From North Carolina To Russia, Would-Be MBAs Descend On CEIBS

Shahin Dehmiyani,  Germany

Shahin Dehmiyani listens to a lecture during the CEIBS boot camp.         – Ethan Baron photo

For Shahin Dehmiyani of Germany, getting an MBA isn’t a matter of if, it’s when. He speaks limited Mandarin, after six months doing strategic marketing for a global chemical company in Taiwan, and six months before that working in online marketing for global adhesives and hygiene products firm Henkel. Since March, he’s been a tutor of statistics and math at the Shanxi University of Finance & Economics about 1,000 miles northwest of Shanghai.

Dehmiyani, 26, found the boot camp lectures enlightening, in the manner of teaching. “I got a really good understanding of the way they approach the problems in the case studies,” Dehmiyani says. “Since I studied business we always look through the business lens, we always talk about GDP, economic growth, stuff like that. Here, what we’ve seen so far . . . they try to approach these things from a number of perspectives, not only business, but culture, politics: big picture, bottom line thinking.

AN MBA FOR THE BIG PICTURE

“I think that is necessary if you want to be a good manager in the future. You have to have this big picture, bottom line thinking, and I think that is something you probably can learn in the MBA program.”

For now, he’s deciding whether to remain abroad and find a job in his field, or return to Germany, where he received his BS in business administration and economics from the Goethe University in Frankfurt, and has worked six-month stints in management consulting for a German strategy firm and in business development in Henkel’s Dusseldorf-area office.

He’s fairly set on getting an MBA in the next three to five years, and will consider CEIBS, he says. “I could at this point in time very well imagine to live here for a couple of years,” he says. “This might be a good choice.”

DON’T MISS: A BOOT CAMP PITCH FOR GETTING AN MBA IN CHINA or GETTING AN MBA IN CHINA: AN AMERICAN IN SHANGHAI