Hi Alex, Graham, and fellow readers! I have been loving the podcast over the past months and - with the new admission season kicking off, I'm very excited to finally share my profile!

I'm a 24 year-old male from Belgium looking to apply in R1/R2 for the Fall of '23. I'll be 25 at matriculation with 3 years of work experience as a product manager / business owner at the Belgian branch of a global live entertainment corporation (think Live Nation, AEG...). I hold a B.Sc. (GPA: 71/100; Top 30% of class) and M.Sc. (GPA: 83/100; Top 10% of class) in Business Engineering & Management Information Systems - which I believe would be a double major in Business and Management Information Systems in the U.S.

I studied abroad over the summer between my bachelor's and master's degree at UC Berkeley (GPA 4.0). My master's dissertation was picked up by some aerospace/transportation media, as it was part of an aviation/edtech startup I was working on during college. The startup never got beyond the pre-seed stage, but the experience was definitely worth it. I scored a 710 on the GMAT (Q49/74%; V39/89%) and a 114 on the TOEFL. However, I will need to retake the latter since that score has already expired. I barely passed some quant courses during undergrad, so I'm trying to compensate for that with taking MBA math.

During grad school, I started working as a part-time analyst for a close family member's business in the live entertainment space (event ticketing and venue operations). This company was acquired by an American Fortune 500 live entertainment corporation just before COVID. After 1 year that role evolved from a student job into a consulting contract for my own consulting business. After another year and completing my M.Sc., I was promoted to a Product Manager role to launch a subscription-based loyalty program for all 8 venues operated by the company in Belgium. I spearheaded the project from beginning till GTM (market research, tech development, marketing, operations...). While, as an external consultant, I didn't have direct reports, I did lead a multi-disciplinary team of 10 to 15 people. I also have taken on some smaller data science/machine learning projects for the business and other clients as well.

ECs: I am actively engaged in a local service dog non-profit. My partner and I are raising and training a golden retriever to become a service dog. I also have been an aviation enthusiast all my life. I learned to fly at the age of 17. Got my Private Pilot's License during college. My training experience, combined with my passion for technology led me to found an aviation edtech startup. In my master's dissertation research I developed the architecture of the product.

Short-term MBA goals: While my current role does involve a lot of usual tech PM tasks, the product itself doesn't require that much tech development. I would really love to work on more complex and innovative tech products. Ideally, I would like to re-enter the work field post graduation as a Product Manager at Apple or Google. I am also open to take on a similar role at an aerospace company. Long-term MBA goals: I want to launch a startup within the tech/aviation industry.