Patrick Arbuthnott

London Business School

“A history loving Scot, with a passion for travel, technology and early-stage entrepreneurship.”

Hometown: Perth, Scotland

Fun Fact About Yourself: I played the bagpipes for Pope Benedict XVI during a state visit in 2010.

Undergraduate School and Major: The University of Edinburgh, History

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Lenkie Technologies, Sales Lead

What makes London such a great place to earn an MBA degree? London’s diversity – in culture, industry, and perspective – makes it a uniquely powerful classroom. It’s a city where ideas from every corner of the world collide, offering constant inspiration and access to global opportunity.

Aside from your classmates and location, what was the key part of London Business School’s MBA curriculum and programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? LBS stood out for its international focus and global community. As someone who’s led teams across three continents, I was drawn to a program where the opportunity to engage with an international community, both on campus and through one of LBS’s Global Experience courses, is a core tenet.

London Business School is one of the most culturally and professionally diverse MBA programs in the world. What will make you unique in this class and how will it enrich the experience of your classmates?  Throughout my life, I’ve been fortunate to launch and scale early-stage ventures in a diverse set of countries, launching my own business while living in India and building new business units from scratch in Mongolia and Trinidad & Tobago. Each experience required me to understand local markets, adapt value propositions in real time, and navigate logistical complexities far from home. Building in such varied contexts taught me to operate with resourcefulness and speed, often making decisions with limited data and shifting priorities. It trained me to stay nimble, rapidly iterate, and maintain the resilience necessary for high growth startup environments. Combined with my global outlook, this perspective offers classmates a grounded view of entrepreneurship beyond Silicon Valley. I hope to challenge assumptions, spark discussions on scaling in emerging markets, and help peers see how growth takes shape when the playbook doesn’t exist.

What course, club or activity excites you the most at London Business School? The immersive, experiential learning element of the Global Experience courses on offer really resonates with me. Having helped launch a business in India, I’ve seen at first-hand how rich the learning is when you work in unfamiliar contexts. I’m excited to see how others around the world are tackling similar problems – and to bring those insights back to the LBS classroom.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Leading the emergency services project at what3words, where we helped UK emergency services use our technology to help locate callers. We grew adoption of our technology by emergency service control rooms from 10% to over 80% over an 8-month period in 2019. This led to thousands of instances of the technology being used in emergency situations, with evidence of it having saved lives on numerous occasions.

Tell us your favorite memory: Following on from the successful rollout of our technology with emergency services in the UK, we were contacted by the Gauteng Ambulance service in Johannesburg, South Africa. Being able to spend a significant amount time training their teams, seeing it’s impact and experiencing the incredible work they do to serve their community, will stay with me for the rest of my life.

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into London Business School’s MBA program? Don’t apply in isolation. Speak to students, alumni, the faculty, and take part in the events LBS offers. The more you engage, the clearer it becomes whether this is the right place for you, and that clarity will show in your application.

DON’T MISS: MEET LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL’S MBA CLASS OF 2027

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