Q&A WITH LAMIA

Define your experience in the IMBA.
The Global MBA experience was very unique. It really opened my eyes to getting to know myself from my colleagues and from the faculty that taught us.

What were some of the main challenges that you encountered on your way? How did your master program and IE help you through these challenges?
I came from a banking background and the Global MBA highlighted and brought out key strengths that I did not know I had and even qualifications. It also gave me a broad and wider vision to be able to strengthen my business foundation in strategy, marketing, leadership, and operations, which I did not have the opportunity to do working at my previous job as a corporate banker.

How did your experience at IE prepare you for your professional career? In what ways do you think program has changed your life professionally and personally?
IE taught me to get out of comfort zone, to be brave to shift careers. I shifted careers totally, from banking to education. The program also highlighted and emphasized on my people skills where I shifted into education and business development.

What was networking like in the program?
Until this very day, where I started the program in 2014, we are still in touch and in contact.

What was your favorite memory from your time at IE?
Our final project and the graduation.

If someone was considering going to IE, what would you tell them?
It’s a lifechanging experience and the diversity element from a professional experience perspective is the most unique experience in the world.

Why did you choose to study this program at IE?
Diversity from a professional standpoint, not culturally as I live in Dubai and have been brought up and open to the cosmopolitan diverse cultural experience.

What is one thing you wished you knew, when you were a student? What advice would you give to students who are about to begin the program?
I wish I knew that the program was extremely intense and demanding. It was like a full-time MBA not a part-time program. The advice I would give students is to be open to feedback, open to change, open to your colleagues and your faculty, and open to everyone you meet at IE throughout your experience studying.

Tell us about the IE alumni community and the impact they have had in your life and/or career. Why do you think it’s important to engage with the IE alumni community?
The alumni community in Dubai as the most active alumni community in the world, I have been lucky to be able to engage and work with them since 2015.

As one of the contributors towards the Illuminated Bricks campaign, how does it feel?
I am blessed and grateful that I can contribute to the Illuminated Bricks campaign. Grateful that I can make a difference. I encourage everyone that has the means financially to join the cause and make a difference if they can.

What made you decide to give this gift?
The impact it has in changing people’s lives, especially refugees worldwide.

In your opinion, why is it important to give back? Why does this cause matter to you?
It is always crucial to give back and to be kind always. To make a difference, to set a positive impact as this is what the world is lacking unfortunately. If we come together, give back, and make a positive impact and make a difference for an individual and to society.

What can we do within our IE Community to create an impact and support education?
Share the stories, share the personal life changing stories, the positive impact, and the support IE has given people and the opportunities of a lifetime that have been granted by the IE community.

What would you tell someone who was thinking about contributing?
I will share a quote that sticks with me: “To make a difference in the world, it only takes one optimistic person, who can gather millions of people to make the change.”

If you had a billboard you could display to the entire world, what you would put on it?
The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.

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