Tanaka Dhombo

HEC Paris

“A people’s person committed to making the experience of being a person more accessible.”

Hometown: Johannesburg, South Africa

Fun Fact About Yourself: I take singing in the shower very seriously. So while I make a great karaoke partner, I am a terrible neighbour…

Undergraduate School and Major: University of Cape Town, Bachelor of Laws

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Bowman Gilfillan Inc., Associate

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? As someone coming from a non-traditional background, the structure of the program appealed to me greatly. With the first 8 months dedicated to laying a good foundation, I am confident that I will be able to plug any knowledge gaps that I may have in a meaningful way. In addition, the program offers a number of incredibly interesting specializations for the last term. One of the more interesting specializations for me is Entrepreneurship, which offers selected students the opportunity to take a real-life innovation and build a business model around it, so it is a process of learning while doing (being a central tenet of HEC Paris’ MBA), with a tangible outcome coming out of it.

What course, club or activity excites you the most at HEC Paris? I am regrettably interested in a lot of the clubs that the school has to offer, with the following being those that interest me most:

(1) The Consulting Practice at HEC, where students help clients solve their problems (be it strategy consulting, innovation and digital transformation or expansion, to name a few). This club interests me because it is an opportunity to action some of the lessons learnt in true situations, while also actively leveraging my past experience to contribute towards solving real problems.

(2) The Entrepreneurship Club, which exposes students to entrepreneurship and ways to use the MBA within the entrepreneurial world. This club interests me because entrepreneurship is something that I am passionate about as a means to alleviate unemployment and because of the work that it does to bring students into the experiences of founders through story and interaction.

(3) The Africa Club, which is primarily focused on exposing students to the African continent and the opportunities there and promoting greater African representation. This club interests me because I am a major believer in the potential of the African continent as a hub for innovation and strategy and am even more passionate about opportunities for elevating African countries and African people through increased exposure to the global community and market.

(4) The Wine and Spirits Club, which exposes students to the full breadth of alcohol production and the nuances of the industry, over a drink. This club interests me because, as someone who studied in Cape Town, I am as serious about wine as I am about singing in the shower and I would be remiss not to take up the opportunity to learn about wine in France (while learning about spirits too, I guess).

HEC Paris is just 17 kilometers from Paris. What do you see as the best part of earning your MBA so close to Paris? I am location-agnostic insofar as it relates to my immediate post-MBA goals, with an ultimate goal of coming back to the continent. As a result, Paris it the optimal place for me to pursue my MBA because it serves as a gateway to the EMEA region as a whole, offering me a great starting position for purposes of my next steps and the steps after that. Paris (and France as a whole) also provides an opportunity for me to be exposed to a different culture and social environment, which will only serve to bolster my ability to relate to people in future (amongst other things).

Why did you choose a 16-month program over a one-year program? How do you see a HEC Paris MBA giving you an advantage in the marketplace? My primary reason for choosing the HEC Paris MBA was that it provided me with ample time to build relationships with my classmates and fully immerse myself in the course work so as to extract as much value from it as I can without feeling rushed. I further believe that this particular MBA will place me in good stead to meaningfully pursue opportunities in a wide range of different locations. It will also provide me with the confidence that I would have left the program with tangible skills and high probability of classmates or alumni (hopefully a friend or five) based in whatever country I eventually end up in.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: It was being recognized as a key lawyer within the Investment Funds space in the Legal500 EMEA Guide for 2025, being one of the leading legal directories, which affirmed the work that I have done in my career thus far and the support of those that I have worked with.

What has been the defining experience in your life? How has it prepared you for the rigors of business school and your career in general? Growing up in South Africa as a Zimbabwean has been the most defining experience of my life, largely because of the perspectives it has given me. South Africa and Zimbabwe are remarkably different from economic and social perspectives. However, they also share great similarities (chief of which being the manner in which people relate to one another and the credence given to mutual respect and community). This experience has molded me into a person who is able to look at problems from a multitude of perspectives. It has further made me into someone who is quite adept at building relationships with people from many different backgrounds. These are skills that I think put me in good stead in business school and for my career.

Looking ahead two years, what would make your MBA experience successful? The primary hallmarks of a successful MBA experience for me would be: (i) Having successfully landed an opportunity that stretches me professionally and offers me ample room for growth; (ii) Pushing the attorney in me aside a bit and becoming a lot more comfortable with using Excel (and all software not Microsoft Word); and (iii) Creating meaningful relationships with my classmates and creating spaces in which people are comfortable to come to me (and I to them) for advice, a soundboard and a good laugh.

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