Research and Consulting in Strategic Management – 101 – Master's Year 2

The most vivid memory I have of the Strategy and Organization program is of its founder, Professor Alain Cotta: his free spirit, his sublime prophecies, his humor, and his fits of anger. His talent for quality teambuilding and his desire to build a program focused on organizational strategy and management is the force behind the Strategy and Organization program, an endeavor open to a wide range of disciplines and a real educational innovation.

There were students from a wide range of backgrounds in my cohort; they went on to follow very different paths, but all of them had roles with a lot of responsibility. I think this is the most concrete example of the program’s quality: it encourages students to use their brains, helps them structure and defend their thoughts, and it enables them not to get caught up in the confusion of globalization, but rather to find their place in the maelstrom and make the most of it.

After the Strategy and Organization program, I had the opportunity to pursue a doctoral thesis under Professor Cotta. The year after my defense, a friend and I created TRADING CENTRAL, a technical analysis company serving the financial markets. 15 years later, the company has offices in Paris, London, New York, and Hong Kong, does about 90% of its business outside the French market, and has people from 13 different countries on its staff.

The Strategy and Organization program is more than an elite university education–it’s a real immersion in organizational sciences and business strategy.  After completing a business school diploma, the Strategy and Organization program was an opportunity for me to gain more expertise in global strategic issues and to explore their practical side as they pertained to prestigious companies and institutions such as the European Community, Microsoft, Total, etc. The program is a perfect introduction to management and corporate governance, and allows students to gain real expertise in strategy and organization. The program opens the door to high-level positions in management, strategy, marketing, consultancy, and research in a large number of markets and sectors.

When I decided to do the Strategy and Organization program after consulting in “strategy and organization,” I did so because I wanted to understand the theory behind the various operational issues I’d encountered. The fact that the program took a generalist but high-level approach made it seem like it would suit my needs.

More than just being a theoretical echo of what I’d been able to observe in the profession, the Strategy and Organization program gave me an interdisciplinary, up-to-date understanding of the gamut of strategic and organizational challenges companies face. The à la carte nature of the curriculum and the quality of the academic mentoring meant that I could go deeper into the areas that were most interesting to me.

It was an invaluable year, both personally and professionally. I developed an intellectual curiosity and a taste for reflection that have stayed with me to this day.

The Strategy and Organization program helped me deepen my understanding and gain new knowledge of analytical models and frameworks in management. I was attracted to the “in and through research” teaching model of the various seminars, because it was a new intellectual approach to me, one that consisted of analyzing, assessing, and developing your own opinion about different concepts and theories.

The Master’s program gives students looking for a professional career an opportunity to learn about issues facing general management, thereby providing them with conversation fodder when they meet high-level interlocutors.

After completing the Strategy and Organization program, I spent two and a half years further refining my career goals while working in the Development/New Projects department at Total in Venezuela. I’m currently a consultant at Schlumberger, where I mainly take on management consulting projects in the energy sector.