The ‘intrapreneur’ who landed his dream job with an MBA

The decision to attend business school can be a tough one for some. How will it add value? Can I afford it? Those were some of the questions Aurélien Meunier had when he was considering an international MBA. emlyon business school’s reputation as a leading international and European business school, along with the recruitment team who went above and beyond in advising him, however, sealed the deal. 

“They were really here to help me choose what was best to achieve my goals,”  he told U2B via email, adding that their advice was helpful while the staff were also very reactive. “The decision to go back to school was a challenge in itself. What do I have to gain? Will it be that helpful?” He gained much more than he bargained for, including developing his entrepreneurial mindset, which proved useful in his career.

Financing his business school education was also a major consideration, but the school and its partners had good deals on offer, explained the 38-year-old.

Developing his entrepreneurial mindset at a global business school 

Meunier already had a master’s in marketing, sales management and international commerce before embarking on an international MBA with a specialisation in entrepreneurship. The need to stay relevant in the fast-changing business environment was a pull-factor for gaining an additional credential.

His efforts paid off. 

After graduating with an international MBA from emlyon business school in 2016, Meunier is now the sales regional director (in charge of the western part of France) of Legrand, a global specialist in electrical and digital building infrastructures. 

“This was my dream job when I entered Legrand 14 years ago,” he said. He started out in the company as a sales representative before becoming an area sales manager. After his MBA, he became a general manager where his entrepreneurial mindset helped him in his role in developing the company’s presence abroad. He was eventually promoted to his current role. 

Despite the many challenges inherent to his job function, he’s enjoying the journey.

“Everything I learned is now useful. If I have to pick up some of the hard skills that help me the most I would say: management skills, financial accounting and marketing of innovation.”

Equally important are soft skills. “Knowing yourself and all the international teamwork. This contributed a lot in changing and improving my way of doing business and even my way of thinking and acting in my personal life,” said the Frenchman.  

“Being an intrapreneur was a great experience. You get to experiment all your entrepreneur skills and mindset using all the tools and means of your company,” he said.

“The programme is very oriented on entrepreneurship. It gave me the knowledge, such as finance, marketing, business plan skills, to be efficient when it comes to building up a business.  Above all these skills, the programme is designed to help you build the entrepreneurial mindset so [it is] useful to succeed in an adventure such as intrapreneurship.”