EMBA Student Profile: Gabriel Mesquida Masana, Henley Business School

Currently studying an Executive MBA at Henley Business School, Gabriel Mesquida Masana shares his experiences of the program so far.  Masana is IT Program Manager at AENA (Aeropuertos Españoles y Navegación Aérea) in Barcelona.

What motivated you to pursue your EMBA?

The decision was both part of my quest for knowledge and a practical issue. I had recently finished studying economics and found myself working on the huge and complex project of building a new terminal and runway for Barcelona's airport. That was a huge change from being a consultant and meant managing many more people and a significant amount of resources. Although I had a lot of knowledge and analytical abilities, I felt I lacked a lot of the managerial skills required.

Did your company suggest this, or did you persuade your company and if so how?

It was a personal decision. Apart from the endorsement, I didn't seek explicit support from my company. In a project-orientated environment where you're contributing to build a huge infrastructure, this is almost a personal endeavour. In fact, project-focused work like mine forces you to look around and consider what may come next. The Spanish business environment is in rapid motion, highly volatile and quite different from the bulk of developed countries.

What are the realities of juggling professional responsibilities with family commitments and academic pursuits?

The reality is that, although time is something that has a certain degree of flexibility, choices must be made and different interests must be prioritised. You must seriously consider the impact of spending many hours every week on your own. Your family must support you in this; you'll have to talk it out with them beforehand. Be realistic and don't try to impose something that will certainly have an impact on them.

How steep is the learning curve when you're back in the classroom after all this time?

It is steep. You must keep continuously pedalling to climb it. It's not only a matter of effort, but also of keeping the right rhythm. But first, in order for the learning process to begin, there's a psychological difficulty that you must overcome: admitting that you need to learn again, which takes a lot of humility. You're a student again, vulnerable to ruthless assessments and in a new and unknown environment. That's tough for many managers, and still is for me!

What concrete skills, techniques or knowledge did you acquire from the course that you were able to immediately apply in your company?

The nice thing about EMBAs is that you start looking around with a new set of eyes, seeing things that you didn't before (or that you had never noticed before?) and thinking of new solutions to old problems, from operations to strategic management. In my case there was a star subject: managing people. People are critical in any project environment that must deliver on time; they need to be understood, their performance needs to be managed, and their motivations realised. People react badly to incoherencies, which are plentiful enough in organisations. Now I see people in a different light, and I'm able to see what impacts their performance.

Would you say that the EMBA program taught you how to think innovatively? Can innovation be taught / learnt?

It did. Opening your mind to new perspectives is important for thinking innovatively. By providing you with models and theoretical foundations, you'r able to understand many things about the world you are in. This appeases the left side of your brain, the one that needs to be safe, ordered and uncluttered, in comprehending the facts and logic. Then the right side of the brain, the risk-taking one, can open to those new realities, see the bigger picture with a systemic and holistic approach and fantasise and wonder.

A lot of EMBA candidates get promoted even before the completion of the program, or very shortly after. Is this your case?

It's not my case. Being a programme manager in a project that is now one year closer to completion, promotion is not formally applicable. However, I've been given more responsibility and more complex situations to manage. In that aspect I've grown professionally, and the EMBA has been one of the factors of that improvement, along with a lot of hard work.

What was the main benefit you reaped?

The main benefit I would single out was my personal growth and additional self-confidence gained by exposing myself to the test of learning and leaving my comfort zone. Learning is also a pleasurable process in itself – being able to understand new concepts and ideas, seeing order in chaos, considering how the world works and how to make a difference.

How does an EMBA help your intra/entrepreneurial approach?

Knowing yourself better and the reality that surrounds you; being able to analyse it, realise constraints, measure resources, assess risks and plan will all help you to overcome barriers and turn your ideas into reality. Of course, you still need the predisposition to be entrepreneurial, but boosting your abilities and mastering your fears will unleash your capability to make your projects real.

If you had to do this again, what would you do differently?

When I was choosing a business school I spent a lot of time looking into figures and rankings; we tend to focus only on what is measurable. Like any organisation, a business school is a place that has its own culture, assumptions and worldview. An international culture is essential for the experience as you need to be able to interact with diverse people. I'd now value these kinds of elements more than simply the cold figures. At the end of the day I'd still choose Henley, but the reasons for doing so would not be the same ones I had previously anticipated.