Meet an Alumna: a sustainability advocate and a positive change ambassador
After graduating from EDHEC’s MSc in Global & Sustainable Business, Lisa Kropacek has joined SITA in Geneva as a Sustainability & CSR Graduate. She shares her EDHEC experience and explains how the MSc in Global & Sustainable Business prepared her for her role.
You have graduated from EDHEC Business School with an MSc in Global & Sustainable Business in 2021. What are the main highlights of this academic experience?
First and foremost, I was extremely pleased to have received a sense of belonging and purpose within, and even beyond, the cohort of EDHEC´s MSc in Global & Sustainable Business. Despite the COVID-19 required hybrid teaching policy, my learning experience was never short of academic guidance, peer support, and community interaction. This was evident not only in my duties as a class representative, but also throughout a highly ambitious, but equally successful, group-based master thesis project with the EDHEC FIT Chair.
One of my favourite assignments I completed during the MSc was a peer-reviewed assessment within the Business Ethics module. I was challenged to reflect upon the notion of responsible leadership according to my personal experiences, priorities, and values. The results of this assessment showed that I see myself as a global citizen and as an agent of world benefit, who aims to be a proactive and visible role model for responsible behaviour.
Whilst this is just a short glimpse into my academic experience at EDHEC, I can only encourage future students to discover the MSc’s challenging but stimulating learning journey for themselves.
Why the field of air transport and mobility? How has the MSc in GSB prepared you for your role?
Over the past six years, I have had the privilege to live, study and work internationally across cultural, national, and organisational boundaries. Being able to do so, whilst also staying connected with friends and family, required me to frequently travel between different places I now call home. This experience, combined with my keen aspiration to drive tomorrow’s sustainable transition, quickly developed into a passion to help overcome the air transport & mobility sector’s hard-to-abate decarbonisation challenge.
To effectively address this challenge, however, the MSc in Global & Sustainable Business equipped me with an integrative understanding of the environmental, economic, and social pillars of sustainability, and their impact on the future of business. The core courses enable me to sharpen my general management skills and managerial competencies, such as global leadership ethics and negotiation, whilst the industry-specific modules allowed me to develop the analytical tools needed to critically reflect upon sustainable business practices in a holistic and contextually relevant manner.
The MSc program’s research-based, but practice-oriented curriculum thus allowed me to think in integrative solutions and master diverse challenges. This strengthened my understanding of how I, as a future leader, can assign my responsibility towards a better society and a more sustainable future.
You are a Sustainability & CSR Graduate at SITA in Geneva. What can you tell us about your mission?
As an aspiring next-generation leader, I am convinced that business is a powerful instrument for solving some of the greatest challenges we face today and that positive change can be achieved. As a Sustainability & CSR Graduate at SITA, a globally leading air transport IT and communications provider, my mission to drive systemic change is twofold.
First, I take care of the organisation’s greenhouse gas emissions and work towards carbon neutral and science-based reduction targets of our internal operations across 100+ SITA locations. Second, I strive to set out an innovation-driven, collective approach across the SITA product portfolio to contribute to the field of aviation sustainability. Throughout both missions, I ensure continuous improvement of internal communications and non-business initiatives to increase employee awareness and their commitment towards a sustainable future.
In conclusion, three words to sum up your MSc experience.
Stimulating, relevant, and empowering.
Discover the MSc in Global & Sustainable Business
