Q) What are your post-MBA goals and how will your prior experience and the London Business School programme contribute towards these? (500 words)
Profile: Miss. C
Profile (Background): Miss C’s strength has been in deal origination and portfolio company management in PE. With earlier roles in M&A and an academic background in Accounting, Business Administration, and French, Miss C has been specializing in deals originating from Europe, even though she works with a boutique US-based PE firm.
Essay Approach: “Why LBS MBA?”
With an LBS MBA, Miss C wants to expand her influence on the UK and global markets, preferably the Asia market where the next decade of deals would originate. Although she aims to refine her financial acumen, the value of an LBS MBA is not just technical, but also to expand her leadership and strategic thinking capabilities. By focusing on the infrastructure and the energy industry, she wants to be involved in large deals. An LBS MBA would offer the brand visibility to expand her expertise beyond thematic origination efforts.
Essay Planning
Problem: The applicant has worked only in boutique IB and PE firms, where the leadership followed thematic deal sourcing.
Problem (Explained): For this MBA Essay, I had to prioritize experiential learning with global themes, beyond AI, as her experience in thematic deal sourcing has pigeonholed her into a specialist capable of only finding deals in healthcare and IT.
Feasible Goals: Private Equity with a global PE giant
Short-term Goal: Gain exposure to signals of PE stalwarts and peers with long-term thinking to find winners in diverse markets and not just themes set by PE firms.
Long-Term Goal: To build a generalist and a strategic perspective to find partners, entrepreneurs, and deals in emerging and niche markets.
LBS’ Strength: London Business School attracts a diverse group of investors, consultants, and technologists. With a generalist perspective lacking, the diversity of the class will help Miss C expand her perspective from multiple functional and industry perspectives. A strong Finance curriculum will help her relook at her foundational understanding of accounting, deal sourcing, and finance concepts as a strategist.
Opener: I wanted to capture the applicant’s involvement in the latest funding cycle in growth industries.
Strategy: The strategy is to show her current interest in Asian markets and highlight the gap in exposure, which was evident when the leadership didn’t pursue her recommendations.
Sample LBS MBA Essay: Post-MBA Goals (Boutique PE to Large PE Deals) (499 Words)
I have worked in boutique M&A deals and PE funds, riding the waves of vaccine and LLM hype cycles. We were like the bottom-feeding fish, scrapping onto the remains of deals left over by large PE funds. We found two winners, thanks to our structured thinking and patience in supporting entrepreneurs through several setbacks. However, the biggest challenge in boutique firms is access to deal flow.
With an LBS MBA...
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