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: Mr. J
Profile (Background): Mr. J, a Brazilian investment banker, advised on pension funds. With a mandate to include ESG metrics in the fund, he explored deals that brought funds to farmlands in South America. With a family business in Africa in the agriculture sector, he wants to leverage the VC community in the UK and his deal experience to bring sustainability to African farms.
Essay Approach: “Why LBS?”
Mr J should explain how LBS offers the foundation to marketing farm products to clientele willing to pay a premium for authentic organic produce, build a strategy to scale the vision, and network with the right ESG investors to invest in small farms and bring sustainability practices to small farms.
Essay Planning
Problem: The high failure rate of small farms in Africa and the lack of sustainability practices among small farmers managing them.
Problem (Explained): When a PE firm or a large fund invests in farms, meeting sustainability standards is a regulatory requirement. The applicant in one such deal brought fund influx into large farms in Africa. The implementation of sustainability practices, following the arrival of the funds, improved profitability, reduced the carbon footprint, and introduced water conservation and sustainable irrigation practices to the farms. But small farms exist in silos, at the mercy of the weather. They struggle to survive.
Feasible Goals: Finding a premium market for small farm produce and finding investors interested in creating a marketplace for small farms.
Short-term Goal: US investors and large pension funds have slowly diluted their holdings in businesses with ESG goals. By exploring the UK VC environment and the Agri-Tech ecosystems, Mr J wants to apply his market segmentation skills to target ESG investors and find investors passionate about sustainable Agriculture in small farms.
Long-Term Goal: Create an umbrella brand for small farms to offer collective bargaining power in the marketplace.
LBS’ Strength: UK’s agri-tech startup ecosystem and a more receptive ESG community will help Mr J find the right networking opportunities to fund small farms in Africa.
Opener: Starting with a connection with the farmers in Africa helps the Brazilian applicant build a case for the small farmers.
Strategy: After establishing the applicant’s passion for Africa, his success in persuading a large pension fund to invest in farms, I want to present the skill gap in brand positioning that LBS could address. I also want to highlight the hesitation of VC funds in the US in pursuing ESG funds, as the pressure on short-term return is high. Mr J also needs access to the VC funds specializing in agri-tech startups that the UK offers. Networking matters the most in accessing these investors. LBS with a targeted curriculum offers the opportunity.
Sample LBS MBA Essay: Post-MBA Goals (VC Funds to Bring Sustainability in Small Farms) (499 Words)
Coming from a Brazilian farming business, each summer was planned around my father’s meetings with farmers in Benue, Nigeria. 2014 was catastrophic for farmers, who faced the biggest droughts. Years following the crop failure, the tension between herders and farmers escalated from disputes over water and grazing rights. The impact of climate change requires enforcing sustainability standards through capital infusion. In 2018, I helped the largest pension fund diversify into the Agri industry, which requires a long-term investment horizon. With small farms operating with outdated processes..
With LBS MBA’s core courses in Marketing, I will learn to segment ..
Download F1GMAT's LBS MBA Essay Guide to read the Complete Essay (Sustainability Practices in Small Farms)
