MBA Student Profile: Nadia Ammar, IE

Nadia Ammar chose IE for an MBA program to enhance her already very competent skill-sets. Find out more about Ammar's experiences as she talks to TopMBA.com

1.Nadia Ammar is the quintessential young professional of the new millennium - international, independent, highly competent, with a thirst for new experiences and challenges, and a penchant for fair play and social responsibility.

2. An intense fighting spirit, acute intellect and good humour is what comes across on meeting Nadia, probably in part inspired by her parents, who arrived in England from Egypt in 1968 with $300 to their name. Nadia lived in England, Canada, and the US before going to Egypt to do a degree in comparative literature at the American University in Cairo.  By teaching English to African refugees at the British Council in Cairo she funded her next ambition - to travel to a completely new location to carve out a stimulating career from scratch, preferably learning another language (to add to English, Arabic, Portuguese and French) in the process. Thus she arrived in Madrid.

She quickly gained a foothold in the city, moving from the world of literature and language to undertake economic surveys for BusinessWeek, taking her to Mexico, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa, where she lived and worked alone for months at a time. Apart from adding to her already developed capacity to adapt to different cultures, these experiences equipped her with lightning fast reactions to challenging situations. Moreover, she gained a heightened awareness of the human condition, and in 1999 joined Soroptimist International to play an active role in addressing the problems facing the victims of landmines.

3. Nadia's arts-oriented academic background was a disadvantage where quantitative skills were concerned, but she made quantum leaps in this field, which she attributes to her professors and which they, in turn, attribute to her grit and determination. These excellent results come coupled with a truly outstanding performance in the areas of marketing and human resources. The program also aroused a keen interest in strategy, which resulted in some groundbreaking research into diversification as a vehicle to combat EC quotas.

4. A natural born team player/leader, peers admire how she puts the group ahead of personal grade achievement, and how she gets things moving, Nadia worries that her enthusiasm may make her too demanding and impatient, but co-students see it as a catalyst for achieving excellent results fast, and actually find her "highly enjoyable to work with - quick to pinpoint and bring out people's strong points". Professors speak of the intensely international viewpoint that Nadia brings via "contributions that are, without exception, highly relevant".

5. Nadia's ambitions lie in the suitably dynamic and creative world of international marketing. She is currently doing her program internship with a prominent publishing group. As part of a drive to promote one of their business journals she recently proposed an award for the MBA student who produces the best business related article, sponsored by her company under the aegis of Instituto de Empresa. Both Nadia and IE view this as the beginning of a long and fruitful working relationship, and we will certainly be watching this exceptional student's future career with great interest.