Milena Ivanova

Republic of INSEAD

Business EN ↓ 33 episodes

The 20 Years Later MBA'03D podcast editionWelcome to the Republic of Insead podcast edition and enjoy the show. So here we are – 20 years later, hopefully all the wiser, naturally smarter and as charming as ever. There were 432 of us in the 03’D vintage and certainly there are 432 unique and very interesting personal and professional stories to tell. While I cannot physically cover all, I have tried to make a selection of stories, that will keep you interested and curious and will hopefully convince you to join us on campus for reunion. The show is here to remind everyone what an interesting a...

Author

Milena Ivanova

Episodes

"When you're an entrepreneur, and you're not successful with your first shot, bouncing back from failure is probably the most difficult." 16.07.2023 42:48

20 YEARS IN PERSPECTIVE: I told myself I'm going to be a hotelier. Okay so how do I become a hotelier? Well, no hotel owner in their right mind will ask me to run their hotel. So I guess I need to be a hotel owner myself. In my thirties I was kind of a Parisian nightlife kingpin and had a lot of fun, a lot of fun. I probably had a little bit of a delayed teenage crisis and threw my career out the...

Life is a marathon, not a sprint: as a parent it's important to actually dial things down a bit, rather than push kids 12.07.2023 43:03

20 YEARS IN PERSPECTIVE: Success is a balanced life, I'm not sure I'm there yet, but that's an aspiration. I don't think I was fully aware of the challenge for international couples of moving around and managing two careers. Sometimes he's followed me and sometimes I've followed him and it's worked out pretty well, but it hasn't been easy. I feel very lucky because I love the work that I do, I lov...

Mr. CA$H: "Well, why can't you build a Moon rocket in your back garden?" 07.07.2023 48:54

20 YEARS IN PERSPECTIVE: I never intended to start a space rocket company. I started to literally Google “How do you build a moon rocket” Consulting has never been my kind of thing, you don't have enough responsibility I think in consulting for execution, I quite like the responsibility of execution. Rule 3 was “Don't fuck it up”. CEO role in that kind of company is 24 / 7 / 365. Stubbornness and...

"Prom Queen": If I didn't have that pain point of trying to combine family life with professional life, I probably would have never become an entrepreneur. 04.07.2023 49:17

20 YEARS IN PERSPECTIVE: I had at some point of time to decide whether I wanted to have a career, or to be a mother whose children can recognize her. Being a banker, I was really very risk averse, so starting my own thing was the last thing I thought I would do, but mothers do so many things that we wouldn't do in normal circumstances. Institutions might come and go, but people stay. Credit Suisse...

The food industry: We feel the pain of global warming instantly, here, and now, and today. 29.06.2023 31:57

20 YEARS IN PERSPECTIVE: It's been a juggle to combine two careers and raise a couple of healthy, good kids and particularly a career in a multinational on the one hand and a very local kind of rooted career in medicine on the other hand. The most difficult time by far was after the 2008 financial crisis, when I think a lot of businesses were under pressure and ours was no exception at the time. B...

"Before I had to excuse myself for being a techie on a board, now everybody wants to ask me "Well, how do we apply AI to our business?"" 22.06.2023 43:09

20 YEARS IN PERSPECTIVE: You know, days go slowly and years fly by”. I wasn't that keen on children to begin with, but once we couldn't have one I got actually very keen and life is what happens while you're making other plans. And suddenly I have 4 children. I've been on the boards of maybe thirty-forty companies in the past fourteen years. To be perfectly honest, I was really tired with the preg...

The world of biotech: It's like you just saw somebody run one hundred meters in 2.5 seconds 15.06.2023 50:09

You defied some of the laws of physics to make that happen! Get the dog out for a walk, hop on the train or car to work or to school, put your gym gear on and tune in to find out who’s the next guest in the Republic of Insead podcast. A few of my favorite snippets are below. 20 YEARS IN PERSPECTIVE: A number of crazy things happened related to the business and the growth of the business. We happen...

"Harry Potter": I still feel I've got another start-up inside me. 11.06.2023 43:00

The speed of light is a hard constraint in this world. “Just mention the letters “I.T.” and a disheveled Harry Potter like figure will emerge from his back-row slumber. Either cheerful or recovering from a perhaps too cheerful night, he continually brightened our spirits. He has entertained us with his guitar stylings and has bemused us with his weekend hangover wear – an exceedingly well-worn bat...