Why General Management Club at HEC?

I have been asked, on numerous occasions, what the General Management Club (GMAC) is all about. Many people say that after an MBA you can't immediately get a General Management job. So why have a club focusing on it? Well, I beg to differ.

General Management is, many a times, restrictively viewed as the sole responsibility of the CEO or President of a company. Guess what? This is a very narrow view of General management roles currently available in the market. For example, in the consumer goods industry the general management responsibilities are also shouldered by the Brand Manager, Product Manager and Category manager to name a few. Managers who lead business development activities, of the likes of a Country Manager or Account Manager, are key executors of general management tasks within a company.

There is another perspective I want to share. Irrespective of the next job we take up post-MBA, most of us want to have a general management career in the long run. Thus, general management may not be the next job but it will surely be the chosen career path of most MBA participants.

With this background in mind, GMAC intends to reinforce leadership education at HEC and support participants aspiring to pursue careers in General Management, Business Development and Strategy functions within a company. The first step, however, is to anchor the young club within and outside the HEC community.

Visions of Leadership Week 2009 - Excerpts from Day #1

Link to VoL Official Website
NOTE: The excerpts below capture a glimpse of the VoL week 2009 at HEC. The text is mostly verbatim from my notes and so might be skewed along my own understanding of what I heard. The text is reproduced to serve as a reference for myself and others who attended the conference. Those who were unable to attend the events may benefit as well.

In summary, it was exciting to hear the two business leaders of such great caliber speak about their vision's of leadership. While Mr. Beccalli-Falco's (CEO International, GE) lessons gave me an insight into what the next generation of business leader should look like, Mr. Spinetta's (Chairman, Air France KLM) talk allowed me to understand how specific characteristics of an industry shape the leader's strategy and vision for it's growth. My take away from today is that although the time is tough it's a leader's job to find those glimmers of hope and build upon them the businesses of tomorrow. [Summary in French on LaTribune.fr]

Excerpts from the conference of Ferdinado Beccalli-Falco, President and CEO International, General Electric

The talk was organized around the current economic crisis and how, as a leader, you should be dealing with it. Mr. Beccalli-Falco reflects on his 34 years of experience in the industry to find the questions and their probable answers.

What happened?
Growth was the name of the game in the recent past. This was the time when people from lower level of the society moved into the middle class. This fueled the growth further.

However, in the process two important things happened. Firstly, the level of risk analysis within companies, especially within the financial sector, went down. The consequence was the sub-prime crisis when high risk products were sold with AAA ratings. Secondly, the level of controls within the companies went down. Examples of these can be seen in Enron, Satyam (where 1 billion cash was sitting in the books but there was nothing in the bank in reality) and more recently in Madhoff's $50 billion hole.

What can we do about it?

1. Smart business people with the capability to look around the corner (strategic focus) are needed. For example, GE capital made around $8.6 billion profit in 2008 when other financial institutions made losses.
2. Risk analysis is an important tool for any kind of good business.
3. Cash is king. What is valuable to people is also valuable to an enterprise. Adequate levels of cash are needed to keep the company safe. On this note, it can be mentioned that in the times to come there will be a more conservative way in which businesses will be operated.
4. Investing in the future & focus on customer. For example, After September 2001, US airlines were facing troubled times. Credit facilities for these GE Capital customers were extended to support them during these times of crisis. After the crisis, these airlines are still customers of GE Capital and look to GE distinctively.
   
   A few points worth mentioning,
   
   a) The emergence of governments as customers: Governments all around the world are injecting money into the economy. How can businesses serve these Governments and earn their share out of the large amounts on injected capital.
   
   b) Investing in Technology: This is important to ensure that when we come out of the crisis we still maintain the technological leadership against our competitors.
   
   c) Globalization: Continue to favor world trade. Thomas Friedman's notion of "dell effect" is an important to understand how the earth is really becoming flat. Think in terms of supply chain today. For example, the core of an aircraft engine at GE is manufactured in Cincinnati, some parts are manufactured in Romania, some in Turkey, some in Moscow etc while the engine itself may be assembled in Paris. Thus, we see putting national barriers will only break the flow of the globally optimized supply chain.
   
   d) Investing in People: People are the most important asset.
   

How the world see's it?
What we see around us today is more or less negative in every sense of the word. Newspapers report divestments, loss of jobs, write-offs and every other thing which you wouldn't want to hear. The media doesn't make things any better. It shocks you to the n(th) degree when you should have only been "shocked".

What a leader should look for?
There are good things happening around. Not to the extent we would have liked but atleast some things have started to move in the right direction. Some "glimmer's of hope" that can be noted included,

1. Japan - The automotive industry has cleared it's inventories and is now producing again. Still under capacity but atleast the wheels are moving. New production mean that somewhere there is demand.
2. The chinese purchase index is growing.
3. The baltic index is growing
4. The prices of real estate in the US have started moving in the upward direction

What lessons of leadership can we take away?
Three things are important,

1. having a vision
2. being able to assess your capabilities
3. developing and providing a roadmap (where to go, how to do it?)

As a leader you should,

1. be yourself
2. listen
3. network (people above can not only provide political support but also make information accessible which otherwise wouldn't be in your reach)
   
4. work hard ( and have fun, luck touches all but only some see it)
5. make mistakes but don't make them twice
6. responsibility is to make the attitude of your people positive. (the important thing is to recognize the difficult situation and create a positive attitude to resolve it)
   

Excerpts from the lecture on "Introduction on Psychology & Decision Making" by Itzhak Gilboa, Professor HEC
to be added...

Excerpts from the conference on "Leadership & Industry" by Jean-Cyril Spinetta, Chairman of the board of directors, Air France KLM
to be added...

Club Officers - September 2008 Intake

List of club officers. Please click on the names for more details.


Founder & President
Mohammed Faizul WAHID


VP - Projects
Sandra ALVES


VP - Corporate Relations
Farid ZOURGANI


VP - Alumni Relations
Guilherme MENEZES VILLACA


VP - Internal Relations
Debora DENIZOT


VP - Communications
Sumit SINGH

New Linkedin group "MBA Network - General Management"

I just set up a Linkedin group named "MBA Network - General Management".

The focus of this group is to provide it's participants a platform to share and discuss trends and careers in general management.

This group will be maintained by the General Management Club at the HEC School of Management in Paris. The intent is to bring together current MBA participants and alumni from top B-Schools who seek to develop a general management career in the long run.

Join the group!

I invite you to,
• Join the group
• Invite others who might be interested (from other b-schools as well)
• Initiate discussion, you career expectations etc which could be answered by others

Hope this helps you in identifying your career goals and also develop further on them.

Looking forward to interact with you on this new platform.
Faiz/.