Sustainability is a key tenet of IESE Business School’s curriculum. This approach creates graduates who are ready to tackle sustainability challenges no matter where their careers take them
“Sustainability needs to be part of everyday decision-making, and IESE Business School is conscious of this,” says Maria de Oca, an alumnus of its master in business administration (MBA) degree. The business school embeds sustainability into all of its courses, not just ones that focus on sustainability, to prepare graduates to bring this mindset to their careers. “In a company, you have a sustainability team, but what is as important is that every other team understands what sustainability is in their context,” she says.
Since De Oca graduated in 2020, the business school, which is part of the University of Navarra in Spain, has set up an Institute for Sustainability Leadership. This is one of the ways the school ensures that its education remains relevant.
“Since the pandemic, sustainability has become part of everyday business, and IESE is listening to that trend,” De Oca says. The institute and its staff work to ensure that sustainability informs its syllabus, graduate career opportunities and academic research.
De Oca, who completed a PhD in marine biology, knew she wanted a corporate job in sustainability when she enrolled in IESE’s MBA programme. But she was unsure whether she wanted to work for a start-up, a big organisation transforming its systems, or a company that specialised in sustainability.
De Oca’s internship, linked to her MBA, helped her to explore her various career opportunities: “IESE gave me the contacts and guidance that I needed to be able to do that right.” IESE also brought many world-class professionals into classroom case-study discussions, De Oca says.
After completing her doctorate in the United States, De Oca chose to study at IESE Business School because she “wanted to start strong in Europe. Networks are global, but they are also local, and I knew that IESE had strong networks not only in Spain but all over Europe,” she says.
The school’s many sector-specific student clubs are also invaluable in helping students chart their professional future, make important connections and foster future networks, she says. Its clubs are mostly sector-specific, such as the energy club or consumer goods club, and these clubs “organise meetings and visits to companies, and help students to get exposure to top professionals”, she says. De Oca was part of the responsible business club, which focused on sustainability: “Those sector-specific events were extremely helpful to start. It’s like getting a foot in the door for an interview that could lead to an internship.”
Her engagement has continued long after graduation. She is on the board of the sustainability chapter of the university’s alumni community, which “brings the sustainability community together” and supports current staff with IESE’s sustainability offerings.
“What IESE is doing now with the Institute for Sustainability Leadership is absolutely fantastic. It’s really what should be happening in every business school,” De Oca says.
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