Kateryna Korbutova
ESADE Business School
“The best things always happened after words: “I have one crazy idea…”
Hometown: Kyiv, Ukraine
Family Members: Ilya (Brother)
Fun fact about yourself: Know how to boil soap at home, open beer by lighter, and dance west coast swing. Travelled backpack in Asia and love places with street art.
Undergraduate School and Degree: Kyiv National Economic University (Master of Economic Cybernetics, Faculty: Information System and Technology)
Where are you currently working? SAP, Program Lead in EMEA North Partner transformation team. The best run SAP!
Extracurricular Activities, Community Work and Leadership Roles: Volunteer in Cancer Fund who provide grants for scientists on new research, Volunteer in charity fund “Vmeste” who support refugees in Spain, Mentor in SAP, Mentor in Professional Woman Network Barcelona, organizer of the best Ukrainian Borsch Home Party. The special award in surfing competition for the fun and will to win.
Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? I’m most proud of knowing an amazing group of classmates who support each other, share experience, and create a great team spirit in academic and non-academic life. Our “Secret Santa” was absolutely one of the brilliant experiences of how group of top MBA leaders can quickly transform to kindergarten and have a lot of fun.
What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? Firstly, as leader, mentor, partner, or friend, I’m most proud of seeing the talent we work together, share experience, prosper into the job they dream of holding, and achieve manager or senior manager roles.
Also, I´m proud that, after nine years in different business development leadership roles, I made a jump to back to individual contributor in sales. I felt that want to be close to customers and feel markedly better by their own hands. It was perfect experience what I can recommend to many managers and not be scared of judgement. After several years and 400% overachieved targets, I went back to a lead role in new markets with fresh feelings and new knowledge.
Who was your favorite MBA professor? It’s not easy to choose, as each of professor brings something in your grow as expert and leader. For me, it was very interesting to be part of professor Jaap Boonstra’s experiential learning program “Discovering Dynamics of Transformation Change”. Professor Boonstra showed associations between change management and modern art that is very relevant to me.
Why did you choose this school’s executive MBA program? When the war started, my company help me to relocate and I accepted offer at new role in our SAP Barcelona Digital Hub. It was not an easy period to change everything at one time. I chose ESADE based on the experiences of my friend, knowing this school focuses on teamwork and case study than on competition between students. For quick adaption in new place, it was important to find community of soulmates and friends and the best things were to become student again and enter university.
What is the biggest lesson you gained during your MBA and how did you apply it at work? The Executive MBA program allowed me to expand horizons of business opportunities, better structure the problem solving, and visualize the targets so I could think out of the box. Working on business cases in class and teams in our homework increase the level of emotional intelligence (motivation, empathy, listening and self-awareness).
What advice would you give to a student looking to enter an executive MBA program? Ask for feedback about school of the people almost graduated it and look at how many new friends and activity after program they have as alumni.
What was your biggest regret in business school? Nothing, it was the best decision in the last years!
Which MBA classmate do you most admire?
| Carlos Vila Novoa | Me amigo, my colleague, my “partner in crime” in our cohort representative. He is always high of energy and positive vibe in life and great professionals and leader in work. Btw now I know how similar history and culture in Peru and Ukraine. |
| Yuliia Demchyk | I admire how she loves her family business and the best Ukrainian milk brand Molokija. Yuliia worked long time CMO, but she perfect knows all the milk production processes. Looking forward Molokija milk products all around the world. |
| Sergio Hernandez | Sergio is one of the kindest persons with the high level of empathy. He invests a lot of efforts to his AG Solution IT company, business trips. |
| Ariadna Montero Blay | Ari was the first person I meet in ESADE. She is entrepreneur of her biomed company, Orikine Bio. She impresses me of hard working, believe in result and I no doubt of her start-up success. |
| Rocco Ciraci | Rocco is a remarkable example of how to leave international company, stability and move to your dream and create healthcare start-up with all Italian passion. At the same time, he is volunteer and support different charity funds. |
| Alejandro Alvarez | Alejandro is very attentive to people around, intelligent, and calm. He has great experience to work in different continents. |
| Sara Alves | Everyone glad to see Sara in their team. She opened as brilliant speaker in Communication class, and she has a strong character. |
| Hamid Belmekki | Hamid is a great example of how need to know your roots and how to show passion for your country. He passed this passion to us when organized our trip to Morocco. Definitely, he can be a good President of Morocco. |
| Jennie Bestard | I admire her because she had a lot of challenges in life (care of three children, education, work) but nobody feels this as Jennie is one of the brightest, positive, and polite people. |
| Lijia Cai | She shares with us so a lot of knowledge about the Chinese cultural and business environment. In Geopolitics, it was so interesting to listen about her country. Lijia is very smart, funny and we are laughing a lot. |
| Remi Carrere | He is key person in every companies. Kind, intelligent, warm. Remi´s superpower that he can quickly resolve any problem for any person. |
| Armando Gonçalves | Armando brings an entrepreneurial spirit to our cohort. He is passion to technology, open and very nice. |
| Maria Pia Decaroli | Pia is a great person in communication. We all love Pia. She works in international company and, at the same time, develops her small own business in Peru. |
| Daniel Dillinger | Daniel is a very well organized and always very structured and analytics. He is a great student and always taking the lead in all group cases. |
| Lena Drubel | Lena is an example of power and tenderness. She is not scared to be the first in any initiative. |
| Alberto Carroggio | Beto is a perfect team player, always ready to help and explain to support us in our academic tasks and very pleasant in talks. |
| Andrea Imrichova | Andrea shares her huge IT experience. She explains a lot about such important topic like IT security, data protection, and solutions. |
| Justyna Jeleniewska | Justyna is a versatile person. She can perfect build community and knows thoroughly each topic where she has interest. |
| Yulia Koroleva | Yulia organizes of our MBA group entertainment in Madrid. She works in business school and helps a lot with a lot of questions. I still don’t know how many languages she speaks. |
| Reanna Leitaker | Reanna is a great example how to perfect build network. She is involved in many communities. She shares a lot of useful announcements. |
| Volodymyr Manoilo | Vova knows everything for every topic. I have no idea how he remembers so many facts. Without Vova, our classes would be much more boring. |
| Ferran Negre | It was very nice and comfortable to work with Ferran in one team to prepare together a Geopolitics topic. |
| Bianca Padurean | Bianca is great in communication. She is always ready to help class with any academic and non-academic issues. She has a great sense of humor and brings to the group a lot of positive energy and controls our deadlines. |
| Stefano Palumbo | I admire Stefano for managing big family, work with business trips and at the same time be a good student. |
| Mikhail Pertziger | Mikhail is a very intelligent, professional and shares his experience in living in different countries from New Zeeland to Switzerland. |
| Maxim Polozkov | Max teaches our group tennis and has a lot of patience to beginners. He is very calm and quite in any critical situations. |
| Muriel Rodriguez | Muriel is very sensitive to inequity. She ready always to defend the truth and looking for argue for fairness. She also takes the lead in many activities. |
| Alexia Ruiz | Alexia operates in an international company, study and grow two babies. At the same time she find time to join us in non-academic meetings. |
| Roman Soroko | Roma led and helped a lot in our group with all Finance topics. He organized a call center presentation with Q&A and patiently explained to everyone who needed his support. |
| Bernhard Wüster | He is not just extraordinarily intelligent, he is deeply adventurous, strong-minded, and open-hearted. Looking forward to visiting his company in Austria. |
| Jekaterina Zabudska | She is a very successful professional in Riga real estate market and an amazing person with open heart. She can really win a special place in everyone’s heart. |
What was the main reason you chose an executive MBA program over part-time or online alternatives? The Main reason for me to enter MBA was to build the community and find friends and business partners. It’s not possible online.
What is your ultimate long-term professional goal? I´d like always to enjoy whatever I do and bring impact to people, environment and business. Doesn’t matter will it be lead of international business or start-up or scientific job.
What made Katerina such an invaluable addition to the Class of 2023?
“Kateryna is an outstanding student who has demonstrated remarkable fortitude and perseverance in the face of adversity. Originally from Ukraine, she resided in Moscow until last year, after which she relocated to Barcelona. Despite undergoing numerous changes, she decided to enroll in the EMBA program and has even earned a recent promotion. Kateryna is one of the class representatives, and she’s really great at this. She’s very receptive mentally and particularly attentive, always caring for her classmates. She’s the best organizing activities not only for her class but across cohorts in order to get together and bonding. Despite being from Ukraine, she has been been able to generate a good environment at class with her Russian classmates, and this is something really valuable that says a lot of how she is. Kateryna brought a very good fund of knowledge and especially strong common sense and reasoning skills. She is especially helpful to the cohort of students, with a keen perception that allowed her to bring collaboration skills far above the usual skill level expected of a student. She brought uncommon maturity and situational awareness and these allowed her to function with independence. Kateryna´s insights were remarkably thoughtful and captured even the complex nuances of lengthy discussions. She is a bright, hardworking, and capable student who approaches her studies with diligence and attention. Her thoughtfulness and care consistently reflected in her collaboration with fellow students and faculty.”
Katharine D´Amico
PhD Academic Director of Hybrid Global Excellence
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