My Story: From the Israeli Army to London Business School

Diversity is something that strikes you when you come to the school. I wanted a diverse environment, and I think LBS answers for that more than any other top school. Coming from Israel, I didn’t want to go anywhere I would feel like an outsider. So diversity was a key factor for me. We work in study groups, and on one of the first days of school they match you up with your group. We had six people in ours, two women and four men. I’m from Israel and the other girl was from Namibia and used to work for McKinsey & Co.  One of the guys was from the British army. The others came from Canada, Korea and Portugal and had backgrounds in finance or consulting. This gives you a microcosm of how diverse the school is. For me, it was a great opportunity to learn from people with different life experiences.

I would also describe the environment at LBS as driven. A lot of people work with top businesses around the world for their summer internships and others are starting their own businesses. You see amazing potential for people to become future leaders. Everybody is inspiring in the way they are pursing things and moving forward.

LBS is also collaborative. You can always ask people for help, and you probably will never hear a no. Whether it’s for career advice, starting a business or planning school events, people are always willing to roll up their sleeves and help each other. You don’t come to business school just to sit in a classroom and learn by listening to lectures. For me, the majority of the experience I’m getting here and the knowledge I’m acquiring comes from my classmates and my new friends. That’s the important thing about business school – that you can connect with this amazing network of future leaders.

When I was recruited by the army my commander gave me advice that has guided me through my life and career. I’ll make the best translation I can from Hebrew. She always said that whatever is difficult, we will manage, and the impossible will just take us a little bit longer.  The idea is that nothing is impossible, everything is achievable.  If it seems impossible now, then you’ll just need to work harder on it, and you’ll achieve it eventually. You just need to believe in yourself. It’s something that sits in the back of my mind. I don’t take no for an answer. I keep pushing until I achieve what I’m going after.

I can’t identify one single challenge. I think that every day is a new challenge and everything is a new challenge, and you just need to conquer the next peak and move on. I come from a rural part of Israel where the percentage of people pursing higher education is relatively low. So you could say that even going to university and getting a law and economics degree was a challenge.  But I was just looking ahead at how to apply that knowledge to a workplace where I could continue learning. The next challenge was coming to LBS and then, within LBS, becoming the Student Association president and contributing back to the school. Now I’m looking at my long-term goals and what I want to do next. I find it all exciting rather than looking at any particular challenge as the most significant one.

The army definitely changed my life. One of my most memorable experiences was the first time I went into shooting training with my soldiers as a platoon commander. You’re left in charge to teach them during their first shooting experience. You manage all the security regulations to make sure they come back home in one piece. I think I only realized looking back how much responsibility it was – to be accountable for people’s lives when you’re practically just a kid yourself.

The experience gave me the ability to start making decisions on my feet. You realize that if you don’t make decisions and take responsibility, then no one else will. I think this has shaped the way I am now. It helped me adopt a forward-thinking mindset because nothing stands still. Everything is dynamic and changing all the time. So you have to know your priorities, make decisions and move forward. It gave me leadership and teamwork skills I still use to this day.

Without a doubt I’m most grateful for my family, both my parents and my two younger brothers and my extended family.  We’re very loving, and it’s difficult to be here and to have everybody else in Israel, but it helps to connect over email and Skype. I’m also very grateful for my partner of more than three years, who has been with me the whole way. He’s extremely supportive, and I definitely couldn’t have done it without him on any level. We were both lawyers in Israel and finishing up our internships when we met. He started the MBA quest a little bit before me at INSEAD and graduated in December 2011.

Go for it. That’s the best advice I can give someone considering an MBA. It’s a great experience. I don’t regret it for a second. It gave me the opportunity to zoom out and look at everything I have done in my career so far and to really think thoroughly about what I want to do going forward. With that, you get an incredible network of people from all around the world. I know for sure in five or 10 years if I’m trying to start a business in, say, Argentina, I could pick up the phone and call an old classmate and they would be really keen to help. People sometimes ask me if I’d like to exit the program after 15 months instead of the 18- or 21-month track. I said if I could exit after 48 months, I would definitely do it.

I can’t remember exactly what I wrote in my admissions essay, but I can tell you that a lot of things have changed since then. When I applied to LBS, I didn’t think I would become the Student Association president. There was an essay option to write out your manifesto if you became the student body president.  I didn’t pick that one. I chose the other topic. That role came to me as a surprise.

It’s good to have to a clear view of what you want to do when you apply to business school, but it’s also perfectly fine to change your mind through the process. For me, I never thought I would join a startup. I was very clear when I began my MBA about joining a larger company. But after my experience with a startup over the summer, that completely changed. Business school gives you a safe environment for trial and error. I recommend that you put aside your essays when you get to business school and really explore all the other options and try to understand if things have changed and if you want to do something else.

Other “My Story” features:

From an Army Ranger in Iraq to Harvard

From Communist Romania to London Business School

From a Hollywood Talent Agency to Chicago’s Booth School of Business

From Deloitte Consulting to Harvard