover) part of a large American Conglomerate (>35000 employees, 9 billion $ turnover)
This is my current position. My company sells engineering solutions to many of the most important OEMs active in the Power Generation and Oil&Gas markets (Caterpillar, GE, Siemens, Alstom ecc.)
I manage a portfolio of customer worth about 5 Million $ and travel abroad extensively (at least a week every month) to meet with the clients in my area of competence (France, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Netherlands)
My meetings with clients involve both buyers and engineers at all levels (I often discuss with managers at VP level) and are 90% of the times carried out in the client's mother tongue (my language skills, along with my technical background, are indeed the main reason why I got this job)
My duties include:
-Present the range of services and products offered by my company and the specific technical solutions designed for each customer
-Decide and negotiate the commercial aspects of our proposals
-Coordinate Engineering, Manufacturing, Finance and Logistics of the projects awarded with an order.
Current Salary level around 60K$/year. I'm the youngest Key Account Manager of the company and my results are clearly above average (around 15% revenue growth rate in my customer portfolio while the overall company turnover has remained stable).
Goals:
My short-term goal is to become sales manager of a large engineering company active in the energy market (like Siemens or GE), in charge of a specific geographic area, product line or project and supervising a team of 5-10 people.
In the long run I aim to become part of the board of directors of an Italian energy company.
Extra-curricular experiences:
During my study years I founded a small company whose main business was the rental of audio-video-lighting equipment used in local artistic, cultural and sporting events. Although this company never really took off, this experience helped me financing my studies and made me realize my passion for business and negotiation.
What I feel are the strengths of my profile :
-A lot of different international experiences
-GMAT above average for my target schools
-Part of an under-represented nationality in MBA programs.
What I feel are the weaknesses of my profile :
-Age, I will be 32 at graduation
-Short work experience if compared with my age. I obtained my Master Degree only at 26 years old, mainly because during my university years I spent a lot of time managing the small business I had created to the detriment of my studies
-International experience limited to the European Union
-Low GPA.
My target universities are:
-INSEAD
-IESE
-IE
I would greatly appreciate any thoughts or advice and any opinion regarding what I feel are my strengths and weaknesses.
Hey there dude,
Do first of all, congrats on that super-nice GMAT. That will for sure help you a lot, and is probably one of your strongest items in your profile. I think European schools will also very much like your work - how international you are, how comfortable you are working in so many languages - all of this stuff is typically considered very valuable for European MBA programs especially.
I don't think your age is a problem at all. Actually, you are exactly the right age for an MBA in Europe, so you shouldn't think twice about that.
The only real major weakness I see, is your GPA, which you of course know. You have already done the single best thing you can to work with this by getting that GMAT score, but still, since it is real low you can also write an essay about it (maybe tying it in with your A/V business in school).
Other than that, I think that with a good application and logical goals, you should have a shot at those schools. You may want to add one or two more to your list, if you find some that fit your goals.
I hope this helps,
Best,
Jon