Duke Goethe MBAs participate in World's Largest MBA Sailing Event
From 24-27 September 2009 a team of program participated in the world's largest sailing cup for MBAs in Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy. The event was organized for the 6th time by MBA students of the Italian SDA Bocconi business school together with the Yacht Club Italiano.The Setting
From 24-27 September 2009 a team of program participated in the world's largest sailing cup for MBAs in Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy. The event was organized for the 6th time by MBA students of the Italian SDA Bocconi business school together with the Yacht Club Italiano. Despite the economic crisis, a fleet of 32 boats racing in two divisions gathered, with over 250 students and alumni of 14 business schools representing 37 different countries having taken part in the competition. Right at the end of the first racing day, SDA Bocconi had organized a ‘Party at the Docks’ which helped networking and letting off steam from the first match encounters.
On the last evening, ahead of the gala dinner, a conference on “Sustainability: the challenge for tomorrows leaders” was held followed by the award ceremony. Keynote speakers at that event were Jack Lowe (President, Blue Orchard), Pietro Scott Jovane (Managing Director, Microsoft Italia), Francesco De Leo (Executive Chairman Green Comm Challenge), Giorgio Lazzaro (Director, Gabetti Agency Retail & Santandre), and James Reid Noble (Managing Director, Deloitte Italy).
The Team
Proverbially, "sailing is like management". This was confirmed in practice by the Duke Goethe team racing in the 2007 event and held for this years’ cup race as well.
Our skipper, Monika Werres '07, did again an outstanding job leading the crew during the competition, setting goals, giving clear instructions, sharing her knowledge, offering guidance and being a role model for the crew in motivation and ambition.
The Duke Goethe team despite not having sailed together, demonstrated efficient teamwork during sailing and a respectful but effective mode of operation throughout the races, with the more experienced sailors integrating the less experienced.
All of the other teams either had an experienced core-team that frequently sails together or held a preparatory training event prior to this MBA Cup.
During the two days of regatta sailing with five counted races and after initial technical difficulties the Duke Goethe team achieved an increase in rank race by race, beating crews from Wharton, Rotterdam School of Management and even London Business School at least twice in single races.
The Results
In this year, the top three places were taken by HEC (France), Kellogg-WHU (USA) and SAUDER (Canada), three schools with a strong sailing tradition and intense training preparations.
The Duke-Goethe team is reasonably happy with the individual results given that it was the first time for this Duke Goethe team to participate and that the partly inexperienced crew had not trained before.
What stays?
Despite the tough competition at sea with a lot of rather close tactical maneuvering, the event was a lot of fun and even more an excellent opportunity to promote the Duke Goethe Executive MBA and create awareness for both business schools amongst business leaders and other business schools' students and alumni while networking with them. The crew proudly displayed the Duke Goethe logo on their polo shirts and flags.
What’s next?
We are very much looking forward to making the participation of Duke/Fuqua and Goethe business schools in this event a tradition and plan to register again next year.
The Global MBA Trophy in Greece in May 2010 could be a good playground to practice for next years MBA Cup in September 2010 in Italy while integrating friend and family around the race.
From professional to amateurs as well as newbie’s, any Dukie is welcome. If you can swim, that’s fine – if you can’t, that’s fine too as we trust you to sail even harder to stay aboard ;-))
Experience in Sailing is good, but good teamwork can compensate a lot!
Having said this we envisage a 3-4 day familiarization and training event one week prior to the Italian MBA Cup, somewhere in Germany or The Netherlands. It will be real fun!
Please contact Mario Spira This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or Thorsten Schopf This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for any nominations or questions relating to this event.
The Duke Goethe Crew of 2009 comprising Monika Werres '07, Bernd Diepenseifen ’07, Thorsten Schopf ’07, Jochen Wölpert ’09, Michael Amend ’09, Stephan Kiene ’09, Matthias Heintke ’10 and Mario Spira ‘10 thanks Duke/Fuqua and Goethe Business School for their support in this event.
November 2009
Mario Spira, DG 2010
Thorsten Schopf, DG2007
