Shweta Mukesh

IMD Business School

“I’m a global intrapreneur who is passionate about converting an idea/vision into a reality.”

Hometown: Rancho Palos Verdes, California, USA

Fun Fact About Yourself:  I have backpacked across more than 35 countries.

Undergraduate School and Major: International Studies and Economics, University of California San Diego

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Vice President of International Business and Solutions, Belong and CEO/Founder of KidsWhoKode

What quality best describes your MBA classmates and why? Diverse: ethnicity, backgrounds, culture, and mindsets.

Aside from classmates, what part of the school’s MBA programming led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? I wanted to go to a business school that deeply cared about who I was and what my goals were. Throughout the MBA application process, it was evident that the administration had invested the time in getting to know me. The admissions team shared articles that they thought I would enjoy reading. I even got a call from the Dean the day after I was admitted. Over the last six months, this belief has been re-affirmed in my interactions with the faculty and the university. IMD is not a large, traditional business school. Instead, it delivers a highly personalized transformative experience.

IMD has a reputation for being intense, with heavy reading and assignments. Did the school live up to its reputation? What did you do to get through the workload? I found the program quite intense. There were countless moments, in module 1, where I felt supremely overwhelmed. I got through the whirlwind of emotions and quantum of work with a lot of help from my friends and by making time for other dimensions in my life.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Professionally, my biggest accomplishment was building Belong’s two largest growth engines from ground zero. Combined, these two divisions generated 80% of the company’s revenue.

Personally, my biggest accomplishment is creating and scaling a nonprofit organization called KidsWhoKode. Currently, we teach 35,000+ students in India how to code.

Describe your biggest accomplishment at IMD so far: As a part of the entrepreneurship class, we work with a start-up for about three months. My biggest accomplishment at IMD was serving as a strategic partner to a B2C food delivery company and helping them evolve into a B2B platform company.

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point in your career? I had been working 16-18 hours a day for more than 6 years. Hence, I wanted time to pause and reflect. I also wanted to learn hard skills like finance and accounting and develop systemic thinking.

What other MBA programs did you apply to? I applied to two other MBA programs. Both were 1-year programs.

What did you do during the application process that enabled you to get accepted into IMD? Throughout the process, I was extremely honest about who I was, my strengths, and my failings/limitations.

What is the biggest epiphany you’ve gained about yourself or the world since you started at IMD? You are writing your history every day. Hence, knowing who you are, what you stand for, and putting your honor behind that is the most important thing you can do.

DON’T MISS: MEET IMD’S MBA CLASS OF 2020