Rishabh Chaturvedi

ESADE Business School

‘An Indian national, I’ve lived and worked in seven counties across the globe. I find diverse and multicultural environments enriching and stimulating.”

Hometown: Bhopal, India

Fun fact about yourself: My name was voted ‘Most Likely to be Mispronounced’ by my section. Since the first term, my classmates have only called me “Ricardo/Rishbaaah.”

Undergraduate School and Degree: Nirma University, India. Bachelors in Electrical Engineering

Where was the last place you worked before enrolling in business school? I worked for LEONI Cables in Changzhou, China as a process engineer.

Where did you intern during the summer of 2018? I interned in the Burger King Finance team at Restaurant Brands International, Singapore.

Where will you be working after graduation? I am juggling a few offers in management consulting. I have not yet decided which one to accept.

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School: I was the chapter president of Make A Difference, an NGO in India focused on education for children at social and economic risk. I was also actively involved with a public policy group that worked toward better implementation of the Right to Education in India. My efforts were recognized by ESADE in the form of a scholarship. At ESADE, I was president of the Operations and Supply Chain Management Business Club.

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? My internship at Restaurant Brands International in Singapore ranks as my proudest achievement. It took seven interviews, the last of which was a phone call with the CEO, Mr. Jose Cil, to get the offer. I worked on the Burger King Finance team, helping develop the restaurant’s growth strategy for key Asian markets. This was an exhilarating experience with lots of learning and the chance to experience a completely new industry and a new region and to impact decisions at a strategic level for Burger King. I also got a chance to go behind the scenes and work at one of the Burger King restaurants, but the most exciting part of the internship was presenting my final recommendations to the CEO, Mr. Cil, and the leadership team at RBI HQ in Miami.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? After graduating in India, I started my first job at LEONI, a leading cable manufacturing company in Germany. In my three years at the company, I was given opportunities to grow, and I spent one year each in Germany, China, and Slovakia, three very different markets where I worked with the managing directors of the plants and the COO of the Business Unit. This international exposure and responsibility early in my career helped me not only broaden my technical skill set, but also develop appreciation and understanding of the socio-cultural aspects of working in different regions.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? Gloria Batllori (Corporate Finance) is my favorite professor at ESADE. It is not easy to teach finance basics to a class that has both absolute novices such as myself and students with years of experience in finance. Gloria did an amazing job at managing the class and her style of not letting anyone get away with using jargon without explaining what it meant really helped. For some sessions, she would just open the day’s latest business news and teach us how to interpret each sentence.

What was your favorite MBA event or tradition at your business school? The Gastrofest is one of the highlights of my ESADE MBA. Our class at ESADE has people representing more than 52 nationalities. The Gastrofest is a melting pot where each country sets up a stall with its nation’s cuisine. The evening concludes with some beautiful performances. In the end, the whole class gets on stage with their countries’ flags. It was a poignant reminder of our diversity and the openness that characterizes the ESADE culture.

Why did you choose this business school? I chose ESADE for the flexibility it offers to customize your MBA journey. ESADE not only allows you to complete the MBA in 12, 15, or 18 months, you are also not expected to choose your track until you are a good eight months into the program. This flexibility allowed me to front-load my subjects in such a way that I could do two internships in two different countries and an exchange at Kellogg School of Management in the U.S.

What is your best advice to an applicant hoping to get into your school’s MBA program? In addition to reading blogs and websites, do make it a point to connect with current students at the school and alums to understand the culture better. ESADE has a very strong collaborative and entrepreneurial culture. Understanding it and resonating with it is important to be able to enjoy the MBA. Expect your admission interview to be a very pleasant experience aimed at understanding you better. Come armed with stories and instances of past experiences to help the interviewer get a better feel for who you are.

What is the biggest myth about your school? It is rare for ESADE and its diversity and collaborative spirit not to be mentioned in the same sentence. The school totally lived up to these tags. I really enjoyed discussing business cases with a class that had lawyers, bankers, entrepreneurs, PhDs – the diverse viewpoints and stories that were shared in the classroom contributed as much to my learning as the academics.

Looking back over your MBA experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently and why? Looking back, I am very satisfied with my MBA journey and I would not change a thing. I only wish there were more hours in the day to enjoy Barcelona a bit more.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? Mingyi Chen is the classmate I admire the most. Mingyi is the founder of a successful company that operates in the US and China. Mingyi balanced the MBA while working full time on this venture, which means he was effectively living in three time zones at any given moment. Despite this, Mingyi gave 100% to each project for the MBA, was always available to chat and give advice, managed his kids, and occasionally cooked delicious Chinese food for us.

Who most influenced your decision to pursue business in college? My father did his MBA almost 30 years ago and that had a profound impact on him and his career trajectory. He’s the one who constantly checked on me during my Pre-MBA days and made sure I did not get complacent in my job.

What are the top two items on your professional bucket list?

1. Entrepreneurship – I’d like to have my own venture one day in the not so distant future.
2. Mentoring – I have been extremely lucky to have some incredible mentors in my life. One day, when I am old and wise, I would love to play that role for someone else.

In one sentence, how would you like your peers to remember you? I’d like my peers to remember me as the dependable, helpful Indian/Ecuadorian guy who is fun to work with.

Hobbies? My favorite hobbies are traveling, reading about different topics, and relaxing with friends in one of Barcelona’s many “places” or squares.

What made Rishabh such an invaluable addition to the Class of 2020?

“Rishabh Chaturvedi started his professional career as an engineer in India but quickly began to branch out. Having gone to six different schools during his primary education, he was quite used to moving around and adapting to different cultures. After graduating from college, he continued to move around and accepted a job in Germany. There, he undertook interdisciplinary training in the automotive sector and continued to give back by volunteering in his free time, something he had already done as an undergraduate student. Not satisfied with learning about only one different culture, he then took the opportunity to work in Slovakia, followed by a move to a small city in China to round off his international experience prior to the MBA. He picked up a working knowledge of both German and Mandarin to smooth his adaptation to local culture, and shared time with colleagues and friends by participating in sports and food-related activities.

Most recently, Rishabh was able to merge his goal of a more strategic role for his post-MBA career with his passion for food. Despite being a lifelong vegetarian and not having ever tried a burger, he accepted an internship at Burger King/Restaurant Brands International in Singapore followed by an internship at Delivery Hero (German food delivery startup).

The aforementioned experience and learning have made Rishabh a well-rounded person. He is a focused, mature, and impactful student who is aware of his capabilities and potential. Rishabh is not only a thinker but also a “furious doer,” capable of listening actively and immediately processing all variables at stake with a staggering capacity for synthesis. And he does all this in a positive, smiley, and emphatically engaging way.

Always generous with his time, he has continued to proactively give back, using his multicultural outlook, proficiency in languages and engaging personality to share with prospective candidates how his shared values of social responsibility and collaborative spirit led him to join the Esade MBA.”

Prof. Jan Hohberger
Associate Dean of the Esade MBA and Associate Professor Strategy and General Management at Esade Business School

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