"I was born in Normandy, to an Iranian father. I lived in Iran for a time and left in 1979 during the revolution. The closest I’ve been since is Dubai when I was working on a Middle Eastern project. I got my first masters in Accounting and Business Administration at the ESC Compiègne.

I have moved around quite a lot during my career and although I have lived much of my life in France, I have only worked for one French company: Vinci, for whom I worked after graduation. I was based in Egypt doing on site cost control for a €30 million construction project on the Cairo underground.

For the last six years I’ve been working for Gartner (an IT advisory company with a revenue of 1.1 B$ and 3,900 employees). I started as Corporate Services Director for the French subsidiary, then Spain, Portugal and the Middle East. I now work as EMEA Finance Director of the Executive Programs business unit.

I decided to do an Executive MBA as I felt it would give me more room to manoeuvre. Without it, the natural way forward would be to take a bigger finance position in the company and I am not sure that’s what I want. I also turned 40 last year, so with almost half my working life behind me I felt I needed to take stock; to consolidate everything I’d learnt so far and refresh my education.

I chose Oxford, as I wanted a stronger educational background and internationally recognised brand than my previous degree had provided. All lectures are conducted in English, which can sometimes be a challenge. Writing 40 pages in academic English is very different to writing a memo or half-page email. The teaching style is also very different to my experience in France: it’s extremely interactive. Everyone brings their experience to the table and with such a diverse group of co-students this broadens horizons immensely. The course is a real voyage of discovery."