Miklós Tomcsányi, 29, was born in Budapest, Hungary, and, is currently doing a full-time MBA at EBS Business School in Germany, where he won the Péter Horvát Scholarship.
The Scholarship covers 100% of tuition fees and is open to Hungarian, Polish, Estonian, Latvian, Czech or Lithuanian citizens who hold a first degree, have been admitted to a Master or MBA program at EBS Business School, and who can demonstrate outstanding social commitment and engagement.
What were you doing before the MBA?
After an MSc in Electrical and Computer Engineering in Hungary, I worked in the telecommunications sector for four years. I started as a software developer at Ericsson, moved into network engineering, where I was in charge of delivering customer service projects, and finally worked as solution consultant with more responsibility in customer projects.
Why have you decided to do an MBA?
I had been involved in various leadership positions outside of my professional work, namely in non-profit organizations. I also started a foundation that provides Hungarian high school students with a one-year scholarship to study in the US.
In all these projects, I enjoyed managing people, activities, and events, and I recognized that such type of responsibility would be exciting for me. Therefore, I decided to complement my professional knowledge in technology with economics studies and professional leadership training.
What is the Péter Horváth Foundation and what does it do?
The Péter Horváth Foundation drives economy and art by supporting research and other activities in these fields. This is done via study opportunities, financing research centres, and supporting museums and exhibitions. There is also a strong focus onto reinforcing German-Hungarian relations, as Prof. Peter Horvath is also Hungarian-born.
Exactly, what does the scholarship allow you to do?
It covers my tuition fees, thus enabling me to join the MBA programme, as by myself I would have not been able to meet its costs.
A part from that, there is no relationship between the foundation and me. However, I decided to contact Prof. Péter Horvát when I won the scholarship, and since then we have exchanged a few emails, where I let him know about my progress. This isn’t mandatory, but I wanted to say ‘thank you’ in some way.
Do you need good grades to win the scholarship?
Yes, and also social commitment. It means that in order to win the scholarship, one has to be willing to give back to the community. Or in other words, open for volunteering or philanthropy. As I said, I started a foundation, and am still volunteering for other non-profit organizations.
What are you doing in this moment?
I am currently working on my thesis and am about to start a summer internship at ZS Associates in their Frankfurt office. It’s a management consultancy focused on marketing, sales and sales force optimisation, based in Chicago. Their customers are mainly pharmaceutical and healthcare companies. I chose them because they are a relatively small firm, somewhat above 1000 people globally, and they had a great company presentation at EBS. Their summer associate role is designed for MBA students, so I hope to have a decent level of responsibility.
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What would you like to do after your MBA?
I'm seriously considering working in consulting as a potential field - and I'm sure that the experience at ZS Associates this summer will help me make up my mind.
I’d also like to work in the industrial or services sector, close to IT, telecom and electronics technology, where I have background knowledge. Using all the skills acquired during the MBA, my ultimate goal is to reach a leadership position as project, team or department manager.
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