Precious Okoro

IESE Business School

“Tenacious and optimistic nature lover who gains personal fulfillment through helping others.”

Hometown: Okigwe, Nigeria

Fun Fact About Yourself: I appear very calm and introverted, but I am an explorer at heart. I realized I had acrophobia while exploring hills and waterfalls in Southwest Nigeria, but I pushed myself physically and mentally while in university to overcome this fear and take up more challenging hikes like Angels Landing in Zion National Park.

Undergraduate School and Major: Texas A&M University, College Station, USA – Geology

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Seplat Energy, Associate Petrophysicist

What makes the case method so attractive as a means to learn and become a better manager? Learning with the case method pushes you to step into the shoes of managers and understand the type of distinct challenges that they faced. Including how decisions need to be made with limited data. Sometimes the challenge to be resolved is not obvious, but further analysis helps you get to the root of the problem, which could be the numbers or a people issue. Ultimately, discussing cases from a general management perspective and integrating both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the case help you make better decisions as a manager.

What has been your favorite part of Barcelona so far? What has made it such a great place to earn an MBA? You have people who genuinely care and want to help you here in Barcelona. I saw this firsthand during the MBA, and I can confidently say that the people are warm and friendly.

Barcelona is also a great place to earn an MBA because there is so much to explore and learn from in a city that is one of the leading startup hubs in Europe. The rich multicultural community with people from all over the world and the fantastic entrepreneurial ecosystem makes Barcelona an exciting place to call home during the MBA.

Aside from your classmates and location, what was the key part of the IESE Business School MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? The bilingual experience at IESE! One of my goals in addition to earning the MBA was to learn a foreign language and there was no better place to do this than living in the city itself. At IESE, there is also an option to take the Intensive Business Spanish Program which I am currently enrolled in, and I have had the opportunity to stretch my language skills even further on campus and while living in Barcelona.

What course, club or activity have you enjoyed the most so far at IESE? My Leadership course with Professor Yih-Teen Lee was such an immersive course pivotal to my journey in developing myself both personally and professionally. Acting now and taking small steps to becoming the leader I want to be is a theme that ran through the entire course. It involved reviewing written cases, learnings from an international movie, and giving and receiving golden feedback from teammates. I also learned from a senior executive, Orlando Vergara Correa, who shared his leadership experience with us and the need to shift from “being the best in the world” to “doing the best for the world”. I had fun shooting a leadership video with my team and honing my video editing skills. It was not just a course; it was an experience to remember during my first term at IESE.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: One of the operations I am particularly proud of involved supervising a data acquisition campaign that was the basis for successfully drilling multimillion-dollar wells in 2019. This was important because the results from this campaign unlocked several opportunities to increase our production as a company by 25%.

Describe your biggest accomplishment as an MBA student so far: Being nominated as one of the nine best speeches to wrap up our communication course. I accepted the challenge to deliver a speech in front of over 100 students, which involved sharing my personal story on mental health and how introducing a pilot four-day workweek can improve productivity and health in the workplace.

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into the IESE MBA program? Connect with the IESE community. Network with current students, alumni, and the admissions committee, so you can understand what the MBA program and life at IESE entails. And be your authentic true self so you can shine all through the application process.