Meet IMD Business School’s Distinguished Alumni: Tracy Liang

Tracy Liang

Class / Grad Year: IMD’s MBA Class of 2008

Current Employer / Role: Deutsche Post DHL Group / Global Customer Director

Best memory at school: The discovery trip for the 2008 MBA class in Kenya was a transformative experience for me and many. Thanks to IMD, it was my time to set foot on the soil of Africa. We visited various businesses and organizations across Kenya, from a flower farm to a microfinance institution; we spoke to government officials, NGOs, and female entrepreneurs. The trip was a cultural and educational experience. A real eye opener to understand the challenges of doing business in emerging markets, in other words: “real learning, real impact.”

Biggest achievement at school: Managing on an average daily 4.5 hours of sleep during the first 3 months of the program! But it was so fulfilling with all the cases that we learned together with our study groups (I can’t even remember how many!)

Your advice to incoming first-years: Open up your mind and soul as much as possible to embrace all that the IMD MBA offers. Be empty and you will be filled.

Where do you currently live? Brussels, Belgium.

Fun fact about you: I am a “cheese” person, surprisingly, as a Chinese native, my favorite dish is cheese fondue.

Why did you choose your school? When I did my B-school research, IMD emerged as an indisputable top tier school. The personalized application process and on-campus interview experience were also both unbeatable.

What student organizations did you join? I joined the Salsa dance club.

Favorite trait in others: Honesty and open-minded.

Favorite class? The leadership stream, which ran through the whole year.

One secret to success: Be humble, you will be victorious.

What is your biggest regret? Every time I have passed by Lausanne since 2008, I always regret that I did not spend more time enjoying the breath-taking scene of Lac Leman, which is right in front of the IMD campus.

What is the next thing you’re going to do on your bucket list? To become a Tai Chi ( a Chinese martial art, “Kung Fu”) practitioner in 2023.

IMD MBA impact in career path: This intensive program provided me with great exposure to international business. There were 40+ nationalities in my class and all of them brought 7-10 years of experience from different industries and business practices. And the intensive courses over the entire year just transformed us together to be stronger and to better ourselves. We developed a lifelong friendship after the MBA year and shared a common sense of responsibility to shape the world to be a better place, which became a strong bond for all of us.

I landed a Senior Product Development Manager role for the EMEA region right after the MBA program. This was a milestone in my career – as a Chinese person coping with a new market and teams from completely different cultures. However, the IMD experience had prepared me well in terms of personal  and interpersonal development. Afterwards, I moved to Germany to take over a Global HR role. Today I am the Global Customer Director in Deutsche Post DHL Group, responsible for leading top accounts management globally in the Technology Sector, based in Brussels. From Marketing to HR to Sales, from China to Germany to Belgium, one of the many things IMD taught us is to always push beyond our own perceived limits.

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