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. A
Profile (Background): Miss A started her career as a software engineer and later transitioned into product roles at a global technology company. Her work sits at the intersection of innovation, user experience, and social good, particularly in underserved markets.
She led cross-functional teams working on scalable technology products and founded a mentorship initiative to increase technology access for women in Kenya.
Miss A’s background combines deep technical fluency with a desire to build inclusive, user-centered solutions.
Essay Approach: “Why LBS?”
Miss A should mention LBS for its strong technology curriculum and the UK’s legacy of leading the world in FinTech regulation, which accelerated the adoption of FinTech Apps, blockchain, and cryptocurrency.
Her focus should be on aligning with her goal of scaling the Small Language Learning Model (SLM) in energy-deficient regions with LBS’s strong foundation in product management.
Essay Planning
Problem: User adoption of technology products in emerging economies, such as Kenya, is low due to mistrust in centralized authorities and institutions.
Problem (Explained): The mistrust in institutions is valid, as centralized authorities have often taken advantage of citizens. In addition to the mistrust, building a cost-efficient EdTech App that can offer a personalized learning experience for anyone with a smartphone is a vision that is jeopardized by the high cost of energy associated with training LLMs.
Short-term Goal: Scale the EdTech App by raising funds and acquiring the skills of building a product with Small Language Learning Model (SLM) in resource resource-constrained environment.
Long-Term Goal: Bring the 400 million youths of Africa into the global employment market
LBS’s Strength: The strong product management and technology strategy curriculum.
Opener: I wanted to dispel the myth that the M-Pesa adoption in Kenya was just about the technology, but arose from the recruitment of agents, who facilitated a new market for remittance.
Strategy: Citing the experience of M-Pesa and the strategy the FinTech App adopted to scale the product, helped me present the lack of trust in centralized institutions observed in African markets. By presenting multiple problems – the importance of humans in the middle of technology adoption and the role of SLM in addressing low compute in Africa, I am expanding the problem from a simple technology adoption problem to a large and ambitious techno-social problem.
Since 3 out of 4 AI startups have stated in a survey that the UK is good for starting an AI venture, but they are not ideal for exit, I didn’t want to make the narrative about venture capital in the UK. My focus is on a narrative that is balanced so that the applicant can achieve her goal of empowering youths in Africa.
Sample LBS MBA Essay: Post-MBA Goals – AI and EdTech in Kenya (498 Words)
Living through the M-Pesa era, I saw agents facilitating a banking ecosystem in the remotest parts of Kenya. The customers didn’t even know that the agents used M-Pesa. Studying in Los Angeles revealed two worldviews - one driven by faith in the institutions, and the second, from the abuse of power that kept Africa poor.
When marketers pushed for influencer marketing for our EdTech App, I intervened with a context-driven design – audio only while the students travelled, video in broadband connections, and interactive when they were among peers..
Download F1GMAT's LBS MBA Essay Guide to read the Complete Essay (SLM instead of LLM for Compute-Constrained Africa)
