Meet IMD Business School’s Distinguished Alumni: Mohammad Andita Rafi

Mohammad Andita Rafi

Class / Grad Year:
IMD’s Class of 2022

Current Employer / Role:
Roland Berger Southeast Asia – Consultant

Best memory at school: It was when the class went to HEC Paris for the MBA Tournament to compete in various sports activities with other European business schools. 95% of the class went to the tournament, and we not only really enjoyed the four days, but also used the time to strengthen our relationships as a class. We returned to Lausanne with five gold medals – and I won one of the five medals from table tennis.

Biggest achievement at school: Having a very strong bond with the other 103 IMD MBA classmates throughout the program is my biggest achievement. I learned tons of new things from them, as we all came from different backgrounds and nationalities.

Your advice to incoming first-years: Start your first day with a very open mind, as the IMD MBA exposes you to new experiences throughout the program – be ready for new things, including what you want to achieve in your career after an MBA.

Where do you currently live? Jakarta, Indonesia.

Fun fact about you: I really love watching football games in a stadium, since different stadiums have different atmospheres, which are often linked to the local culture. To date, I have watched football matches in 37 stadiums around the globe, mainly in Europe and Asia. During my intensive one-year MBA course at IMD, I was lucky enough to attend eight games in different cities: Barcelona, Copenhagen, Bern, Milan, Turin, Lyon and Doha.

Why did you chose your school? When shortlisting business schools to apply to for my MBA study, I had two main criteria: a compact class size and a diverse class profile (background, nationality). And my decision to choose IMD was right, because the compact and diverse MBA class really facilitated close interaction with other students, allowing us to get to know each other personally and learn different things from other students.

Since I had planned from the beginning to bring my wife and a 5-year-old daughter with me during my MBA, choosing Switzerland was also the best option for my family due to the country’s quality of life and security. I didn’t have to worry about my family when I had to spend long days on campus.

What student organizations did you join? I was the IMD school captain during the MBA Tournament. With this role, I coordinated with the class on which sports IMD would participate in and who from the class would play in which sport, as well as being IMD’s point of contact among other participating business schools and the tournament organizer.

Favorite class? I really appreciated the IMD MBA Discovery Trip, a week-long trip to other countries to learn real business cases directly from industry players. During my time at IMD, we flew to Dubai and Singapore to learn more about how international technology companies set up their regional business operations in these two regions. This experience really gave me real insight and opportunities to apply what I had learned in the MBA classes, as we not only visited the industry players, but also worked as business consultants for them.

Career path and how the MBA influenced it? Prior to my MBA, I worked for a multinational technology manufacturing company for eight years, with my last role was a sales lead for the Indonesian market. During my first few months at IMD, I initially planned to return to the industry after my MBA. However, after several on-campus recruiting events at IMD, I found that management consulting was an interesting career pivot for me, since I could complement my previous industrial experience with new business exposure in consulting. My desire to join consulting firms was also strengthened by the discussions with several IMD professors who had experience in consulting prior to their academic career. Therefore, I was really convinced to accept an offer from a management consulting company before my graduation at IMD.

And after joining a management consulting firm, I realized that what I learned at IMD really helped me in my career transition from an industry to a consulting, since IMD MBA program taught me to look at a business from a comprehensive and a zoom-out perspective. Instead of zooming in on a single business discipline, the IMD curriculum taught students to see the correlation and interrelationship between multiple business disciplines, which helps me to come up with an implementable solution for my client in consulting.

For more information on IMB Business School, visit its website here.