Maria Kiriazidou is from Germany and is one of this year’s participants in the LeadTech Global Executive MBA offered by EADA Business School and École des Ponts Business School. She has been in her current position as Aftersales Service Director for Southern Europe at Kärcher since June 2017.
Maria leads the Service teams in Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey to increase the turnover of repairs, spare parts and service contracts, while ensuring high customer satisfaction, profitability and efficiency of the business. Last year, she decided to embark on a new academic experience and expand her professional horizons and business network.
You have been working in multicultural teams, what is for you the key to success to high performing international teams?
When working with international teams, you need to be open-minded and curious about discovering different and new approaches, have at least some basic intercultural competence and most importantly, show empathy.
What interested you most about our LeadTech Global Executive MBA?
Everything connected to leadership and especially technology. I wanted to learn how to lead in a highly technological world. We are becoming increasingly digital
It has been a challenging year, but in spite of this, you decided to participate in the programme.
In fact, I was accepted to the programme at the end of 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic started. I decided to begin the programme anyway and for me, it was the best decision, because it gave me a lot of motivation. I have to say that, due to the pandemic, I have improved a lot in terms of flexibility and resilience. Combining this with having a new academic experience and new challenges really motivated me to get through this difficult time.
I have already learned a lot about leadership, especially self-leadership - it is one thing to apply the theory to yourself, but it is also important to help your team apply it.
Have you had the opportunity to apply concepts that you have learnt in the programme to your daily work life?
Yes. A lot of leadership topics, especially those related to self-leadership, because it is one thing to apply it to yourself, but it’s also important to help your team apply it to themselves. Then, of course, everything concerning technology. I’m constantly taking notes on how to apply these things in practice. For example, with Blockchain, I am thinking about how to use this technology in future projects.
What are you hoping to do after this LeadTech Global Executive MBA Programme?
To be honest, I have learnt to be open to new challenges. It’s nice to have plans, but it’s also important to be open-minded and flexible when a new challenge arises, no matter how impossible or difficult the challenge seems to be. I am even thinking about starting my own business after the programme and want to learn what it takes to succeed.
Who would you recommend this programme to?
To anybody who wants to do an MBA program with an international and technological focus.