The following twelve students will share their business school experiences over the current academic year
Cezanne Maherali
Age: 27
Nationality: Kenyan
MBA programme: Cezanne is studying for an MBA at Insead and is attending classes at the school's campuses in Singapore and Fontainebleau, France. She comes to Insead from PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she worked in sub-Saharan Africa for four years as a corporate finance and management consultant. Cezanne hopes her MBA will help her to play a key role in ensuring sustainable private sector development in Africa.
Rahul Bajaj
Age: 31
Nationality: Indian
MBA programme: Rahul is in the second year of his MBA in Finance and Strategic Management at the Chicago Booth School of Business, University of Chicago. He began his career as a financial analyst in the investment banking division of Morgan Stanley in New York, before moving to India to become an entrepreneur. As well as establishing a security services company, Rahul is also an actor and writer.
Nathan Lang
Age: 24
Nationality: British
MBA programme: Nathan has enrolled in the accelerated one-year MBA programme at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in the US. He plans to major in finance, entrepreneurship and marketing. Before joining the school he worked for Boston Consulting in London, Mumbai and Dubai. He has a degree in economics from the University of Cambridge in the UK.
Beth Bremner
Age: 30
Nationality: South African
MBA programme: Beth has elected to study for an MBA at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Business School. After acquiring a management accounting degree at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, she completed her CIMA accountancy qualifications in London and for the past eight years has worked in the finance industry in London and in the Middle East.
Seda Saracer
Age: 25
Nationality: Turkish
MBA programme: Having travelled extensively Seda has opted to study for her MBA at Milan's Bocconi University. Seda is multi-lingual and has for the past three years worked for Jotun, manufacturer of paints and powder coatings in their marketing department. She studied international trade as an undergraduate at Bogazici University in Istanbul.
Gleana Albritton
Age: 31
Nationality: American
MBA programme: Gleana has recently moved to Belgium from the US to study for her full-time MBA at the Vlerick Leuven Gent School of Management. She has held various marketing roles in the media and entertainment sector in the US and her last position was as director of events and field marketing at Fuse Networks, a national music cable TV network. She has a business administration degree from Valdosta State University, Valdosta, Georgia in the US.
Aswini Anburajan
Age: 29
Nationality: American
MBA programme: Born in India and raised in the US, Aswini is a former journalist and worked for NBC and public radio. She reported extensively on the Barack Obama presidential campaign and the experience has motivated her to look at how news organisations can create business models in the digital age. She is studying for an MBA at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge in the UK.
Kane Cuenant
Age: 26
Nationality: Canadian
MBA programme: Kane is studying for his MBA at Moscow School of Management Skolkovo, Russia. He has a degree from Queen's University, Ontario and has a keen interest in humanitarianism. Kane has worked at the Bureau Veritas, a certification company, where he advised multi-nationals about trade transactions to developing countries.
In his humanitarian role he has worked for United Planet, in a fundraising and management consultancy role.
Federico Zaldua
Age: 26
Nationality: Argentinean
MBA programme: Federico begins his MBA programme at Columbia Business School, New York in January 2010. He holds an economics degree from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Federico began working for the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange when he was 19 and subsequently worked for a real estate company for a short while. At the age of 26, with the help of former colleagues at the stock exchange, he started his own investment company focusing in Argentinian assets.
He is deeply interested in Latin American art.
Alex Ferrari
Age: 24
Nationality: Argentinean
MBA programme: Alex is studying for a one-year MBA at the School of Business Administration at the University of Miami.
He was born in Buenos Aires and lived there until he was 15, when he moved to Florida in the US.
He graduated from the University of Miami in 2008 with a BA in business administration and subsequently worked for an airline as a marketing trainee, working with the communications director.
At the end of his internship last September he decided to take the opportunity to further his education and was accepted onto the University of Miami's graduate programme. He begins his MBA at the end of January.
Maxime Droubi
Age: 33
Nationality: French/Syrian
MBA programme:Maxime Droubi was born in Syria, but left his home country aged 16 to study firstly in the UK and subsequently in Lausanne, Switzerland where he gained a masters in engineering in communication systems.
He worked in the US on both the east and west coasts, before returning to Europe to work in various telecommunication and consumer electronics industries.
He is studying for an MBA at IMD in Lausanne.
Michael Cooper
Age: 38
Nationality: British
MBA programme: Michael is studying for a full-time MBA at Strathclyde Business School, UK. He was born in the UK and has a degree in environmental biology with post grad qualifications in audit. His 15 years work experience have been spent travelling the world to provide regulatory IT consultancy to life science clients. He hopes that his MBA will help to focus and extend his entrepreneurial skills.
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Lucy Kellaway, FT columnist and associate editor, offers her solution to your workplace problems in a column in the Financial Times. In the