Redefining Innovation Through The Copenhagen MBA

With roots in Brazil’s tech sector and a future in European consulting, Davi Drummond chose the Copenhagen Business School MBA to bridge experience with strategy. His time at CBS helped him rethink innovation – not just as a practice, but as a mindset for leading meaningful change.

A Career Rooted In Innovation

Before relocating to Denmark, Davi, an industrial engineer from Brazil, had already built a career in transformation. He moved from supply-chain roles into client-facing positions at Oracle and Salesforce, working across Latin America to help companies diagnose their toughest challenges and design technology-driven solutions.

“For me, it was about understanding the business problem and matching it with the right technology,” he explains.

Despite this success, Davi reached a point where he felt the need to round out his business knowledge. “I wanted to deepen my understanding of finance and corporate strategy,” he explains. “And I was also eager to step into a more international context, beyond Latin America.”

That desire led him to Denmark.

Why Copenhagen?

Though Davi had initially considered part-time MBA options in Latin America, CBS stood out for several reasons. “I already had a personal connection to Denmark,” he says, having lived there briefly in high school. “And I wanted to turn that into a professional connection.” The school’s structure and outlook also appealed. “I was curious about the Nordic way of managing,” he says. “There’s something unique about how businesses operate here: flat hierarchies, a lot of trust in employees, and a strong focus on responsibility and sustainability.”

He was also drawn to CBS’s tight-knit MBA cohort and its multicultural learning environment. “Networking was important to me,” he says. “I wanted to build a professional network in the Nordics. CBS provided the perfect environment for that.”

Further support came in the form of a sponsorship from Waldemar Schmidt, who maintains strong links between Denmark and Brazil. “It wasn’t just financial support,” Davi says. “It came with mentorship from Waldemar himself – one of Denmark’s most influential business leaders – and access to a network of experienced professionals dedicated to strengthening ties between Brazil and Denmark. That combination not only opened doors, but also gave me guidance as I built my career here.”

Innovation As A Strategic Mindset

Having spent nearly a decade working in innovation and tech consultancy, Davi approached the MBA with clear goals. “I wasn’t looking to change industries,” he says. “I wanted to build on my experience and connect it with strategy and business leadership.”

The MBA enhanced his perspective on innovation. “Sometimes people think innovation is just about implementing technology,” he explains. “But it’s much broader than that. For me, innovation is about finding new ways to create and deliver value — whether through a new process, product, business model, or go-to-market strategy. Technology is an important enabler, but the real goal is to turn that innovation into impact, whether by driving growth, improving margins, or reducing costs.”

This mindset shift was further supported by CBS’s emphasis on context. “For me, it wasn’t about learning innovation from scratch. It was about framing what I already knew in a European context,” he explains. “There are different governance models here, different ways of regulating tech, and different cultural attitudes toward change.”

He appreciated the diverse reactions among his classmates, too. “Some had never worked in innovation before, so the content was eye-opening for them. For me, it was a great chance to reflect and refine.”

From Theory To Practice

The CBS MBA isn’t just academic. The year concludes with a Strategy Project, and Davi used this opportunity to work with a Danish sports tech scale-up on a go-to-market strategy for Latin America. “The company had ambitions to expand their business internationally, so it was a way of using my experience to give some input and collaborate on strategy, product-market fit and business culture,” he says. “I think it was a very good connection between my past experience and to future goals.”

His previous work experiences combined with the academic track record at CBS led him to Accenture, where Davi now works as an Experience Transformation Consultant. “It felt like a full-circle moment,” he says. “At Salesforce, I helped clients identify the right solutions. Now, at Accenture, I get to help implement them end-to-end and show the results.”

He sees this move as a natural evolution of his skills, complementing his capabilities in the technology industry and strengthening his profile for his career in the future. “Now I’m on the delivery side,” he says. “It’s about translating the strategy into action, more hands-on, and involves much deeper stakeholder management.”

A Broader Business Perspective

One of Davi’s key motivations for joining the MBA was to gain a holistic view of how businesses operate – and the program delivered. The experience, he says, “helped me connect the dots between innovation and business strategy. I now think more critically about how to scale ideas across an organization, and how to embed innovation in a sustainable way.”

As he progressed through the MBA, Davi also became more aware of the subtle yet significant contrasts between regions. “Each region has its strengths and vulnerabilities, and I try to leverage the best of each,” he explains.

In Brazil, he found that a lack of rigid structure often fostered greater flexibility and creativity. “The retail sector is a good example,” he says. “In Brazil, I could order something online and have it delivered the same day. Here in Denmark, I had to get used to going back to stores, because deliveries often take several days. In financial services, too, the ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ model is considered new in Europe and the US, but in Latin America it has been common practice since the 1980s.”

By contrast, Denmark’s established processes and governance structures sometimes slow down innovation in fast-moving sectors, but they also enable a more sustainable, long-term perspective. “The pharma industry is a good example,” Davi notes. “Denmark’s leading companies have developed life-changing drugs that impact millions of people worldwide. The governance model of many Danish firms – built around ‘enterprise foundations’ – shields them from short-term shareholder pressures and allows them to invest with a longer horizon.”

This contrast in mindsets, he says, helped him see that innovation creates value in different ways depending on the business and societal context. It also reinforced his own career ambitions. “I want to stay in roles where I can be a bridge between tech and business,” he says. “The MBA gave me the tools to do that – and a language for talking about innovation in strategic terms.”

Beyond this, Davi highlights CBS’s Finance Concentration and an international exchange at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland as pivotal moments in his journey. “Those were incredibly useful experiences,” he says. “I still use that knowledge every day.”

Advice For Future Participants

Davi’s advice for prospective students is clear: “Understand your goals, but be open to changing them,” he says. “The MBA is as much about discovering new directions as it is about confirming old ones.”

He also highlights the importance of cultural context. “If you’re coming to Denmark, take the time to learn about the business culture. Understand how relationships are built. It’s not just about sending out CVs. It’s about showing up in the right way, over time.”

Lasting Impact

Now fully based in Denmark, Davi is continuing to grow his network, expand his impact and contribute to projects that merge innovation with execution. And while he had some relevant experience before the MBA, he sees CBS as a vital part of his journey.

“It helped me reframe my thinking,” he says. “It added credibility. And it gave me a toolkit I use every day.”

For Davi Drummond, innovation isn’t a buzzword. It’s a career-long practice – and one the CBS MBA helped elevate to a strategic level.

Find out more about Copenhagen Business School on our dedicated school profile.

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Copenhagen Business School (CBS) was established in 1917. Today, with 20,000 students and 1,500 employees, CBS is one of the largest business schools in Europe and among the 1% of business schools worldwide to hold the triple-crown of accreditations.

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