As I mentioned in my last post, I am doing an exchange during my winter quarter at IESE Business School in Barcelona. At IESE, each semester of the 2nd year starts with an optional 2 week intensive immersion program before the semester actually begins. This semester three immersion programs were offered: Nairobi, Shanghai and Barcelona. (Note to reader, I had no idea this was offered when I decided to go to IESE.) I’d heard so much about Nairobi and its thriving entrepreneurial scene. I’m really interested in the economic development in the frontier markets of Africa, so going to explore Nairobi was a no brainer.
The Nairobi module consisted of 2 one week courses. The first course titled “Doing Business in Africa” was a novice’s look at Kenya and the idiosyncrasies of doing business there. The course was case driven and guest speaker heavy. Most cases were extremely relevant as the outcomes were still playing out. We met with local 
entrepreneurs, private equity partners, the president of GE Africa, the head of development Unicef Africa, Kiva, the former governor of the Kenya Central Bank and the CEO of Mo-de. The visit with Julian Kyula, CEO of Mo-de, was the highlight of my week. He started Mo-de in Kenya four years ago. Today the multi-billion dollar company is one of
the hottest tech start-ups in the world.
During the first week there were two other highlights. First a retail 
safari where we went to a local market and then to the grocery store on a scavenger hunt of sorts. Each group was given four items to buy at the market. The negotiated prices would be compared to the grocery store prices and the group that paid the least would be deemed the winners. The other highlight was an intense negotiations simulation with students from Strathmore Business School. Each group was given a prompt and placed in a room to negotiate the price of a kilo of fertilizer. Information was asymmetric, and the cocky European / American educated MBAs went into the negotiation almost feeling empathetic. What we didn’t know was that we were walking into a deathtrap. All the IESE MBA teams lost to the Strathmore teams. They were fierce negotiators and demolished any preconceived notions we may have had about business school in developing markets.
The second week was dedicated to a semester-long consulting project. Five teams were partnered with 5 local Kenyan businesses. My team, was paired with a below-the-line marketing firm. The business came to market with an innovative idea 5 years ago. The CEO saw billboard trucks in Las Vegas and brought the idea back to Kenya. Today he is still the only company to have the Adtrucks, but the Kenyan market is developing and digital, above-the-line, and below-the-line marketing companies are popping up everywhere. Innovation and differentiation are necessary to stay competitive.
The overall experience was amazing. Definitely one of my top 5 MBA experiences. Although we were in class roughly 10 hours a day, we still found time to see some of the sites Kenya had to offer. We ate at some amazing restaurants, took advantage of the Kenyan bar/club scene and even went on Safari.
My advice to you: Come to Booth. Survive your first year. Crush your summer internship. Go on exchange via IBEP.
Here are some photos:
