My name is Martina Skodova and I come from the Czech Republic. I lived or studied in London, Vancouver and Munich and travelled 19 countries (so far). After more than six years of working experience in business development in financial services industry, I come to IMD to reinforce leadership, to explore new roles and industries and to nurture my entrepreneurship. Along with Neharika and Parth, I will be posting insights on the IMD MBA journey in 2018.
So here we are 2018 IMD MBA, in a beautiful Lausanne at Lac Léman. We set off for our journey and have the first week behind us. It was five days full off so much new information and experience, first lows and highs, uplifting moments and enriching discussions that I have a feeling, we have been here already for a month. Here are my first thoughts, one of many in this blog series:
After the jump-start course of business analytics, which reaffirmed the importance of analytical tools to make faster decisions in digital economy, we visited one of the Lausanne’s landmarks, the Olympic museum. 
While learning about the history of Olympic games, inspecting the 3D models of Olympics stadiums, torches and opening ceremony costumes, it was one of the first of many opportunities to indulge in discussions with my cohorts and learn more about them and their cultures. We are coming from 43 countries and most us lived outside their home country for couple of years (I am going to count the final number, I promise!). Strolling through the museum, I was pondering about the parallel between the IMD MBA and the Olympic Games. We are certainly here not to combat, although we are going to challenge each other in the upcoming business cases, team presentations and tests. Still, we will leverage the strengths of our group, the broad span of skills and industry experience and the diverse personality profiles. The small size of the class caters for it. While working with each other, we will celebrate the Olympic values – Friendship, Respect, Excellence, Determination, Inspiration, Courage and Equality.
The look at the Vancouver Olympics torch surfaced memories on cheering for Czech national hockey team in 2010 Olympic matches with Sweden and Finland; and the amazing life-changing 9 months I spent in Canada afterwards. I am certain that 2018 will be a similar milestone experience, hence more intense and mature, considering the advanced phase on our life axis.
Gathering for a dinner in the museum with faculty and staff, we were warmly welcomed by IMD president, Jean-Francois Manzoni, and the Dean IMD MBA, Seán Meehan who shared their daily life experience with transformational leadership and encouraged us to be as open-minded, curious and explorative as possible. I say thank you for the great evening! In today’s late afternoon run, I passed by the Olympic flame. It blazed merrily. Same as the hearts of the 90 cohorts who will gather for their second week on Monday at 8 am in the Lorange auditorium.
Martina
