The General Management Program (GMP) at Harvard Business School (HBS) helped Louisa Gregory gain the business education she needed—along with new insights from outside her industry. Below, she reflects on her GMP experience and the long-lasting power of the GMP network.
After university, I went into telecommunications and found myself moving into management, but I had no formal business education. I chose GMP to fill that gap. I was very attracted to the opportunity of being on the HBS campus as well as being totally immersed in the program. Other executive programs would have involved learning on top of work—a very different experience.
I have only ever worked in one industry, so it was fascinating and extremely valuable to be exposed to ways of thinking, working, and innovating in other industries. Beyond the program’s diversity of industries, the mix of cultures and nationalities was amazing.
I have often been asked to meet with potential HBS Executive Education participants and give them a sense of what to expect. But it's difficult to do that. Until you arrive, you don't understand. There's something magical about the campus and about Boston that is just really hard to explain.
The GMP network has been a very valuable part of the experience for me. Keeping those connections alive is important. Even two years after completing the program, our group is so well connected. We're most active on WhatsApp; a week seldom goes by without something being sent to the group.
The social aspect of those connections is great, but we also learn a lot about what’s happening in each other's industries, and we can ask each other for help too. Someone might say, "I'm currently working on an acquisition; does anyone have a good set of documents to help in the due diligence process?"
I was previously based in Singapore, where a large number of individuals from my GMP cohort reside. We met up four or five times a year. In addition, because so many multinationals have a presence in Asia, a lot of traveling GMPers would pass through, creating an excuse for a mini-reunion.
