Meet The HEC Paris MBA Class of 2017

Veronica Tisera 

HEC Paris

Hometown: Caracas, Venezuela

Undergraduate School and Major: Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, Economics

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation:

Procter & Gamble. Consumer & Market Knowledge National Key Accounts Manager, 2013-2015.

Procter & Gamble. Consumer & Market Knowledge Associate Manager High Frequency Stores, 2012-2013

Procter & Gamble. Consumer & Market Knowledge Fabric Care Venezuela & Baby Care Andean Cluster, 2010-2012

Recalling your own experience, what advice do you have for applicants who are preparing for either the GMAT or the GRE? Discipline is the key. Really take the time to laser focus your attention on preparing for your exams and immerse yourself into it. Many people choose to pay for very expensive courses when really the single most important thing you need to have is discipline to really concentrate on studying. If you are going to get it through a course, go ahead! But it is definitely within you to become disciplined in your study time.

Based on your own selection process, what advice do you have for applicants who are trying to draw up a list of target schools to which to apply? Don’t undermine yourself; you are more than capable of getting into your top choices! You should include your top schools and some back-ups in your list. However, I would advise you to apply to these back-ups after hearing from the top ones. This was one of the mistakes I made when drawing up my list and applying. I applied in the beginning to my back-ups and ended up wasting time, energy, and money on those instead of giving my 100% to my top choices.

What advice do you have for applicants in actually applying to a school, writing essays, doing admission interviews, and getting recommenders to write letters on your behalf?

Be focused, be honest, be yourself and be smart.

When applying to schools, be focused. Devote your entire attention to it because it will be hard and it will be long. To get into your dream school, this will have to be the only thing in your mind for a few months. When writing your essays, be honest. Direct your efforts to finding the answers that better represent your personality and goals rather than thinking of what the school would like to read. For your admission interviews, simply be yourself. Prepare well, thoroughly re-read your essays, and then just relax. If you got to the interview there is a good chance they just want to make sure you are who your application portrayed. And finally, when asking for recommendation letters, be smart about it: Ask someone that truly knows you. For schools, it will be more important reading the number of years the person has known you rather than reading a big title below their names.

What led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA? I am going to HEC Paris for three main things. First, I am looking for high level academics combined with personal growth experiences. The school’s attention to activities like the CEO speaker series and the two-day leadership seminar truly fit the holistic MBA experience I am searching for. In second place, I was looking for a high-level challenge to make me grow. The diversity of pre-MBA experiences and nationalities of students at HEC ensures that I will have not only a real international experience, but that I will also be challenged to grow by my peer students who will have such different personal and professional experiences from mine. Finally, I was looking for a more personalized experience, so the mid-size intakes of HEC were perfect for me, rather than other schools that have intakes of more than 500 people.

What would you ultimately like to achieve before you graduate? I would like to achieve a positive change in my MBA peers by sharing what I have learned professionally and the vision of the world I have acquired in Venezuela. If I graduate knowing that I had even the smallest influence in my peer’s MBA experience, accomplishments, and personal change, I will feel successful.