Priyanka Menon

China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)

“Driven by purpose and persistent about wanting to impact millions of lives in this world.”

Hometown: Mumbai, India

Fun Fact About Yourself: I can predict my Netflix recommendation faster than Netflix can

Undergraduate School and Major: Marketing – University of Pune

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Associate Product Manager, Purplle.com

Aside from your classmates, what was the key part of the MBA curriculum or activities that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? The most intriguing activity that led me to choose this business school has to be Entrepreneurship Lab (eLab) and its incubation program. I am a big fan of China’s entrepreneurial spirit and its contribution to the exponential growth of the Chinese economy in recent decades. The eLab is a platform that encourages this spirit and incubates innovative ideas. I feel privileged to be a part of the CEIBS eLab core team as it serves one of my critical objectives of joining CEIBS – getting to know the Chinese entrepreneurial ecosystem. It’s of great importance to me because I see myself establishing a venture of my own in a couple of years and I see great value in getting exposure to economies such as China and India.

What is the biggest appeal of earning an MBA in China? The biggest appeal of earning an MBA in China, apart from the entrepreneurial vibe, is to dive deeper into digital consumption growth. Two sectors that I am especially intrigued about are education tech and e-commerce. I see a lot that I can learn in these two sectors that would be invaluable in building a venture of my own back in India.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: On a personal level, it would be shifting from an introvertedly introverted person to introvertedly extroverted person. On a larger scale, I feel accomplished to have built a smart CRM platform that learns consumer behavior with some of the brightest minds in India to guide me through it. It was a real challenge having no background in tech and yet learning all that I needed about tech to lead a product like this and see it accomplish amazing results for the company. This accomplishment gave me the confidence to push my boundaries and believe in myself more.

Describe your biggest accomplishment as an MBA student so far? So far, the biggest achievement has been to be the captain of the Europe chapter for CEIBS’ InnovateChina programme – a programme which focuses on pushing students across global b-schools to compete and come up with innovative ideas to impact the future.

What quality best describes your MBA classmates and how do they demonstrate this quality in your interactions? If I was to sum-up the qualities of my MBA classmates in three words, it would be inclusive, interactive, and resilient. All these serious qualities with a hint of humor!

As demonstrated day in and day out in our conversations, the closeness and the way everyone is treated and greeted in the batch speaks volumes about how inclusive a batch we are.

I think professors would echo me on this when I say we are a bunch of talkers! We dissect our topics in our classroom to the point where our professors have to place a hard stop. This speaks to how openly interactive we are.

This year has been particularly tough and intense on all of us given the uncertainty of the future, visas, and the job market. Amidst these uncertainties, we’ve stood together and found the strength to cruise through it objectively and positively. This speaks to how resilient a batch we are.

What other MBA programs did you apply to? I also applied to IE and HKUST.

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point in your career? I had this willingness to pursue an MBA at 25 from a very young age. More than “when”, it was more about answering “where” and “why” to pursue an MBA. I certainly knew I wanted global exposure. The more I worked, the faster I narrowed my options to CEIBS with an objective to get the most of the digital China experience.

DON’T MISS: MEET THE CIEBS MBA CLASS OF 2022