EDHEC’s Master: a world of opportunities

You have completed your master’s in management at EDHEC Business School in 2022. Looking back on the three years you spent on the programme, which highlights would you like to share?

The student counseling was extremely helpful, a lot of top firms come to EDHEC to provide opportunities. This helped me a lot with understanding the corporate world in France and, understanding the expectations. In addition to this, EDHEC has a strong networking culture which is something that I personally really liked.

The International Student Office is extremely helpful, they are there to help the internationals with any challenges that they face. This is something that many do not consider when applying to universities, however, it plays a big role regarding administrative topics.

On a more personal front, the friends I’ve made along this journey are one of the things I really hold close to. EDHEC has made me meet some great people from around the globe! Many of which I am proud to call my extended family.

You chose the MSc in Accounting & Finance as your master 2. You moved from the Lille campus to the Nice campus. How was the change of campus and city?

I spent my first year of the master’s in Lille, a great student city in the north of France, the campus focused mainly on business management and had a very strong association culture. This indirectly helped with integrating with the students.

Lille for me in 3 points: a great student city, a huge campus and, lots of companies coming from different sectors, it was a great place to network.

Getting the opportunity to study in the Nice campus was the icing on the cake of my EDHEC experience, the campus is on the Promenade de Anglais, with the view of the airport. You are having courses on M&A valuations in classrooms while having flights landing/taking off just next to you, it’s something else.

The Nice campus focuses on courses that are related to finance. The students are thus, more focused on corporate finance, banking, M&A, etc. The courses are very practical, all the lectures focus on case studies based on real-life events and we are exposed to real-life challenges. Most of the courses have group work elements to them as well.

In terms of learning about French culture, you are exposed to the South of France, which is completely different from the other regions. The weather is great almost all throughout the year, you have great places to visit around with some of the most scenic views, and much more. Living in a beach city with a lot of assignments and workload helped me create a good balance.

If you had to pitch your MSc, what would you say?

If you are someone that is extremely passionate about working in Finance, whether is banking, M&A, corporate finance, or anything related to the financial industry, this MSc is for you. In addition to the course, the students around you are inclined to work in finance, this helps to be a part of the ecosystem.

How important was your professional immersion year in your career choice and your MSc specialisation?

To be very honest and transparent, the professional immersion was the one thing that I was apprehensive about before joining EDHEC. I had questions about doing a master’s that ends in 3 years (2 years of courses & 1 year of professional immersion). However, now that I look back, the professional immersion was a pivotal part of the entire experience. I had the experience to intern with Danone & L’Oreal.

Working with Danone provided me with the necessary hard skills to be a financial controller, and the ability to build confidence to work in French, these two played an important role to receive an internship opportunity with L’Oréal. My experience at L’Oréal was extremely positive. This opened many doors for me in terms of learning about the beauty industry in the city of beauty & luxury, Paris. 

Eventually, I received a permanent offer with L’Oréal for the luxury division.

In addition, having professional work experiences in the local country really helps understand the working culture as well as what is expected of you. This is something one cannot learn in a course. It is also a chance to try & test different types of posts or roles before you choose the one that is for you. Other benefits would be to be able to network with professionals in the field you are working in.

You have joined L’Oréal Luxury as a Financial Controller. What can you tell us about your role?

I am working as a corporate financial controller of L’Oréal’s luxury division. To put it into simple terms, I am responsible for handling the budget for several revenue-generating services of the luxury division. This includes ensuring clean budget landing, challenging, and communicating with directors of the services, and preparing the rolling forecasts of the current year as well as budget forecasts for 2024.

I am responsible for our foreign currency demand, the re-invoicing of various costs to different countries and entities.

Presenting the key deliverables related to the entity’s spending, risks & opportunities in the budget forecasts on our SG&A to the CFO of the luxury division.

In addition to this, I actively participate in events planned by L’Oréal where I get opportunities to share my experience and provide advice to the interns and apprentices at L’Oréal.

You started learning French in India. How important was mastering the language in the different recruitment processes you underwent?   

My story with France and the French language dates back to about 10 years, this was when I was studying in Bangalore in India. I had an opportunity to visit France for an exchange programme with my school. I visited the French city, Angers, for two weeks in the “Pays de la Loire” region.  The only 3 words I knew when I visited France were “bonjour, baguette & café”. These two weeks made me extremely curious about French culture and the language. I wanted to know and learn everything. I started to learn the language through music and the Internet. This really helped me to integrate with the country when I joined EDHEC.

France is a French-speaking country, however you can definitely have a great professional experience being a beginner in the language. From my personal experience: Knowing or mastering the language is the key that will open so many doors in the country, professionally as well as in your everyday life. It will provide you with so many more opportunities, which makes the entire experience more fun.

In terms of recruitment, I have always been asked the question about my French level. Mastering the language plays a big role in your favor during interviews and when you are working in according to me, you bring 2 things to the table:

A) The ability to converse and communicate with local colleagues, this helps a lot with your integration into the firm.

B) To be able to express your different culture and experiences on certain work-related topics, which would allow you to provide a fresh perspective to different decision-making situations.

Do you have career advice for recent graduates?

The three things that helped me make the most of my time at EDHEC were:

Quality networking: Network with people to understand what drives them, and their experiences, and share your experiences, keeping in mind the goal to grow together.

Embrace curiosity and aim to seek discomfort.

If you are an international, master the French language. It will open so many more doors for you.

EDHEC’s motto is make an impact. How do you intend to make your impact?

Having the opportunity to work in a company that focuses on creating beauty for the world along with having strong actions on sustainability and doing good for the people is the first step. L'Oreal has a lot of programmes that are focused on making the world a better place, the L'Oreal for the future programme is a great example of this.

I am a people's person and I love to work alongside people. Apart from my designated tasks, I actively participate in presenting L'Oreal to the students at EDHEC, provide them with key information regarding what working in finance in the firm is about: the expectations, types of roles and opportunities. I revisited the Nice campus alongside some of my colleagues from L'Oreal this February, it was a great event!

In addition to this, I had the opportunity to be a member of the jury for the assessment center for the current interns and apprenticeship students. The assessment center is the deciding factor for the students to receive a full time offer with L'Oreal.

These are the current ways in which i am making an impact.

What will remain your best memory of EDHEC?

The Business innovation challenge was a great memory of EDHEC and for our team. This was when I was studying in the Lille campus. We were presented with a business case to crack alongside the firm Sia Partners. The goal was to present our solution to integrate an AI Banking assistant for GAFA. Our team had so much fun working on our model, it was nothing but hard work, great chemistry, bundled with a lot of laughs. We had the opportunity to present our solution in the auditorium of the campus, and we went with a rather comedic sales pitch to hook the judges and the audience. This eventually got us to win 1^st place.