Welcome to Fridays from the Frontline, in which we set the spotlight on the MBA student experience. This week, Patricia Verena Mathis, London Business School MBA Class of 2025 and former BCG Associate, offers insights into a hallmark of the business school’s curriculum: the Global Experience. Patricia shares why she chose LBS for her MBA as well as the Global Experience that centered around sustainability in Southeast Asia. Read on for more about the eye-opening and educational international experience she had during her LBS MBA studies.
Singapore Global Experience: Exploring Sustainability in Southeast Asia
By Patricia Verena Mathis, LBS MBA Class of 2025
LBS stood out because it resonated with my long-term personal and professional aspirations – a strong European foundation while offering a truly global network. The school’s diverse student body, with well-balanced representation across all geographies, fosters an unmatched exchange of perspectives, both inside and outside the classroom. The emphasis on international exposure, paired with opportunities like my exchange at Wharton and the Singapore Global Experience, allowed me to stay rooted in Europe while broadening my global mindset. Plus, being based in London, the finance and investment hub of Europe, provides unparalleled access to an industry landscape I am deeply interested in.
Beyond the appeal of visiting a country I hadn’t yet visited, the practical, experiential course perfectly aligned with my dual focus on finance and sustainability. Singapore’s role as a financial hub and its position as a leader in sustainable development made it an ideal setting to explore how these two worlds intersect. Given my long-term goal of integrating finance and investing with driving sustainable business transformation, this course was the perfect way to broaden my global perspective while deepening my understanding of sustainability in context of a dynamic business hub like Singapore.
What the Course Entailed
The five-day “Singapore Global Experience: Exploring Sustainability in Southeast Asia” course blended fireside chats, site visits, and discussions with industry leaders across diverse sectors, including finance, energy, pharma, consulting, tourism, and public affairs. These sessions provided a comprehensive view of how sustainability is integrated into different industries within Singapore’s economic landscape.
An additional highlight was an excursion to Malaysia, where we visited a palm oil plantation and mill to explore the complexities of balancing resource extraction with environmental preservation – a critical challenge in the region.
The course also offered plenty of opportunities to engage in deeper discussions with LBS alumni and local professionals in a more informal setting in some of Singapore’s most scenic locations. These moments helped connect classroom insights to real-world perspectives, meeting my primary goal in taking this course of understanding Southeast Asia’s sustainability challenges and opportunities – and more importantly, to extract insights that could be applied in a more global context.
Key Learnings
The course allows students to explore sustainability from multiple perspectives – government policy, corporate strategy, and finance – each playing a crucial role in shaping the transition toward a more sustainable business world. The experience reinforced that sustainability is not a one-dimensional challenge; rather, it requires a coordinated effort between policymakers, businesses, and investors to drive meaningful progress.
Below are the three key takeaways that stood out for me as the most impactful lessons from my time in Singapore:
1. Public-private partnerships are key – governments must enable businesses, not just regulate them:
A visit to Singapore’s Economic Development Board revealed that Singapore treats sustainability as a national economic necessity. The focus on shaping industries, attracting investment, and aligning sustainability with economic growth prevents stagnation and ensures that sustainability policies remain effective, adaptable, and business-driven. Governments must work with businesses, not against them, to accelerate the green transition.
2. Corporate Sustainability must move beyond compliance – truly embedding it in a business strategy drives competitive advantage
The businesses that embed sustainability into their DNA will be the ones that shape the future rather than merely react to it. As consumer expectations, investor priorities, and regulations tighten, companies that fail to move beyond compliance will struggle to remain competitive. Consequently, the key challenge is to move sustainability from a box-ticking exercise to a core driver of long-term success, innovation, and resilience.
3. The Financial sector is needed to fund the Sustainability Transition – and transition financing matters
Sustainability cannot be achieved overnight, and many industries need capital to transition effectively. The “cut and run” approach of divestment can sometimes do more harm than good, whereas transition financing supports real, scalable change by helping industries modernize while maintaining economic stability.
How It Fit into My MBA Journey
Completing a Global Experience is a mandatory part of LBS’s curriculum. Students get to choose from a vast array of worldwide locations, each with a unique thematic focus tailored to its regional context. For me, Singapore and sustainability was the perfect complement to my MBA journey, bridging my passion for finance and sustainability while exposing me to an entirely new regional perspective.
What I loved most was the intensity and depth of discussions—spending an entire week outside the classroom in a new environment fostered deep, nuanced conversations that challenged my perspectives, fueled my intellectual curiosity, and left me with plenty of ‘food for thought’ as I head into the final months of my MBA. The change of scenery, combined with industry visits and fireside chats with some of Singapore’s most forward-thinking sustainability leaders, created a truly immersive learning experience.
Advice for MBA Applicants
One of the best decisions I made was taking the time to ask myself – “Why am I doing an MBA, and what do I want to get out of it?” as the very first step in my application journey. Instead of getting caught up in rankings and endless options, I focused on pinpointing what truly mattered to me. In my case, that meant:
- Building a global network with Europe at its core while forming lifelong friendships with people from diverse backgrounds.
- Exploring the intersection of finance, investing, and sustainability, and figuring out how to design a career that allows me to drive meaningful change in this space.
This clarity helped me not just choose the right school, but also structure my MBA journey intentionally—from my class choices (finance & sustainability focus) to my internship (activist investing at a leading European hedge fund), exchange at Wharton (finance exposure in the U.S.), and Global Experience in Singapore (sustainability in an Asian context).
For prospective applicants: don’t just chase prestige—be intentional about what you want to gain from your MBA. Having a clear vision will not only help you choose the right school but also ensure that you craft an experience that truly sets you up for the future you want.
