Enzo Concepcion Santos

IESE Business School

“A serial entrepreneur navigating the “impossible trinity” of balancing business, academics, and running.”

Hometown: Makati, Philippines

Fun Fact About Yourself: I have cooked over 1,000 Neapolitan pizzas, bringing friends, families, and clients together. My house has served as the stockroom for all my businesses; you’ll find boxes of Smart Rings, pizza ovens, and books all over. Thank you to my family members who put up with my “mess.”

Undergraduate School and Major: University of Exeter, Flexible Combined Honours Management with Sustainability major.

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Serial Entrepreneur (Retail, Distribution, and Food & Beverage).

What makes the case method so attractive to learn and become a better manager? Having spent half of my life in traditional, lecture-based classrooms, I can confidently say the case method is the most effective way to prepare for the “real world.”

I was amazed to encounter cases where I thought, “Wow, this situation could happen to me.” Unlike lecture-based learning, where you are a spectator, the case method allows you to step into the shoes of the CEO. You are forced to question beliefs and use the frameworks and theory you’ve studied to defend a decision and hear counter arguments from 70 peers from 30 different nationalities. The classroom becomes a laboratory of perspectives that allow you to build trust in your own judgment while simultaneously humbling you. The whole perspective of case-based learning reminds of the quote by Dr. Wayne Dyer, “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

What has been your favorite part of Barcelona so far? What has made it such a great place to earn an MBA? The accessibility and walkability of the city are exactly what I was looking for. Coming from Manila, where traffic can be a major hurdle, I am constantly impressed by how easy it is to navigate Barcelona via subway or bus. Everything is nearby. Beyond the local vibe, the quality of life here is unmatched. You can enjoy world-class Mediterranean culture and a diverse culinary scene (from Ceviche and Hotpot to Asado and Ceviche) without the extreme student budget anxiety found in other global hubs like London or New York.

Aside from your classmates and location, what was the one key part of the IESE Business School MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? I chose IESE because I wanted to be part of a program that intentionally attracts people who view business as a life of service. After years of the entrepreneurial hustle, I wanted to take a deliberate break to refine my skills and rebuild my leadership framework within a community that prioritizes “doing good” as much as “doing well.” IESE’s 100% commitment to the General Management perspective provides the perfect environment for this; it forces you to step out of functional silos and see a business as a holistic organism, where every decision is weighed by its impact on people and society.

I specifically valued IESE’s deep-rooted connection to Latin America and other emerging markets. I knew this would be the best opportunity to meet peers from developing countries half-way across the world who were navigating situations similar to those we face back home. This creates a unique learning environment where we can exchange insights on scaling ventures in complex, high-growth economies. I didn’t just want an MBA to become a better financier or operator; I wanted to learn from a global community of like-minded leaders so that I could return home with both the refined technical skills and the purposeful heart needed to make a lasting impact.

The IESE MBA is known for heavy reading and rigorous academics. Has the program lived up to its reputation? What advice would you give to first-years to help them thrive in the early months of the program? We started the program with a “bang”, an intensive one-week communication course led by David Sagristà on public speaking using your voice and body. Every day, we had to write two speeches, each appealing to a different aspect of persuasion from emotional to logical. It was through these full days that our groups of nine teams would share deeply personal stories with each other, despite having just met. There was laughing and countless tears shed during these sessions, which ultimately made us better speakers and brought us closer together. This start to the program got me excited to see what the next few months of the program would bring.

Now that I am six months into the program, I have come to realize that IESE has one of the most rigorous MBA programs out there; preparing three cases a day is a grueling but rewarding standard to test your capabilities. Moreover, seeing my teammates balance this while recruiting for top-tier jobs is nothing short of inspiring. They say the first year is for the academics, and the second year for the networking.

My advice to incoming first-years would be to plan ahead, but prioritize people. The academics are the “work,” but your classmates are the “reward.” Make a conscious effort to get to know the people around you; they are the ones who will help you thrive – not just survive – in those early months.

What course, club or activity have you enjoyed the most so far at IESE? Inside the classroom, Leadership with Professor Maïlys George has been a highlight. The content felt tailor-made for my career. I walked away from every session with something immediately applicable, from structuring hiring incentives for my team in the Philippines to managing the emotional weight of difficult personnel decisions. Many of the sessions felt directly relevant to my life as a leader back home in the Philippines. As I was learning, I made sure to take notes on what I should share back home with my team from the session.

Outside of class, the running and fitness community has been incredible. I find myself running with a rotating group of Japanese, Mexican, Peruvian, and Taiwanese classmates. Everyone here seems to be training for something, whether it’s a marathon or a triathlon, and that collective drive is infectious. Seeing classmates who finish a triathlon on a Sunday and go straight to class the next morning at 9:00 a.m. is admirable. It is a gift to be constantly surrounded by people trying to become the best versions of themselves. Your environment shapes who are you and being at IESE makes me feel like I am with the best and brightest people. My time here reminds me of the quote from Jim Rohn, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Early on in my career, I was naive and thought that business was just about making money, finding good ideas and building up. But as I progressed through my entrepreneurial career, I came to realize it is more than that; it is about the impact you make with what you enable people to do and what you provide to them.

My biggest accomplishment has been seeing how I can make an impact in everyday Filipino lives through entrepreneurship. Through pizza ovens, I have seen hundreds of micro-entrepreneurs in remote areas in the Philippines turning their hobbies into businesses and families getting together at pizza-making parties. With Smart Rings, I’ve seen family members gift rings to their parents to enable them to take better care of their fitness through tracking their sleep and recovery. Through smart home gyms, people get an accessible way to stay healthy. And with restaurants, we provide places where communities can get together to talk.

Being an entrepreneur has been about seeing the difference I can make in the communities I am in, and I hope that post-MBA I can continue this journey through a venture studio that enables other people like me to become entrepreneurs.

Describe your biggest accomplishment as an MBA student so far: It was becoming the Director of the Asia Business Club in my first year. This club was the first place that truly made me feel at home at IESE, and I wanted to pay that feeling forward to the rest of the community. To do this, we launched a small group dinner where we sat different nationalities, years, and sections together who likely hadn’t met yet.

I’ve always believed that food is the ultimate way to bring people together and bridge different cultures. Seeing those connections flourish – watching people who were strangers at the start of the night become friends by the end of the meal – has been my most rewarding experience. It’s about building a network and community that feels like family, even when we’re thousands of miles away from home.

What has been your best memory as an MBA so far? My core memory at the MBA is my Nairobi Team 1 meetings with eight of my classmates. Whether we are grinding through a difficult case or just catching up on life, those moments of camaraderie have defined my experience.

I was also lucky that my girlfriend and I decided to attend the program together. Being with her through this has been amazing; it feels like I can experience twice the MBA. Since we are 400 in our cohort with 70 per class, having a partner in another class helps me get to know even more people and share this whole experience with her.

© Copyright 2026 Poets & Quants. All rights reserved. This article may not be republished, rewritten or otherwise distributed without written permission. To reprint or license this article or any content from Poets & Quants, please submit your request HERE.