Giovanni Sobrero

Imperial College Business School

“Say ‘yes’ to every opportunity that comes your way… the MBA is all about what you put in, and saying yes to a few different challenges will overall enhance the experience.” 

Hometown: Genoa, Italy

Fun Fact About Yourself: I have explored 15% of the world so far and visited 30 countries!

Undergraduate School and Major: University of Leeds, MSc Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Senior Strategy & Operations Manager, Amazon

What makes London such a great place to earn an MBA degree? As an MBA student in London, I can take advantage of the cosmopolitan atmosphere, cultural exposure and extensive networking opportunities that the city offers. This enriches the overall MBA experience and profile. Also, London is the European hub for the top companies MBA students aspire to work for. Having the opportunity to be on the door steps of these companies significantly increases the chance of obtaining a role.

Imperial College Business School is one of the most culturally and professionally diverse MBA programmes in the world. How do you see these global perspectives enhancing the value of your business education over the next year? We have a total of 21 nationalities in the class. I am a firm believer that this diversity will help me in becoming a more well-rounded professional as well as keep an open mind and learn about new cultures and myself as I go through my program. The ability to learn from multiple cultures is also a blessing that will give me a competitive advantage in the industry post-MBA and I will treasure forever. 

Your MBA is known for innovation, business and technology. Has the program lived up to its reputation? What advice would you give to future students to help them thrive in the early months of the program? So far, the program has not only lived up to its reputation but also exceeded my expectations. My top tips for future students are: first, to say “yes” to every opportunity that comes your way between September and October. There are a lot of opportunities and the MBA is all about what you put in and saying yes to a few different challenges will overall enhance the MBA experience. 

Second, be very selective with your time and brush up on time management. One-year-MBAs are incredibly intense and therefore it requires accurate time management to stay on top of everything.  

Aside from your classmates and location, what was the key part of Imperial College Business School’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? Definitely the ability to personalize the course by choosing between four different concentrations. I am personally going to undertake the Finance concentration that will greatly enhance my profile as a professional post-MBA. The concentration itself is very customisable with a choice of over 40 electives for the program that will enrich my MBA experience. 

What has been your first impression of the Imperial College Business School MBA students and alumni you’ve met so far. Tell us your best Imperial story so far. The Imperial Alumni community is astonishing. The calibre of the people I met is incredibly with a lot of Imperial Business School alumni in senior positions across multiple companies. So far, my best Imperial story was to meet with Nick Strange, an Imperial Business School alumnus based in Dubai working for Arthur D. Little. The level of support and mentorship I got surpassed my expectations. Based on my experience, I can say that all the alumni around the globe will always make the time to help no matter how busy or senior they are!

What course, club or activity excites you the most at Imperial College Business School? I am the president of the consulting club for the Imperial College Business School, we are the largest club in the Business School and this keeps us really busy with organising events for our all members. I am very excited to be working alongside my committee members that have been proven to be superstars and I am excited to see what we can do this year as a committed to elevate the profile of the school and encourage more people to transition into consulting. 

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: During my time as Sr Strategy and Operations Manager in Amazon I led a 30 people cross-functional team for reducing automatic concessions generated on customers’ orders. I created an algorithm using SQL, that helped triggering concessions only after customer request, and this resulted in an annualised net concessions cost savings of $1.5MM and expected concessions reduction of 17% YoY. This solution was then scaled to multiple geography generating a total of annualised cost savings of $4.5MM worldwide. 

What do you hope to do after graduation (at this point)? At this point in my MBA, my focus is to land a job in a boutique consultancy in London or as a strategy manager in a technology firm that I can help grow. However, I must say that it’s difficult to resist the temptation to explore all the different opportunities that are offered and I am quite sure my mind will change significantly in the few months as I explore more and more the curriculum offered by the program. 

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into Imperial College Business School’s MBA program? My advice for prospective applicants would be to be very introspective during the application process.  Make sure that the motivation as to why the MBA at Imperial is the right choice for yourself shines through your application. This will help with giving your application a personal touch and it will make you stand out from the crowd maximising your chances to secure a place at the business school. 

Describe your biggest accomplishment as an MBA student so far? Two months in, it is very difficult to describe what my biggest accomplishment is. However, at Imperial we have the Innovation Challenge Week where we work on deep tech-based projects in collaboration with the Royal College of Art. My team did a wonderful job and our presentation was very well received. 

What has been your best memory as an MBA so far? My best memory so far has been the time spent celebrating different traditions and events with my fellow MBA students. We have a very diverse class and we make the effort to make sure we celebrate the different cultural events when they happen to make sure we learn from each other’s! We had a great Diwali party and we are planning to have a great celebration for Thanksgiving and all the future occasions!