Meet INSEAD’s MBA Class Of 2018

Arianna Lu

INSEAD

Describe yourself in 15 words or less: Challenge-seeker fueled by the passion of uniting people and doing good in the world.

Hometown: Toronto, Canada

Fun Fact About Yourself: I have unusually good spatial memory and enjoy retracing routes I’ve walked as a child whenever I visit cities I’ve lived in.

Undergraduate School and Major: University of British Columbia, Vancouver –  Marketing and English Literature

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation:

Marketing Manager – Ritual Technologies (mobile technology startup)

Community Manager – Noise Digital (digital advertising agency)

Associate, Operations – Tealeaves (beverage company)

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: In my two years as Marketing Manager for Ritual Technologies, I worked with my team to grow the marketing program from a market-size of less than a thousand users to over a hundred thousand users across four North American cities. During this time, I achieved user acquisition and engagement targets on a limited marketing budget and created integrated communications across a multitude of platforms, shaping the brand and voice to what it is today. This process of growing and expanding a business from the ground up was the most challenging and rewarding accomplishment in my career thus far.

Looking back on your experience, what one piece of advice would you give to future business school applicants?

GMAT – For me, the GMAT was all about learning how to approach and correctly answer questions using the least amount of time, and the only way to increase speed is through practice. Determine your areas of weakness through initial mock exams, then dedicate ample time to those sections.

Choosing schools – Identify your most important (read: absolutely necessary) criterion for a school to make the cut, then dive into research. Once you have a shortlist, consider how they measure up to your other wants and needs. In every stage of the application process, you’ll want to demonstrate why you are a good fit for the school and vice versa, and doing in-depth research in advance will prepare you from the get-go and make sure you end up at the right school for you.

Know yourself well – in both the essays and interviews, you’ll want to be honest and consistent. Knowing exactly why you want to go to B-school, what you’ve done in your career to lead you to this point, and specific examples showcasing your leadership and teamwork ability and potential will help you to stay authentic and stand out in your own way.

What was the key factor that led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA and why was it so important to you? My most important criterion when searching for a B-school was international orientation and a global mindset – I wanted to have my mind opened and challenged by different cultural perspectives and gain a deeper understanding of business in an international context. INSEAD’s value proposition is “the Business School for the World”, and no other program stood out more when it came to the focus of building global leaders. As an ENFJ, I am often guided by my intuition, and in the end, INSEAD not only checked all my boxes, but also felt like it was where I needed to be for this stage of my life.

 What would success look like to you after your first year of business school? Success to me would be waking up every day to work that I am passionate about and a career path that challenges me to continually learn, grow, and make an impact on something larger than myself.

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