Duby Ezegbu (Duby-García)

HEC Paris

“Low key, calm, empathetic, spontaneous, playful, adventurous, ambitious, and charismatic…”

Hometown: Nigeria – Anambra roots, Lagos living!

Fun Fact About Yourself: I have 3 daily routines to clear my head which I’m like 75% consistent with – run 5k m minimum in the morning, attend midday mass, and then head out to explore the night. I also don’t struggle with sleep – I can sleep anywhere and anyhow (if you know, you know).

Undergraduate School and Major: University of Lagos, B.Sc. Economics

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Fidelity Bank Plc, Enterprise Project Manager

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? I found love with the HEC Paris MBA at first read! I have a seven-year technology-centered corporate, freelance, and entrepreneurial experience across the energy, hospitality and finance sectors, there’s nothing better than being in an environment that has graduated one of the most CEOs of Fortune Global 500 companies. As one who wants to make a career double-jump (function and location) alongside venture building, the 16-month HEC Paris MBA curriculum provides me ample time to harness its highly-ranked finance program’s depth and career center’s reach to secure internship and full-time opportunities in investment banking and private equity across the world’s financial centers. Working around the clock with battle-tested investors to help businesses run better on solid unit economics, negotiate thrilling mergers and acquisitions, and raise risk capital, will allow me to leverage these invaluable experiences to build a global bank accelerating “The Common Good” with strategic real sector portfolio investments in hospitality, housing, energy, healthcare, agriculture, et al.

What course, club or activity excites you the most at HEC Paris? I can’t wait to experience the MBA Tournament (MBAT), sometimes called the “MBA Olympics” which is hosted on our grounds every year. Interacting, sharing ideas, competing, and partying with my peers from top business schools around the world will be wholesome content for me, especially as I’m looking to build meaningful personal and professional relationships during my MBA. Then engaging today’s influential CEOs one-on-one at the Leadership Beyond Business conferences as well as the outdoor hands-on experience with the French military, are moments I can’t afford to miss. The invaluable insights they’ll share will help shape the kind of leader and decision maker I’m becoming ($1M or dinner with Jay-Z? Give me both please). I’m also looking forward to the opportunity to go on an international exchange in New York at either Columbia, Johnson, or Stern, and experience the thrills of Wall Street. Not to forget, the curated festivities and clubs are all lined up for us at HEC Paris to make our stay truly memorable. Allez!

HEC Paris is just 17 kilometers from Paris. What do you see as the best part of earning your MBA so close to Paris? First things first, Paris is just 6 hours from home in Lagos. Monaco, London, Dubai, and New York are also only 1–8 hours away which is important to me because these financial centers will be home to me going forward. With Paris as my hub, I’ll always be within close enough distance to family, friends, work, and leisure. Living my dream MBA program in Paris with my multicultural classmates of over 60 nationalities will allow us to balance our academic rigors with all that Paris has in store for us – from our privileged access to La Défense, to the culture, diversity, hospitality, cuisine, history, architecture, nightlife, fashion, art, sports, and more. Also, Paris, being in Europe, allows us to explore surrounding economic opportunities in London, Geneva, Milan, Brussels, Berlin, Amsterdam, Luxembourg, and Madrid, alongside experiencing the unique sights and cultures across the beautiful continent. Not forgetting the trips to the stadiums, courts, and arenas to catch the Champions League (#ComeOnYouGunners), Grand Slams, lifestyle events, and of course, Paris 2024 Olympics.

Historically, over 90% of HEC Paris’ MBA students hail from outside France. Why is exposure to global diversity so critical to business success? Cultures and economies across the world are increasingly connected and interdependent. A global village has emerged and it’s high time we all came together as a people to invest in causes that accelerate “The Common Good”. The importance of global diversity, equity and inclusion in today’s business world cannot be overemphasized as the positive effects on the bottom line are greatly felt.

At the heart of it all is empathy which is the basis of how we connect with other people to build meaningful relationships. Understandably, empathy doesn’t come naturally to everyone, which is why it’s a critical interpersonal skill one must imbibe and a conscious choice one must make. Empathy enables teamwork and collaboration. It allows us to foster a healthy environment where people can work well with one another to the best of their abilities despite their differences in upbringing, thought, ethnicity, religion, and many more. It allows us to tolerate the existence of opinions, behaviors, and actions which we vehemently dislike or disagree with. Having varying perspectives from people with a common goal is highly crucial to solving challenges and producing the desired results.

Ultimately, a work environment built on the foundation of empathy maximizes creativity, innovation, and productivity the most, which all constitute what success means to the most valuable businesses in the world today. Fresh out of university, I was very fortunate to kick off my career at a boutique maritime operator back home where I was immediately entrusted to manage the ship chandelling and stock control teams at the depot, which had people of diverse cultural (Nigeria has over 250 ethnic groups), family, and educational backgrounds, while also negotiating the procurement of jet fuel with Turkish, Arab, and Jewish vendors from Turkey. That experience certainly shaped how I work with diverse people today to achieve set objectives.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Bootstrapping Quartered (now defunct) which offered hotel micro-stay bookings similar to ByHours.com and Dayuse.com – and the first of such enterprises in Africa. Despite the strenuous market and venture capital challenges we faced and the mistakes we surely made, it was nevertheless exciting to lead a steadfast team of six from ideation to market and ultimately earning revenue through a period mostly hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The highlights of building Quartered include leveraging my business design and operations experience from the SAP ecosystem in the energy industry; picking up the essentials of product design, software development, product marketing, legal, cybersecurity and compliance from my co-founders and teammates; walking into over 800 hotels across 3 cities to pitch our product and humbly learning hands-on sales; onboarding and training staff in the hotels, which gave us a chance, growing a thick skin to investor ghosting and rejections; having customers implore us to onboard their favorite international brands to no avail; and chasing one of the biggest international brands for almost two years only to be denied at the last minute due to its Middle East & Africa strategy. Eventually, we closed shop and I’m now looking forward to birthing the kind of hotels the world truly needs – curated vibrant cultural hotels.

Moving on, I led the end-to-end implementation of PwC Nigeria’s Integrated Governance, Risk & Compliance Solution (iGRCS), an internal control management solution. It was designed to provide a single source of truth for all risk-related information and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the assurance functions across Fidelity Bank, a female-led commercial bank with over $4 billion in total assets and 7 million customers who are being served across 250 well-spread branches back home. Alongside the African Export-Import Bank, I also led the execution of the Pan-African Payment & Settlement System for Fidelity Bank which is addressing the historic challenges of cross-border payments in Africa and providing value through a common African market infrastructure for all stakeholders.

Looking ahead two years, what would make your MBA experience successful? It would be working on challenging deals across Paris, New York, London, Dubai, Monaco, Lagos and other financial centers at a top global investment bank or private equity firm while still being actively in touch with my classmates.

Then backed by my employer, investors, and my classmates, I would acquire new commercial banking licenses to build a seamless multi-country banking play while incubating strategic portfolio assets. They would span curated vibrant cultural hotels, branded residences, lifestyle venues, young working family housing, primary care clinics, energy retail stations and commercial farms – in view of go-to-market by 2030.

I strongly admire what Tony Elumelu is doing in critical sectors back home. Likewise, I admire what Richard Branson and Warren Buffett are doing far and wide and what Elon Musk is steadfastly building for the future in global technology. I also admire the consolidated play by Bernard Arnault in consumer goods and Elaine Wynn’s (Queen of Las Vegas) strides in hospitality. However, what Cristiano Ronaldo and Rafael Nadal have done for sports, trumps all. This is exactly what I want to emulate and hopefully surpass. At the end of the day, the success of my MBA experience depends more on myself than HEC Paris and I trust myself to wholeheartedly apply myself.

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into HEC Paris’s MBA program? The best part about the application process is that you’ll know if you’ll be admitted or not in exactly five weeks or less. Kudos to the admissions committee for respecting each candidate’s time. What you’ve read so far truly formed a part of the somewhat different essays I was subjected to during my application process.

What you can take from this is to tell your story wholeheartedly. There’ll always be someone from the HEC Paris community who will resonate with you. Obviously, you have to take your GMAT or GRE and push yourself up the ranks but never let an unexpected poor performance deter you. What I feel are the most important differentiators are what you’ve done so far in your career, what you intend to do next, and the kind of personality you’re bringing to the mix. You must be realistic but ambitious about your objectives while noting your strengths and shortcomings.

For your two solo interviews, I feel you’ll make the best impression on your interviewer (HEC Paris alumnus) when you make a presentation on a project you can’t wait to work on or one you keep dreaming about. This allows you to totally express yourself without fear and excite the interviewer who will be able to see how authentic your personality is, and it could just fling wide the HEC Paris campus gates for you to come in majestically. Bonne chance!

DON’T MISS: MEET THE HEC PARIS MBA CLASS OF 2025