At HEC Paris, It’s Just Another Day In The Life Of An MBA

Veuve Clicquot vineyards

HEC Paris MBA students at the Veuve Clicquot vineyards in Verzy: (from left to right) Madeleine Chabot from the U.S., Mauricio Mastropietro from Chile, Dominque Christiansen from Brazil, Xinja ‘Ada’ Wang from China, Janika Naust from Germany, and Fawad Bhatti from Pakistan.

THE LURE OF HEC PARIS FOR AN MBA

The payoff? Chbeir believes that applying for consulting jobs in the Middle East will be much easier as a result of his consulting trek. “We already met the companies and we can select which sector and which firm we would target,” he adds. “And we built a direct connection with the partners and directors that enables us to keep in touch and later apply through them. It was a great experience and initiative especially for the candidates interested in the region.”

Many of the students who come to HEC ultimately hope to. work in Europe and some have had an earlier experience in the country that left a mark. Hilary Matson, an American who had worked for Amazon in both Seattle and Paris as a senior product marketing manager for video games, first came to France as a 15-year-old to stay with a host family. Matson wants to remain in France after earning her MBA and chose HEC over INSEAD because of its smaller, more intimate class size, its prestige in France, its focus on sustainability, and the chance to customize her MBA education.

“No one ever heard of INSEAD in France,” she says. “Everyone knows HEC. It speaks volumes in France. And what HEC tries to do with every intake is to create strong bonds with every student.” Fellow American Madeleine Chabot, who had been an associate manager for client development for Christian Dior in New York, agrees. “We’ve created intimate relationships with the people we’ve met here,” says Chabot. “There’s not a single person in my intake that I couldn’t go to in five years and get a response from.”

VEUVE CLICQUOT: A CHANCE ‘TO GAIN A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF HOW A LUXURY BRAND APPROACHES A GLOBAL MARKET’

Arnaud Troussier, the business development manager for Asia Pacific, in the boardroom at Veuve Clicquot headquarters

Xinja “Ada” Wang,  a former Ernst & Young consultant who had been the manager of consulting services in Beijing, says she turned down opportunities to get an MBA at UC-Berkeley Haas and INSEAD largely because of the school’s close-knit community and varied yet small study body. “My classmates are so diverse,” she says. “It’s much better than American schools. I feel I’m connected to the people here and the culture. I like the inclusiveness here. I cannot get this in China. It’s been an opportunity to see business issues from different angles. It has really opened my mind to different perspectives. I’ve changed as a result.”

Students at HEC speak in glowing terms about their peers. “I have never worked in such an inspiring and truly diverse environment before,” says Naust. “People coming to HEC and pursuing the MBA here are not satisfied with the status quo. I made new friends from all over the world, and I am continuously learning about different cultures.”

On this trek to France’s Champagne region, it’s unlikely that anyone will leverage the visit into a job. But that’s not the main purpose of the trip. As Massini explains, “it’s to gain a better understanding of how a luxury brand approaches a global market.”

A LESSON IN LUXURY WINEMAKING AND HISTORY

The trek starts with a morning 45-minute train ride from Paris to Reims, a swift stroll to a city hotel for a check-in, and then a shuttle ride to Veuve Clicquot’s expansive vineyards. Students are brought through the winery to see how the freshly harvested grapes are pressed and put into fermentation tanks. They are then guided through the champagne maker’s massive cellars, 15 miles of chilly underground tunnels where 40 million bottles of champagne are stored and aged.

The private visit with an oenologue is both a lesson in luxury winemaking as much as it is a lesson in history. Madame Clicquot was all of 27 years old when her husband, François Clicquot, the founder’s son, died in 1805. Within weeks of his death, the widow decides to run the company herself, becoming one of the first female entrepreneurs of modern times.  By 1810, she creates the first vintage champagne. Six years later, she invents the first riddling table, a process still in use, to produce a crystal-clear wine. In 1818, she created the first blended rosé champagne by blending some Bouzy red wine with her champagne. Madame Clicquot died in 1866 at the age of 89.

Following a tasting in the cellars, the students march up the myriad steps in a long passageway back outside where they are brought by shuttle to Veuve Clicquot headquarters at La Maison du Marc, the mansion acquired by Madame Clicquot in 1822. They are greeted by Arnaud Troussier, the business development manager for Asia Pacific, who is also an HEC Paris alum with an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. In the company’s boardroom, he shared the strategy of the second-largest champagne maker in the world. Veuve Clicquot annually sells 20 million bottles of champagne in the world, with the U.S. accounting for 30% of its volume.

The Veuve Clicquot cellars contain 40 million bottles of champagne

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