What initially motivated you to pursue the Digital Transformation Management MBA?
I was already experiencing transformation first-hand at work, so I wanted a program that would help me understand it better and do it more deliberately. In corporate banking, we make high-stakes decisions under time pressure, with heavy documentation, regulatory expectations, and many interfaces across teams. I wanted to think beyond incremental process improvements and understand digital transformation as a combination of strategy, data, governance, and execution. I also wanted a structured environment that would push me to go deeper technically and intellectually, not only to talk about digital, but to build something concrete and defensible.
Looking back to the beginning of the program, how has your perspective on leadership and transformation evolved over time?
At the beginning, I probably had a more solution driven view. Identify the best tool, implement it, and expect adoption to follow. Over the program, my perspective shifted. I now see transformation as a leadership discipline. It is about setting priorities, building alignment across stakeholders, and creating clarity around decision making and accountability. The most important change for me is this. Transformation succeeds or fails less because of technology and more because of how consistently an organisation can execute, measure, and learn, especially when the topic is sensitive, like automation and AI.
How did the MBA add value to your day to day work? Were there concepts, tools, or ways of thinking that you could apply immediately?
It helped me cut through complexity in daily work. I applied the program’s frameworks immediately in stakeholder alignment and business case thinking, but also in how I communicate. What is the actual problem, what is the target state, what assumptions are we making, and how do we manage operational and compliance risk while moving forward. The most practical shift for me was learning to evaluate digital initiatives with a sharper lens. Not only “is it innovative,” but “can it be scaled,” “can it be governed,” and “can it stand up in a real operating environment.”
Was there a particular moment during your studies, a project, discussion, or experience, that had a lasting impact on you?
For me it was the thesis process, because it forced me to connect theory with real constraints. My research focused on AI usage in corporate credit risk assessment, benchmarking a traditional logistic regression model against LightGBM for probability of default estimation using firm level data. Beyond the modelling itself, the lasting lesson was how easily you can get misleading results if you do not treat data quality, leakage, and evaluation design with discipline. What stayed with me is the link between performance and trust. In banking, it is not enough to be accurate. You also need explainability, documentation, and governance that holds up under scrutiny. Working with explainability methods like SHAP and combining quantitative results with expert interviews made that very concrete.
The MBA brings together professionals from very different backgrounds. How did this diversity influence your learning experience and discussions in the classroom?
The diversity raised the quality of discussions because people came with different constraints and definitions of what “good” looks like. It pushed us to be precise and practical, not just conceptual, and to talk openly about trade offs. Coming from corporate banking, I naturally focus on governance, auditability, and decision risk. Others approached transformation more through speed of delivery, customer experience, or data products. That contrast helped me separate what is essential from what is industry habit, and it improved how I communicate complex banking realities in a clear way. Overall, it made me more ambitious on outcomes but more disciplined on execution, especially when the topic is sensitive like automation and AI.
Looking ahead, which aspects of digital transformation feel most relevant for your future work, and how has the program prepared you to engage with them?
For my future work, the most relevant themes are responsible AI adoption, data quality and governance, and end to end process transformation. Not as isolated digital projects, but as capability building. In my area, the biggest opportunities are improving decision quality, reducing manual workload, and accelerating turnaround times while staying compliant. The Digital Transformation MBA prepared me by giving me language and structure to manage that complexity. How to evaluate what is feasible, how to build alignment, how to operationalise change, and how to connect strategy with delivery. It also strengthened my analytical depth around data driven decision making, so I feel more confident going into technical topics when needed, and more sceptical when something looks too good to be true.
As you now transition into alumni status, what are you most grateful for when reflecting on your time at Goethe Business School?
I am most grateful for three things. First, the academic standard and the way the program bridges technology, analytics, and strategic management without losing rigour. Second, the guidance and teaching quality that helped me push through a demanding thesis and think more clearly about data driven innovation and responsible AI in a financial context. Third, the support structure behind the program that makes it possible to combine a full time role with an intense learning track. On a personal level, balancing work, private life, and the MBA was not always comfortable, but it raised my standards for what I can deliver when I commit fully. Overall, I am grateful that the program did not stay abstract. It changed how I think, how I decide, and how I lead, and that stays with you long after the final submission.