Meet the MBA Class of 2023: Opeoluwa Onigbinde, London Business School

Opeoluwa Onigbinde

London Business School

“Alternative music enthusiast with a passion for social impact and technology.”

Hometown: Ogbomosho, Oyo State, Nigeria

Fun Fact About Yourself: I play several musical instruments and enjoy making digital music.

Undergraduate School and Major: Economics, Bowen University, Iwo Nigeria.

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Senior Associate, Busara Center for Behavioral Economics

What makes London such a great place to earn an MBA degree? An important aspect of an MBA for me is the quality and diversity of perspectives and experiences that it exposes you to. There are very few places in the world that have as much diversity as London and provide you with the opportunity to easily network with vastly ambitious, experienced, and accomplished individuals across all professional endeavors.

London Business School is one of the most culturally and professionally diverse MBA programs in the world. How do you see these global perspectives enhancing the value of your business education over the next two years? I absolutely see myself evolving to becoming the best version of myself yet. Having worked across several African countries over the past three years, I’ve come to value the benefits of direct exposure to different cultures, societies, and individuals with varying personal and professional experiences – particularly the way it shapes your mindset, reorientates your value system and enables you gain deeper perspectives. Given the diversity of my MBA cohort at LBS, not to even mention London more broadly, I know for a fact that my experience over the next two years will provide immense benefits that’ll span the entire course of my career.

Aside from your classmates and location, what was the key part of London Business School’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? I was particularly drawn to the student-led nature of many of the activities that are embedded in the programme. I had the pleasure of speaking with several LBS students and alumni during the application process, and one of the things that was consistent about their testimony of LBS is how students get the opportunity to create and implement activities related to their career interest, passions, or hobbies. It was very clear from the conversations I had that it is a component of the program that highly contributes to the personal development of students and equips them with practical leadership, management, and teamwork skills – all of which are highly relevant in the business world.

What course, club or activity excites you the most at London Business School? I am excited about the Black in Business Club primarily because of the remarkable and relevant achievements the club has had over the course of its one-year life span. Most recently, the club supported the introduction of a scholarship for black students who have demonstrated strong leadership promoted inclusion in both their personal and professional environments. I absolutely look forward to contributing my quota, through the club, to improving the representation and progress of black professionals both in LBS and the global work environment.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: My biggest accomplishment so far has been working at the forefront of social impact in Africa with the remarkable team at Busara. While I naturally want to refer to a particular project that perhaps had the highest financial value or yielded the most measurable impact, it is hard to do so because every single project I supported or led was remarkable: all the way from promoting financial inclusion among micro-enterprises by improving the uptake of Africa’s biggest micro-credit scheme to developing interventions to improve voluntary blood donations in West Africa. In-between, I had a host of health, agriculture, mobile-technology, education and civic engagement focused projects.

How did COVID-19 change your perspective on your career and your life in general? COVID-19 gave me a deeper understanding of what it means to be resilient. I find it remarkable how, despite all the turmoil and uncertainty the world collectively faced at the start of the pandemic, several individuals and organizations saw and seized the opportunity to create value by providing new/unique products and services. That resilient mindset and willingness to push through hard situations is one I intend to strongly imbibe and nurture through the course of my MBA at LBS, career and life in general.

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point and what do you hope to do after graduation? Interestingly, the pandemic was a big push for me. While I had always wanted to do an MBA — based on interactions with more experienced professionals who had done an MBA at some point — the pandemic brought me to an inflection point where I found myself hungry for new experiences, perspectives, and opportunities to improve overall value of my offering as an individual and professional. Post-MBA, I intend to pivot to technology/entrepreneurship and explore opportunities to leverage my previous experience in supporting the development of technology solutions aimed at improving social welfare.

What other MBA programs did you apply to? Stanford Graduate School of Business.

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into London Business School’s MBA program? At the risk of sounding cliché as far as MBA application advice go, I’ll say be yourself and don’t be afraid to build your story around your uniqueness. Understandably, doing this might not be the easiest thing – the essays I struggled with the most were the simple, personal “why” ones. However, I found that they were perhaps the most important in helping me understand what made me who I am and the things I cared the most about personally and professionally.

Of course, a key value offering of an MBA is providing you with the environment to fine tune your professional goals and aspirations, so it’s okay to not have it perfectly figured out. But I think being able to understand and clearly articulate where your mind truly is at the point of application — and how it relates to your vision (however unclear) of where you aspire to be – would be helpful for you and your application.

DON’T MISS: MEET LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL’S MBA CLASS OF 2023

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