MBA at SDA Bocconi: Alumni Profile

Oscar Groet talks to TopMBA.com about how he decided to do an MBA at SDA Bocconi and how his career has developed since graduating. 

I am Dutch, born in Delft and raised in Italy, where my parents took me when I was four. We were in Naples, we were at various locations in the north of the country and I went to school in Varese, at the European School. My story is simple: at age 16, I decided how I was going to shape my future. Bocconi helped me do it. I could pick universities throughout Europe. Italy and Holland both held the promise of endless undergraduate and graduate programmes; since I am no time-waster, I went to England instead. I decided for a quick undergraduate degree, a year of work experience and an MBA right on top of it.

All went as planned and, after three years at Reading University and one year at a microchip distributor in Slough, I had one more decision to make: one of the top 20 MBAs in the US or one of the top ten MBAs in Europe, and which one. I was taught to be a good European in Varese, so I wrote to a handful of the top MBAs in Europe and got accepted at three of them. MBA programmes, if they are any good, have both an international outlook and very close relationship with the business environment they operate in. In Italy, for one, there is hardly a worthy manager without one link or another to Bocconi. I knew Italy well, I knew Bocconi offered a top programme and was the undisputed launching pad for a career in the country, and I knew they had strong international links. I enrolled.

Besides regular classes, at Bocconi I first worked on a compensation plan for a construction company in Rome. Sometimes, you need to do things to find out what is you don't want and this was one of those things for me. The next step on the MBA was an exchange period at a US partner. Bocconi have exchange agreements with ten or so of the top 20 US MBAs. I picked Florida because it had a good reputation and, well, Florida sounded good to me anyway. Without losing myself in too much detail, I must say that Florida was a revelation in the sense that it taught me how good our MBAs in Europe really are. I learned a lot - there is no better way to get a grasp of American business than being there - but I definitely also discovered the quality of teaching in the best MBA programmes on our side of the pond. As we wound down business in Florida, I had a couple of job offers in the US but decided against them. My core competence was Italy and I wanted to move vertically, not horizontally. Dropping the focus from that core competency at this stage would have been a waste. I returned to Milan to find yet another strong reminder of how Bocconi can open any door in Italy. Their placement service is simply beyond compare: they had 15 interviews lined up for me to pick and choose.

My post-MBA career started out at Ford, with an introduction to global business and a management training programme that ran me through sales, marketing and production. At the point, five years later, where my Ford career was to be launched in earnest, Fiat offered me a very good salary to help relaunch the Alfa Romeo brand. After three years in Turin and again balancing the breadth of my achievements, I opted for a move to the new economy.

My first serious management position was in telecommunications, but, when the bottom fell out of that market, I ran for cover and found it at Merloni International, where I am today. Ford and Fiat were too big for me - the size of a company determines the scope of your work.