Last week we elected our Ombudsman and Ombudswoman! Alex Khairallah and Neha Kabra will represent the class in various topics when dealing with the MBA Office. I thought it would be nicer for you to hear directly from them on the new responsibilities and expectations for the year 🙂
Congratulations and good luck, guys!
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Thank you Silvia for inviting us to pen this blog.
I am Neha Kabra, a banker by profession. Just last month I had the opportunity to share my early experiences from the program with all of you. Days at IMD pass by incredibly quickly and we are already at the end of month two!
I am back once again – this time in the capacity of the Ombudsperson for the Class of 2016, a position I share with my buddy Alex Khairallah.
Alex comes from GE where he worked in financial management for GE’s Healthcare and Capital divisions. Alex is a the calmest guy I know. Bring in the most “nerve wrecking” problem, and he presides over it with a zen-like calmness. With Alex around, no issue is big enough to not be resolved. On that note over to you Alex…..
Hello everyone this is Alex. Thanks Neha for a “smashing” introduction 🙂
Neha and I were chosen by our classmates to be the voice of the class. The idea is to balance my “zen-like calmness” with Neha’s “enthusiastic energy” :P. We have already spent a couple of weeks working together as Ombudspersons and we make a fantastic team (we have celebrated small victories already :)). We share similar thoughts on how and what we would like to achieve for the class over the course of the next year. Here’s our joint view.
The Ombudsperson role is multi-faceted and will require us to be the voice of reason amongst diverse opinions. At IMD 90 strong minded, independently thinking individuals are being constantly challenged in a high performance environment. The program is designed to test us to limits. IMD recognizes this and wants to give all of us a fair opportunity of being heard. So as Ombudspersons, our main idea is to reconcile diverse opinions and position the class as one entity to bring top quality change.
In short, we are the interface between the MBA Office and the class. We also mediate in the intra class dynamics with the aim of bringing the class together to make this a memorable year for all of us.
As we pen this blog, we have already held a class-wide session where we shared our 2-way communication approach to listen and share ideas with our classmates : “we come to you” and “you come to us” (cheesy, we know!). But it works :). Our challenge this year is to consolidate and prioritize the views of our exceptional classmates when linking with the MBA Office, and to leave a legacy behind for the next class.
We are in the process of agreeing on the strategic and tactical ideas that we would like to work on over the course of this year. We will keep you posted on the progress made 🙂
Signing off,
Neha and Alex
Ombudspersons
MBA 2016
