Monica van den Boom

HEC Paris

“Curious individual with a drive to understand the world deeply.”

Hometown: Bad Berleburg, Germany

Fun Fact About Yourself: I get my best ideas when I cook. By no means does that indicate I am actually capable of cooking (or that the end result can be called food).  

Undergraduate School and Major: Bishop’s University, Bachelor of Business Administration

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Deutsche Bundesbank (German Central Bank), Internal Auditor

Aside from your classmates, what was the key part of HEC Paris’ MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? HEC was an easy choice once I realized how much of the program can be tailored towards your very personal journey. Alongside numerous clubs and extracurriculars, the customized phase of the program allows you to choose a specialization that meets your very own needs and interests. This ability to choose my own curriculum experience next to the diverse student body and the hands-on, experimental approach to learning is what ultimately drew me to HEC.

What course, club or activity excites you the most at HEC Paris? So many HEC alumni have described their amazing experience of the MBAT that I can’t help but join in on the excitement. It is a unique opportunity to meet people from business schools all over the world while having a great time. Many alumni described it as both the most amazing experience of their MBA journey and the most exhausting – this very contrast makes me want to experience it for myself.

HEC Paris is just 17 kilometers from Paris. What do you see as the best part of earning your MBA so close to Paris? I fell in love with Paris during a 2-week stay to learn French. The atmosphere of the city is unique among other European capitals as it seems to breath possibility while retaining its historic, almost romantic side. And what’s not to love about Parisien cuisine? The bread is amazing (which is extremely important to any German. Never take good bread for granted.) and restaurants are practically everywhere.

Historically, over 90% of HEC Paris’ MBA students hail from outside France. Why is exposure to global diversity so critical to business success)? The first audit of a new standard of financial accounting is always a challenge. The complexities involve a new valuation method, tight budget restraints, and a process with no routine or state-of-the-art practices. This project was particularly demanding as we were behind schedule and thereby under intense time pressure with the client growing more-and-more impatient. With our colleagues from the US and India, we were able to transcend our differences by truly listening for our exclusive perspective of the process. Hence, we quickly gained a deep understanding of how each piece fit into the next. Forged by different cultural experiences, each team also had a unique sense of the problems that hindered further progress. The resulting insights were key in turning a troubled project around just a couple of months before the finishing line, an otherwise impossible feat.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Long hours, a mountain of requirements, and an understaffed team are not newsworthy in our profession (Ask any auditor). But add the visit of the American regulator to the mix with the intention to review all audit procedures and soon the fear of one too many findings will go around.

My first year of managing a team was hence characterized by the deep sense of helplessness amid what felt like unsurmountable challenges. The team didn’t fare any better and morale was at its lowest. In many ways, we were haunted by our own terrible expectations. I decided to look candidly at the amount we spend thinking about the audit as opposed to actually working on it and quickly realized that we could focus our efforts on one thing at a time that had the highest impact in the moment. Reprioritizing our workload not only reduced our stress level, but also made space to examine activities anew and transforming them into repeatable steps where necessary. The regulator finished the audit with minor findings and additionally, we concluded the audit below budget (and even had fun along the way.)

I still consider turning the tide of this audit my biggest accomplishment to date as I had to go against my first instinct which was to give up. It taught me immensely about opening up to possibilities beyond what my mind makes them up to be.

What is one thing you have recently read, watched, or listened to that you would highly recommend to prospective MBAs? Why? MBA Mondays are a great resource and I love Career Protocols approach to the application process by finding your own unique voice. There’s also a free video series, so you can watch at your own leisure.

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into HEC Paris’s MBA program? What turned my application journey upside down was changing the game from “What do they want to hear me say in the application?” into “What would I love to tell them about myself?”. It’s so easy to forget that it’s not a robot reading your application, but an actual person just like yourself. If you only met that person for 5 or 10 minutes at the airport, what would you genuinely love them to know? If you can answer that question, you can find your own unique voice within your words (which also makes the application fun for you to write, not only to read.).

DON’T MISS: MEET THE HEC PARIS MBA CLASS OF 2024