GISMA grants 59 degrees

Julia Gaydina is one of 59 graduates who received their MBA degrees this year at GISMA Business School, Krannert’s academic affiliate in Hannover, Germany. (GISMA Business School photo by Martin Steiner)

Following successful completion of an 11-month curriculum, 59 students from 22 different countries received their MBA diplomas in July at GISMA Business School in Hannover, Germany.

David Schoorman, GISMA dean, and Rick Cosier, dean and Leeds Professor of Management at the Krannert School, a GISMA academic affiliate, jointly presented the degrees. The commencement ceremony featured comments from GISMA alum Stefan Traeger, now managing director at Carl Zeiss SMT Ltd. in England.

GISMA’s eighth full-time MBA class was not only its largest to date, but also the largest anywhere in Germany. Among the 59 graduates were 12 from Germany, 11 from the United States, and others from countries as diverse as El Salvador, Uzbekistan, and South Africa.

The average age of this year’s graduates was 28. They had an average of five years of work experience, and had earned at least one previous degree in a range of disciplines including economics and business (39 percent), engineering (23 percent), the humanities (10 percent), computer science (6 percent), the natural sciences (6 percent), and law (4 percent).

“This is probably more international diversity per capita than the United Nations,” Schoorman says. “It provided an extraordinary environment in which to learn about leadership of global businesses.”

One graduate, Julia Gaydina, enrolled in GISMA’s MBA program as a follow-up to her studies of economics and translation in her homeland of Russia. She now is entrusted with founding a German subsidiary for the RIF Corp. of Voronezh, Russia — a manufacturer of cooling systems that employ state-of-the-art nanotechnology.

“Even a year ago it was already clear that after earning my MBA I would be put in charge of setting up my company’s very first subsidiary in Germany,” Gaydina says. “Now I’m really looking forward to shouldering this considerable responsibility.”