Bruno

I am Bruno and I am a civil engineer working with AKT II. I started as a Design Engineer and moved up to Senior Engineer and then an Associate over a period of four years. Prior to working with AKT II, I worked as a Structural Engineer with Grid S.A, a company founded by my university professor who invited me to join the team.

Having trained as a civil engineer I wanted to further my career in a more dynamic and international environment than the one in Portugal, especially as I was starting at a time of financial crisis and there was very little available in Portugal at that time especially in construction and development. So I moved to the UK and started my career there. Moreover, having just a Portuguese degree was not enough for me to make my career truly international.

Over time I realized that I did not want to continue in this field and decided to make a career switch into management consulting and realized that an MBA would be the next logical step.

Being an engineer and having stayed in the UK for a while before starting my application process, the GMAT was pretty easy. I found the application part very difficult, especially trying to justify why I wanted to do an Executive MBA and work in management consulting when I had absolutely no experience in the field. Also having experience in civil engineering is a far cry from what one expects an MBA candidate to have as it is mainly a technical job.

Being located in London, the networking opportunities at LBS are incomparable to any other school in the world. There are over 70 different clubs that students can choose to be apart of to broaden their networks. LBS organizes a lot of conferences and events which could range from social events to panel discussions. The student body is very diverse and hence LBS organizes a multicultural festival to help students intermingle and learn about each other’s cultures.

Think positive. There is no typical MBA applicant. Business schools favor diversity. So you could be a civil engineer like me from Portugal wanting to make a career switch and still be of interest for MBA Programs even though your profile and career are difficult prospects to sell.

Do not be too influenced by rankings. I got accepted at some business schools that were better ranked than LBS, but I stuck to LBS because I knew that I wanted to broaden my already existing network in London having already worked there for three years prior to the MBA.

Take help from professionals who can help you see your worth and also prepare you to get your program of choice. I was fortunate to have worked directly with Dr. Hubert Silly of the MBA Center and his collaboration was very helpful and valuable for my success.