December, 2009

Eric Vergara landed his dream job just by being himself.

The 2009 IMD MBA participant makes it sound like luck, but Eric offers his new employer the right combination of intelligence, experience and savvy. Undeniably though, he was at the right place at the right time to be noticed. That place was an IMD Orchestrating Winning Performance (OWP) session.

“A really valuable part of being at IMD is that you have the chance to work alongside top executives,” says Eric, whose break came during an OWP finance class. The professor asked a question about trading strategies for two competing companies in China. “This is something I am passionate about, so I proposed a few strategies.”

An executive from Noble Group, a commodity trading company, approached him and said, “I liked your answer, why don’t you contact us?”

Before coming to IMD, Eric had built a successful career as an investment banker and sales trader based in the Asian markets—AsiaMoney magazine ranked him as one of the top three sales traders in Thailand in both 2007 and 2008. But he had begun to feel that “it was empty on the trading desk”.

He decided to step back, sharpen his skills and investigate his options. On the advice of someone he respected, he chose the IMD MBA for its leadership and international focus. The program helped him realize that trading was still the right career for him but that he wanted to focus on commodities, or, as he puts it, “something real”.

With his desire to work in commodity trading, Noble is an ideal fit. In trading circles though, it is considered a difficult place to get into. He says that if it weren’t for IMD, he’d have had little chance to make an impression on them. The job, which he’ll start in February, will take him around the world. “I’m really excited,” he says. “I’ll learn a lot, particularly on the macroeconomic side.”

In addition to enabling him to focus his career goals, Eric appreciates that IMD has helped him learn about himself as a leader, and about his approach and thinking in different situations.

He also gained valuable insight into the benefits of balancing personal and professional life. With his high-pressure job as a trader and his wife, Phantira’s own career as a private banker, their life together had become confined to a few scant hours in the evenings and at the weekends. This, he realized, was taking its toll. The personal development elective, which offers one-on-one sessions with a counsellor, along with guidance from a perceptive professor, helped. “My relationship with my wife is particularly important to me,” he says. “I’m learning to get back to where I am supposed to be with my closest relationships and with my life balance.”

Looking further into the future, Eric sees himself back in Thailand, contributing to the country’s advancement, possibly in government. He says that the professional and personal skills and experience he is gaining will help him bring this about: “I think my real achievement is simply being on the steps to getting there.”