As I sit in our team room surrounded by whiteboards filled with frameworks, sticky notes, and comments, I can’t help but smile at how far we’ve come. With just one week until our final presentation and a month until graduation, this International Consulting Project (ICP) feels like the perfect culmination of our IMD MBA journey and a chance to put everything we’ve learned into practice. As we prepare to present our final recommendations next week, I know that regardless of the outcome, the real victory is in how far we’ve come and who we’ve become.
The past seven weeks have been intense, exhilarating, and deeply enlightening. Our client, a Swiss metal manufacturing company, gave us a complex challenge that embodied the real-world complexity we’ve been preparing for. We’ve driven over 2,000 kilometers across Switzerland and Germany, visiting foundries, workshops, and warehouses – deeper regions within the countries that I never dreamed I’d find myself a year ago as I imagined my MBA journey.
The experience has been far more than just applying business frameworks. Yes, we’re using the strategic tools and marketing theories we learned in our first six months, analyzing market dynamics and crafting recommendations. But the real learning has also come from the unexpected moments: the eight-hour drives in a cramped car where we discovered more about each other than we ever could in a classroom, and the intense discussion sessions about our findings in our designated study room that pushed us to challenge our assumptions.
Our faculty advisor for the project, Albrecht Enders, shared how the lessons from his own ICP still guide his project work today – whether in strategy development, managing group dynamics, or self-reflection. This isn’t just about delivering a consulting project; it’s about integrating everything IMD has taught us about leadership, teamwork, and personal growth.
Throughout the year, IMD has emphasized leadership development through various channels, from formal classes to workshops and Personal Development Electives (PDEs). During this project, these lessons have come alive. When we need to influence stakeholders, we are drawing on communication techniques we’ve learned. When tensions arose within the team, we used the “putting fish on the table” approach we’d learned to address conflicts openly and constructively. The theory became practice, and practice became wisdom.
The project has also highlighted how much we’ve grown personally. A year ago, I might have hesitated to challenge a client’s assumptions or push back on a teammate’s idea. Now, these actions feel more natural, grounded in both confidence and humility – a balance IMD has helped us to develop throughout the program.
What makes this experience particularly poignant is knowing that we’re approaching the end. Soon, we’ll deliver our final presentation, and shortly after, we’ll be heading back to our respective realities, though they are realities we’ve chosen to reshape through this MBA journey. The friendships we’ve forged, through countless study sessions, social gatherings, and now this intensive consulting project, will endure beyond graduation.
As I look toward graduation in a month, I feel a mix of emotions: pride in what we’ve accomplished, gratitude for the relationships we’ve built, and excitement about the future we’ve prepared for. Every day brings me one step closer to the goals I dreamed of when I first arrived in Lausanne, supported by the incredible friends I’ve made along the way.
The manufacturing facilities we visited might work with metal, but what IMD has helped forge is something far more valuable – leaders ready to make a meaningful impact in the business world.
Yonjai Lee
and my ICP team: Taylor Tepondjou, Vincent Chiron, Orlando Santos, Kristian Thomsen, and Ned Kingdon
