We are happy to announce that we had a terrific first half of the LEADER Project last week. The sessions were marked with enthusiasm for teaching on the part of the instructors and enthusiasm for learning on the part of the participants. At the end of each of the last five days, the Richard Ivey MBA graduates are available to the participants for personal consultations, which they use to talk about their business idea or a future plan in the company. We could hear words such as “investment,” “production,” and “export” being exchanged between participant and instructor.
Zoran Stamenov, CEO of Gordian Technology- a Macedonian IT and technical support company, said the LEADER Project “is an opportunity that brings manifold benefits, such as developing my thought-process and broadening my perspectives on how to improve my business, but also we have a chance to network and to learn from each other’s life and professional experiences, from the stories and impressions that the participants tell each day.”
Sergej Zafirovski used to manage two sectors at a computer firm before concentrating his efforts on the pharmaceutical sector and on his startup called Insider ID. Sergej is attending the LEADER Project in order to gain leadership skills and business insights in getting his business idea off the ground. He said “the program provides an experience that feels as if I am in a foreign country. We are talking about doing business and sometimes it feels that we are in a company meeting. This offers new perspectives and a reflection on what I had known before and what I learned now. I think it is very important that I discover other ways that are possible to target a problem or an opportunity.”
In the rest of the second week of the LEADER Project, the participants will attend few more case studies and a number of lectures about raising capital, which will cover the idea of asking friends and family for money to start business, to the possibility of finding an angel investor, to private equity and capital markets. Another exciting part of the lectures will be the sales-pitch simulation where participants will present a business idea in 30 seconds and then listen to comments and suggesting on how to improve their impact.