Student and Alumni Profiles

He had taken a few disparate graduate business courses in the US, but, not surprisingly, found them disconnected. He searched for a program that met all of his needs. Now, with about nine months of TRIUM under his belt, he says: "After London, I improved my historic background to discuss the euro situation. After New York, I improved my corporate finance skills to analyze a company from different perspectives. After China, I can better evaluate an investment opportunity."

In addition, Henry points out, these valuable residential classroom learning modules, scheduled at roughly three-month intervals, present less of a burden to high-level executives than other global EMBA programs he had considered. "TRIUM is truly unique, you can do it while you work," he says. "It certainly requires commitment, but it can be done. Other programs I checked required excessive and frequent travel and/or an excessively long stays."

Henry adds that the TRIUM program's intense global commitment was most appealing: "I found very interesting that the program is run by three different universities, which are the best universities of the US, France, and the UK. The idea of diverse locations, plus the fact that more than 30 nationalities are represented in the class, is truly unique."

The class of 2013 was roughly halfway through the program in May 2012, at which point students were occupied with organizing teams and assigning tasks for their term projects, while they continued with asynchronous learning and prepared for the next residential module in India. Henry's term project is a direct-response market insight platform powered by social media and targeted to retailers selling over the Internet. The platform will give the retailers self-served, real-time access to consumer insights and will operate by leveraging social media to drive respondent registration, interaction, and demographic designation.

Powerful alumni networks

As that project proceeds, Henry is advancing his other professional interests by tapping into another TRIUM resource - the alumni networks of NYU Stern, London School of Economics, and HEC Paris, as well as TRIUM's own alumni network. "I have contacted some alumni to check certain international investors that want to invest in Chile," he notes. "Others have contacted me to explore business opportunities in the Chilean market. And I have started a dialogue with one of them to invest in his business. This is a very exciting group and the network opportunities are unbelievable."

Under her initiative, the Board enhanced its corporate governance by implementing a Corporate Governance Policy and establishing a Corporate Governance and Remuneration Committee. Sekerbank was the first in its industry in Turkey to be rated by the international corporate governance rating company in line with the Corporate Governance Rating, introduced by the Istanbul Stock Exchange. And every year since, the Bank's corporate governance rating has increased, making Sekerbank the highest rated bank for compliance in the banking sector in Turkey.

In addition to this accomplishment, Tatiana also took an active role in structuring the risk management system in the Bank and working out risk management policy.

As her role grew, Tatiana realized that she needed to broaden her horizons and exposure globally to better prepare herself for the tough decisions she had to make as the Executive Member of the Board of Directors. TRIUM's rigorous program not only provided her with the academic preparation to grow, but the entrepreneurial experience of her capstone project gave her the confidence she needed to explore new ventures.

Tatiana's capstone project, Media Cab, became a live business this past October. The project offers a 'superior taxi fleet service' in Moscow. The entrepreneurial endeavor, a required part of the TRIUM curricula, provided the perfect opportunity for her to combine her background in corporate governance, finance, risk management and her knowledge of the Russian marketplace.

THE 'TRIUM Effect'

Post TRIUM, Tatiana says she experienced what most graduates refer to as the 'TRIUM effect'. "After TRIUM," she states, "I had been changed, but the environment that you go back to has not. I had a lot of ideas and the biggest question I had was, what now? What would I like to do next?"

In 1989, at 28, he moved back to France and founded a creative advertising agency called GRAM that handled consumer and luxury products, including major lifestyle brands, and launched, among others, Nespresso Coffee Company. He sold the company in 1996, and a year later founded TechnoMarine, having carefully identified a niche combining luxury, sports, and ultra-hip styling. The watches sold for thousands of dollars. In 2007, just before the subprime mortgage crisis plunged world economies into a recession, Franck sold TechnoMarine to private equity investors.

"Prep" school

At that point, Franck determined to better his management skills. In 2008, an "inspiring" summer course at HEC in Paris led to his applying to the TRIUM program, he says: "I was hungry to learn more, and I was impressed with the reputations of the three partner schools." Because he feared his quantitative skills weren't up to snuff, he hired a finance professor from another top business school to tutor him for six months prior to starting TRIUM.

TRIUM has more than lived up to Franck's expectations. "The program has the ability to gather professors and speakers who have accumulated an incredible wealth of knowledge" he says. "I had goose bumps listening to the professors, from the moment I sat in the first class at LSE."

For Franck, the consummate entrepreneur, TRIUM's capstone project was one of the program's highlights.

The capstone project may have been the program's most in-depth group effort, but Franck says that the multiple work groups he was involved in throughout the two years have all been invaluable collaborative experiences, especially given his entrepreneurial background: "It was good not always being the boss. The qualities of leadership fell into place naturally, and the process always went very smoothly."

Franck reports that he is graduating in September as a more effective businessman, manager, entrepreneur, and investor. "I acquired the tools to evaluate potential investments more rapidly and effectively. Quantitative tools, corporate strategy, marketing strategy - all became much clearer," he says. These lessons are coming in handy for Franck's other ongoing projects, including biodiesel production and real estate in Argentina. And another TRIUM class "changed my life," he says: "Conflict resolution is no longer an issue that I try to avoid. That comes from what we learned about group dynamics and management skills."

Finding TRIUM

After this 12-year period of prodigious creativity, Tony took his family to live in Paris and decided to pursue an executive MBA. He found TRIUM and joined its inaugural class, with 27 other ambitious executives. "I was looking for an interesting program based in Europe," Tony says.

He was not disappointed. The TRIUM inaugural class included only a handful of students from North America, with the rest scattered from around the world, including South Korea, Germany, Switzerland, France and Japan. Most were corporate execs from larger companies, Tony recalls, with just a few who had been involved in early-stage ventures. The quality of his cohort was one of the program's key advantages, he says. "I gained a tremendous amount from my fellow classmates."

Though it was TRIUM's debut year, "It was incredibly well organized and just fascinating," Tony says. "The professors at the three main schools as well as the Brazil and Hong Kong partner universities [the emerging market venues at the time] were all magnificent. I loved every venue: HEC for its operations expertise, NYU Stern for its finance and state-of-the-art classroom technology, and especially LSE for its global socioeconomic studies." He recalls being in class at LSE on 9/11 and the next day being guided around Parliament by one of the professors, a member of the House of Lords, while Parliament held an emergency session to discuss the attack's implications.

A fertile mind

For his term project, Tony worked with a classmate from South Korea. Because NewsCorp at the time was looking to divest non-core assets, he sought to reacquire STATS, so they prepared and presented a strategy to accomplish that. The repurchase didn't happen in the real world, but probably just as well: Tony has created several new companies since graduating from TRIUM, though, he points out, none has crossed any borders.

In 2005, Tony founded ClosingCorp, a real estate information services company. Then there's year-old Barc Inc., he co-founded with his son, a software company whose patent-pending technology enables users to interact, chat, post, and share, wherever they are, on any Web page, Web site, and even on a Wi-Fi network. Just last year, he founded GovX, an online e-commerce site exclusively serving U.S. military, law enforcement, and first-responder customers. Despite his ventures' American focus, his TRIUM experience influenced him in less obvious ways. "You learn how to think through strategy, with a more global sense of who you are and how business is conducted," he says. "It was wholly enlightening."

TRIUM is still part of Tony's life. He attends reunions, keeps up with classmates, and has even acted as a sounding board for ventures that some have proposed. A self-described warm-water surfer, a tennis player, and a skier, he is planning to step back a bit from the operating side of his businesses. His string of successes masks the fact that "being an entrepreneur is horrendously stressful, and it's hard work," he says. Besides spending more time in France, he is looking forward to repeated visits to his old stomping grounds at LSE, where his daughter is beginning her master's in management science.

"Chin, 37, founded his own startup in 2007, after completing the last TRIUM module. His company, Qifang, is a for-profit, microfinance Web service that uses social networking to help Chinese students find a way to pay for their education by connecting them with individuals, companies, and organizations willing to loan them tuition money. In Chinese, Qifang refers to flowers’ bursting into bloom seemingly simultaneously, an apt metaphor.

Qifang was born when Chin sought a way to combine the skills he had acquired through TRIUM with his desire to make a difference in China’s future. “I was talking with two friends about common ideas and goals,” he said. “We were inspired by microfinance in South Asia, online financial services in the US and Europe, and our own passions for equitable development and education in China.” The percentage of students receiving state education loans in China is insufficient, Chin pointed out.

Critical connections
Based in Shanghai, where Chin and his wife live, Qifang works like an online auction. Sponsors bid and compete to help particular students, and lenders can offer internships and job opportunities as well as provide funding to pay school bills. Qifang manages the transaction and repayment and is a communication tool for borrowers, lenders, and peers. Thousands of students have already received educational loans through Qifang, and many have graduated, found employment, and repaid them. According to Chin, the repayment rate is comparable with other microfinance lenders, well above standard Chinese loans.

The TRIUM program, which Chin first encountered at an MBA fair, seemed tailor-made to help him realize his dream. He selected it from among other programs for three main reasons: the schedule and format of the courses, which he found “unique” and could fit his work schedule; the content on political economy and its relevance to global business leaders; and the international cohort and content. “I especially loved adding Europe and South America to my network after having studied and worked in the US, and now of course working in Asia,” he said.

With Chin already on the hunt during his TRIUM experience for how he could start a company and make a difference at the same time, TRIUM functioned as an entrepreneurial incubator. Explained Chin: “Many of us were thinking about new ideas, and many of us were exploring new chapters in our professional lives and thinking about transitions. Working on the team project was a catalyst as well. The opportunity at TRIUM to hang out with really smart people from different backgrounds and industries is amazing for creativity.”

Relevant lessons
Not surprisingly, Chin’s team project was an online social network. His teammates formed a mini-United Nations. One, based in New York, was originally from Cote d’Ivoire, another was a New Zealander living in London, and a third a Russian living in Seattle and London. The project’s many dimensions were spot-on relevant to Chin’s post-graduation goal of starting Qifang. “We learned a lot about the actual product and industry itself,” Chin recalled, “and we learned a lot about founder team dynamics.”

Chin hopes Qifang’s success will help make innovation and startup companies more acceptable in China. In fact, he is now exploring ways to use Qifang’s technology for other types of funding and donation, and also as a platform for the exchange of innovation and intellectual property.   >>close

back to top

Currently, Dayo is managing the research program for a financial sector development organization based in Lagos, Nigeria. Previously she was project leader in East Africa for the World Savings Bank Institute (WSBI) Gates Project, a project funded by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation aimed at doubling the number of savings accounts held by the poor. "I have always been interested in using data to support decision-making, so I guess that's the link that runs through all my various career options," Dayo says.

When Dayo, who is married with three children, was considering TRIUM versus other EMBA programs, a key deciding factor was the convenience of the schedule. "The way the resident modules were structured fit in closely with my children's school terms, and meant my being away wasn't that disruptive to family life," she says.

Dayo found that some of the lessons she absorbed through TRIUM's classroom learning and between-module assignments were particularly useful right away. "I immediately applied marketing lessons while on a consulting assignment in Uganda, and have also been able to use negotiation skills straight away."

Overall, she adds, "The program has generally made me more curious, and it has widened my ability, or at least my confidence, in tackling new aspects of my work. I have been able to think through HR issues related to building a research team, for example, considering the skills required and how to build a blend of abilities and personalities. Also, it has helped me apply a bit of rigor to the hiring process - formal CV and interview evaluations and developing tests for interviewees, to name a few."

Putting the global into EMBA

One of TRIUM's strengths is teaching students to understand the global economy from a larger perspective, and this was an especially important takeaway, Dayo says: "Getting insight into what China and India mean for the world - and for Africa - meant a great deal to me. I liked how the program tried to integrate some local content into the modules, so that I got a sense of what made business in China and India tick."

For the near future, Dayo plans to stay in the financial sector, but just exactly where is unclear. "My career could either take off in the policy direction, figuring out how to make financial systems work better," she says, "or it could switch completely into the commercial realm of designing mass-market financial products that can be deployed at scale through technology."

Whether policy or commerce, Dayo's contributions will have a positive impact on the lives of ordinary Africans. In the novels she writes in her spare time, she says, "I love to create alternative worlds." In a way, that's exactly what she does in her day job, as she helps to create a brighter future for Africa.

The program fully lived up to Dharmesh's expectations, he says: "The classroom sessions during the modules and interaction with cohorts were most valuable. All the modules were very well integrated and designed with each leading seamlessly to the next. Debates in the classroom and follow-through with the cohorts and the professors were engaging and stimulating. Cohorts brought varying perspective to an issue that was enlightening."

Heavy Traffic

With his responsibilities at GM particularly demanding during the global financial crisis, Dharmesh managed to thrive in the rigorous TRIUM program. "Residential modules were the most demanding with the requirement of travel, very engaging sessions, follow-through readings, assignments, and most of all social networking with the cohorts," he acknowledges. "But bustling locales such as New York, London and Paris provided the perfect backdrop to develop a network that will last forever!"

For the required term project, Dharmesh and four teammates conceived a project in the health sector to improve the efficiency of healthcare, concurrently with the Obama administration's focus on the healthcare mandate. "The term project was the culmination of everything we had learned in the program," Dharmesh says. "You really had to bring all your knowledge and apply it toward building a robust and sustainable business case."

Much of what Dharmesh learned at TRIUM has been of immediate practical use. "TRIUM has helped me shape up my skills in areas that I haven't had much experience in, like accounting, corporate finance, and marketing/sales," he says. "Experiences gained in the past combined with the analytical framework provided by a structured course like TRIUM has given me the skill sets necessary to come up with creative solutions."

Down the Road

Dharmesh is eager to bring those skills to Schaeffler. "Having done mostly operations roles in the past 20 years of my career, I am intrigued and very keen to run an organization wherein various functions come together in a seamless and collaborative fashion for the success of the organization," he says.

Dharmesh and his wife are raising two daughters to be prepared for the flat world of the 21st century that he experiences professionally. He says, "I can see my daughters becoming global citizens with cultural sensitivity and appreciation for diversity, and who are networked around the world and equipped to lead a successful life in a highly competitive world."

His time at TRIUM helped refine this worldview, he observes. "I have realized that there is no right answer to the complex problems we face in the global world today. Every person can come up with a different but perfectly acceptable solution to the same problem."