Connecting the Dots: My Executive MBA Journey at Alba

One of the moments I remember more intensely from the beginning of this journey was my interview with Professor K. Kyriakopoulos. At the time, I saw it as part of the admission process. The interview to qualify for the program. Today, I see it very differently. I recognize now, that it was a promise.

He told me that my professional experience was already deep, and that the program would help me connect the dots between experiential and academic administration. This stayed with me. It felt personal because it did not dismiss what I had already learned through work, clients, teams, pressure, mistakes, and responsibility. Instead, it suggested that all this experience could become even more powerful if I learned how to frame it, question it, and connect it with real-live case studies and academic knowledge.

That is exactly what the EMBA did for me.

Throughout the program, every class added a different piece to the picture. Strategy helped me step back from the daily urgency of business and ask bigger questions: Where are we really going? What choices are we making? What trade-offs are we accepting? Finance gave me a clearer understanding of how decisions translate into numbers, risk, and long-term sustainability. Leadership and organizational classes were perhaps some of the most personal parts of the journey. They made me reflect not only on how organizations work, but also on how I work within them. How do I make decisions under pressure? How do I communicate? How do I lead people through ambiguity? How do I balance empathy with accountability?

Other courses challenged me in different ways. Operations, innovation, entrepreneurship, negotiations, economics, ethics, each one gave me a new lens. Almost every Monday, after a weekend of classes full of inspiring and insightful learnings, I went to the office with a new concept I could immediately apply. Other times, it helped me understand something I had experienced in the past but had never been able to explain clearly. Those were the moments of clarity, when I felt the “dots” connecting.

What made the journey even more meaningful was that the learning did not happen only in the classroom. It happened through discussions with classmates, group assignments, case studies, disagreements, presentations, late evenings, and honest conversations between people who were all trying to balance demanding careers with personal growth. Everyone brought their own experience, role, personality, and way of thinking into the room. This made the program feel less like a traditional academic experience and more like a living exchange of real business perspectives.

The Porto Field Trip was one of those moments where this exchange became very visible. It was not the center of the journey, but it was a beautiful reminder of what the EMBA had been teaching us all along: that business is not only theory, and it is not only experience. It is the connection between the two. Visiting companies, listening to foreign professors and professionals, observing different business environments, and then discussing everything with my classmates over a glass of (most commonly) Porto wine, helped me see how strategy, culture, leadership, and execution come together in real life.

Professionally, the EMBA changed the way I think. I became more structured, more “armed”, and more comfortable with complexity. I learned to pause before moving into action, to ask better questions, and to understand the wider system behind a problem. I also validated a personal trait of mine, which is being effective rather being busy.

Personally, the journey gave me confidence. Not because I now believe I have all the answers, but because I have learned how to approach the questions better. It gave me a stronger sense of who I am as a professional and what kind of leader I want to continue becoming. It also reminded me that growth does not always come from completely new experiences. Sometimes it comes from revisiting what you already know and finally understanding it in a deeper way.

For anyone considering the Executive MBA, I would say this: do not expect it to simply give you information. Expect it to challenge you, stretch you, and help you see your own experience through a new set of eyes. It will require time, energy, and commitment. There will be demanding periods, especially when work, studies, and real life all compete for your attention. But there will also be moments when everything starts to make sense, when a theory explains a real situation, when a class discussion changes your perspective, or when you realize that you are not only learning business, you are learning and evolving yourself.

For me, the Executive MBA at Alba fulfilled the promise I heard in that first interview. It helped me connect the dots: between experience and theory, intuition and structure, action and reflection. Most importantly, it helped me connect the professional I was when I entered the program with the leader I am still becoming today.