Having graduated in the 1990s, Aletta felt the need to update her knowledge in 2013. At that time, she was working as a director for UBS in Hungary, travelling a lot to Switzerland and meeting international colleagues. “I felt that if I wanted to get ahead in my career, I needed to educate myself. It was important for me to study in English, as I was working in an international environment,” she explains why she liked Corvinus. “There were some subjects I had never studied before. I wanted to bring myself up to a level where there were no gaps in my management skills when measured by international standards.” For example, Aletta gained up-to-date knowledge on IT, supply chain management and international negotiation techniques during the EMBA.
In retrospect, she feels that she has made a lot of progress during the program and that it lived up to her expectations. “As soon as I finished the EMBA, I didn’t get a lot of great job offers straight away, but gradually I realised that I was a step ahead of others who hadn’t done similar training. To this day, there are business situations when something I learned in a class comes up and I can use it immediately.” Aletta therefore sees the EMBA as a longer-term investment: “I can reap the rewards every year as I have deepened my knowledge. It wasn’t that I learnt something for an exam and then forgot it, but I remember the teachers, their materials and the classes exactly.”
Aletta has been working for five years as an external crisis management consultant in various industries. “I’ve worked in so many different positions in so many different companies that I’ve developed a global perspective which helps me to develop an overview of crisis situations.” Her first degree in finances and accounting has always defined her approach to her work, but continuous self-education has made her a versatile consultant. As proof of this, in 2023 she won the Central European Business Awards’ Cross-industry Leader of the Year award, which recognises the most versatile international leader. While it is not typical to build a career by constantly switching between industries, she believes that it is a rewarding strategy. “It doesn’t matter what product or service the company sells, you need to have the leadership skills and knowledge”, says Aletta, who stresses that this is exactly what she developed at Corvinus.
The EMBA is for people who want to become a business leader and develop the competencies needed to fulfill this role. For example, the participants could develop their communication skills in situational exercises: “I’m quite conflict-averse in real life, but in one class I had to convince a classmate of an opposing standpoint. Without stakes, I was much better at pushing my own limits, and once I had experienced how far I could go, this knowledge became activated automatically in similar situations.” Aletta also feels she has become more sensitive to cultural differences, as her group members came from many continents. “I’ve experienced that no matter that we speak the same level of English, we communicate differently and the same words mean different things to us.”
“It was a very intensive training, it had a real impact on you,” recalls the consultant, who stresses that the lecturers took the EMBA seriously and had high expectations. “Even though everyone paid tuition fees, it didn’t automatically mean the best grade. The thesis was particularly difficult, it had to be completed with academic rigour.” Aletta was motivated by the fact that every participant was willing to work: “They wanted to be there and everyone wanted to learn.” She was surprised by the good community that developed during the EMBA. On the very first weekend of the program, they participated in a team-building session and later on a work trip to the USA to a Corvinus partner university. “To this day we keep an eye on each others’ professional achievements. I feel like I can call former classmates at any time and we are willing to help each other.”