Meet The Rotman MBA Class Of 2018

Albert Cuesta Reig

Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

Describe yourself in 15 words or less: I am a creative mind and an intrepid sports enthusiast with a global perspective.

Hometown: Barcelona, Spain

Fun Fact About Yourself: I tend to remember random words and expressions in multiple languages, including Japanese, Korean and Arabic, some of them quite useful.

Konohito ga zembu haraimasu – This guy will pay for everything.

Undergraduate School and Major:

Architecture School of Barcelona, Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC)

Visiting Student at the Illinois Institute of Technology

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation:

Project Architect at CGL Architects (London, UK)

Computational Design Architect at SOM (London, UK)

Project Architect at Cloud 9 (Barcelona, Spain)

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: On June 8, 2015 I joined CGL, a 50 person architecture firm based in London, to lead the design of 6 interconnected towers with 1,200 residential units in Manchester. The main challenges were a tight timeframe of 12 weeks (instead of the standard 18-20 weeks for planning application) and a project six times larger than any project the company had taken on before.

I joined the team on the third week and we had 10 weeks to go. I immediately felt that the tight timeframe had forced some questionable design decisions, so I determined it was critical to invest the first two weeks to re-define the project’s strategy. Based on my previous experience in complex large-scale projects, I convinced my supervisors, Paul and Greg, to work with an inside-out process: to solve and understand the internal parts in advance would allow us to work on the overall design in an integrated manner.

On August 14, 2015, we successfully submitted to planning a design that we were proud of, within the scheduled timeframe and, most importantly, exceeding our client’s expectations on the overall work and design quality.

I am particularly proud of this accomplishment because of the impact it had. This impact not only included the client, who now considers CGL a serious candidate for future large scale projects, but especially on the company’s management level, as they understood the key benefits of a process-driven project and challenged me to lead the internal change that will drive CGL to the next level.

Looking back on your experience, what advice would you give to future business school applicants? The only piece of advice I would give is be yourself. Don’t try to be somebody else.

Spend time reflecting and learning about yourself and what you really want to do. Only then will you be able to target the schools that are right for you. Rankings and GMAT scores are just numbers. Such an important career decision should not be taken based on those numbers, but based on what school aligns with who you are and will empower to achieve great things.

Coming from a creative background, it was also very important to me to learn what made each School different and unique

What led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA? I chose Rotman for my MBA for four main reasons:

1st – Rotman is one of the few Business Schools, if not the only one, that believes in a different way of doing business and promotes integrative thinking to solve business problems. I am convinced that combining a creative thinking process with the analytical rigour of the business world will lead to new solutions and opportunities that would otherwise be neglected.

2nd – Over the last 4.5 years I have worked at three different companies with very different design and business approaches. However, there is one challenge I have been trying to solve on all these companies, how to empower innovation and collaboration as an organization. By taking advantage of the Business Design major at Rotman I aim to learn not only about different organizational structures but also how to define and implement new strategies for any organization’s success.

3rd – The Rotman hands-on approach will allow me to have a real life business experience through courses and competitions during the MBA program. This is particularly important to me as it will help me prepare for my post-MBA challenges.

4th -After talking with students and alumni, I understood how the diversity of cultures and perspectives of the city of Toronto and the student body really makes the Rotman experience unique.

Tell us about your dream job or dream employer at this point in your life? Post MBA, I aim to transition towards a strategy position at an innovation consultancy firm, such as IDEO or SYPartners, where I will integratively transform how organizations respond and adapt to the rapidly changing business environment.

What would you like your business school peers to say about you after you graduate from this program? I would be honored to hear that I contributed in making their MBA experience at Rotman truly amazing and fulfilling, both inside and outside of class.