How the Global Mentoring Programme has supported my MBA and helped me

Distance Learning MBA alumnus, Leonel Aguilera, highlights how the WBS Global Mentoring Programme supported his WBS journey. 

A little context. I live in Chile, so being able study a top MBA programme without moving abroad full time was a great opportunity and a big challenge at the same time. As family responsibilities prevented me from living in another country, the chance to access high quality knowledge, build an impressive network, and invest time into thinking and discussing new ideas made the decision easy: I would go for the Warwick Business School Distance Learning MBA.

And here I am, now an alumnus of the programme.

I have to say that I worked hard, read a lot, and made great friends and contacts with whom I had, and I still am having excellent conversations and discussions about anything and everything. From these exchanges, ideas came, and now, besides my current position in an energy company, I am the co-founder of two new ventures, one in Canada (www.grossio.com) and another in Chile (Patagon Price, still offline).

As you can imagine from the above, I took advantage of almost every opportunity that the programme gave me, and one of them was the Global Mentoring Programme. When I first heard about the programme, I was dubious about the value of mentoring, especially in a distance learning context (pre-pandemic prejudices…). Indeed, I already had a lot to deal with, and my time was shorter than ever. So, more meetings? And probably in a different time zone? Would it be too much? These were some of my doubts at that time, but finally, after listening to people involved with the programme, I overcame them and signed up.

I have to say that I was happily surprised. From a practical point of view, the programme assigned me a WBS Mentor who lived in the same time zone and, more importantly, had the kind of experience I was looking for: after a corporate career, he had started his own company. Talking more specifically about my participation in the mentoring programme, more than a teacher or a wise person, my WBS Mentor was a great listener and a real expert in guiding me by asking precise questions. In that way, he and I invested time in knowing my capabilities and business acumen. He helped me find the knowledge, resources, and especially self-esteem that I already had, so, without any doubt, the Global Mentoring Programme enriched my time at WBS, and it helped me in the journey to my current endeavours.

Find out more about our Global Mentoring Programme here and more on our Distance Learning MBA here.