Giovanni Sobrero

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The Sainsbury Management Fellowship scheme, funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, supports engineers of high career potential to undertake full-time MBA courses at one of fourteen approved international business schools. The core aim of this prestigious scheme is to improve the economic performance of UK businesses, by providing a resource of highly motivated engineers with business skills.

Giovanni Sobrero, a Full-Time MBA student shares his experience achieving the scholarship, what it means to him and his advice for prospective students. 

Name: Giovanni Sobrero

Programme: Full-Time MBA 

Nationality: Italian 

Company: Senior Program Manager, Amazon 

Scholarship received: Sainsbury Management Fellowship (SMF)

My First impressions of Imperial College Business School 

The Imperial Alumni community is astonishing. The calibre of the people I met is incredibly with a lot of Imperial Business School alumni in senior positions across multiple companies. So far, my best Imperial story was to meet with Nick Strange, an Imperial Business School alumnus based in Dubai working for Arthur D. Little. The level of support and mentorship I got surpassed my expectations. Based on my experience, I  can say that all the alumni around the globe will always make the time to help no matter how busy or senior they are! 

How did it feel when you found out you’d secured this scholarship? 

I feel very grateful to have been awarded one of the ten Sainsbury Management Fellowship scholarships. This scholarship will greatly support me to attend a Full-Time MBA at a world class institution like Imperial College Business School that may have not been possible without. The network of the SMF is something I aspire to leverage to help nurture my curiosity and development for years to come. The SMF alumni network spans across multiple industries and specialisms and having access to this breadth of knowledge and experiences will, overall, make me a more experienced professional and a more complete individual. 

This scholarship will greatly support me to attend a Full-Time MBA at a world class institution like Imperial College Business School that may have not been possible without.

How did you go about finding financial support for your MBA? 

I leveraged Imperial College Business School’s website . A lot of information was present about all the different scholarships, including the Sainsbury Management Fellowship. Also, I decided to engage with Imperial College Business School Alumni to gather insight about where to look for additional financial support to make sure I exhausted my options. 

What do you hope to achieve through your MBA experience? 

At this point in my MBA, my focus is to land a job in a boutique consultancy in London or as a strategy manager in a technology firm that I can help grow. However, I must say that it’s difficult to resist the temptation to explore all the different opportunities that are offered and I am quite sure my mind will change significantly in the few months as I explore more and more the curriculum offered by the program.