Galina Oleynik, Boston Consulting Group: Why Columbia Business School?

Consulting was not on Galina Oleynik’s radar when the young Russian woman enrolled at Columbia Business School back in 2009. “I was in private equity before I started at Columbia. At that time, only one year after the Lehman Brothers' crash,  it was clear that gloomy times were ahead for the PE industry, so I wanted to try something different – my ambition was to get into my dream sector, hospitality. Little did I know back then that hospitality was hit even harder than private equity!”  After numerous interviews to gather information, unpaid assignments and two planned internships with hotel management companies falling through, she thought it prudent to put her dream aside for the time-being.

Instead, she re-enterered the investment space, working as a strategy intern for a VC-backed tech company in New York. To spice things up, she also spent a week in Uganda completing a small student consulting project for a local microfinance organization.  

After her degree, she secured a position at the Boston Consulting Group. The intrinsically international nature of working for the consulting giant really sold it to her as career. “My personal circumstances changed overnight, and I realized that I had to go back to Russia after business school, which led me to ask what I could do there which would be both challenging professionally and global. My whole career has been international, so I could not imagine working in a local business with only local people. Consulting is a good place to be if you are keen on a global flavor, and there are few firms more international than the Boston Consulting Group.”

Despite some initial reservations about consulting – not least of which were the challenges posed by moving from buying to selling – Galina found that the more she learned in her new role, the more positive her experience got. “It is a demanding job, but it can be very rewarding too. Though I never anticipated doing it, I definitely see myself at the Boston Consulting Group for the next couple of years at least.” One of the things that appeals to her most is the potential opportunity to work in another office overseas, with US and Southeast Asia at the top of her list.

Columbia Business School: Location and more

It was this same desire for international experience which started Galina on her path to Columbia Business School. “I always wanted to study abroad, but I never even considered European schools.  I thought, if one wants business education, one should go to the country where it was invented. I also was certain that two years were better than one, so wasn’t concerned about the extra year of earnings I’d lose. That’s not to say I didn’t take a pragmatic approach, but I didn’t consider this a downside when stacked up against what I’d gain.”

Columbia Business School offered one major advantage over the other schools she was considering: “If you ask people from Columbia why they chose it, they always say location – and I won’t deny how important this is, particularly career-wise. In New York, every major company you can think of is at your doorstep and Wall Street is a short subway ride away.”

Of course New York comes with its distractions, particularly when, as an MBA student, you are afforded a little more control over your time than you might have previously enjoyed. However, this was not a problem for self-confessed New York-lover Galina. “Columbia Business School has such a strong faculty and curriculum, it really pushes you. You end up selecting classes which are so interesting that, at times, even New York can’t lure you away.”

The Columbia MBA: Shaping your own curriculum

One of the things she appreciated the most was the opportunity to exempt core classes by passing exams to demonstrate existing competence. “The Columbia MBA is one of the few programs that let you do this. This left me with a lot of empty slots which meant I could shape my own curriculum from day one. I took a class in real estate finance every semester, which I could never do in Russia, layered with a bunch of soft skill courses and topped off with CBS specialties and parts of the value investing program. It really shaped my experience and meant that there was no frustration learning things I already knew.” Consequently, Galina's learning experience was consistently interesting (and useful) – something not everyone she knew who attended a prestigious American business school could say…

The aforementioned soft skill classes were a particularly edifying element of the Columbia MBA, Galina found. “At times these courses really push you beyond your limits. When you graduate from university with an undergraduate degree, you concentrate on hard skills at first, learning how to persuade people with facts. But you don’t pay much attention to how the message is conveyed, and how people perceive you.” An MBA, she continues, is almost like a laboratory, in which you can work at yourself from a different perspective and understand how your personality can be the difference between success and failure. In the class called ‘top management process’ where the class was forced to look at how their childhood experiences shaped their management style, the whole class was left in tears. “It’s hard to recognize you’re damaged goods, but doing so helps make you a better leader – more self-aware, patient and wise.”

However, the best soft skills lessons on the Columbia MBA weren’t restricted to these specific modules. “When you deal with faculty so experienced, you learn great things when you least expect them. One of the deepest insights was delivered in the supply chain management auditorium. We had a great professor, and the lectures were always supplemented with life wisdom, which we really appreciated. At one point, almost the whole class failed an interim test – everyone was disappointed of course, but he said something to us that, for me, made the MBA experience: ‘if you do everything right, you don’t learn anything.’ Worth the program fees alone in my opinion.”

Of course, the people one meets on one’s MBA are also an essential part of the learning experience, and this proved to be the case for Galina at Columbia Business School too: “Business school gives you a lens to look at the world from a different angle. You meet people who have lived their lives differently, showing you the spectrum of possibilities and how big of a part personality can play in everything. The people who were the most fascinating were those who had something to tell – and it’s these people who, by virtue of their hunger for things which are new and amazing, make the best leaders. I’ve learned from this, and always try to share my experience with other people, expanding their views, which helps me excel at work, too.”

What advice would she give the aspiring MBA candidate, to ensure that they become better professionals after an MBA? “Make sure you know exactly what you want to get out of your MBA. It’s a highly-charged time that is full of opportunities. If you go to find your dream job, you’ll land it, if you do everything you can to get it. If you want to learn something you've never known before, you will. Even if you go to get married to a great person or just to have a good time, you will – but you might not get much more than that. So stay sincere, focused and precise with what you want – you've been selected by the program exactly because they know that you are able to achieve anything.”