Udochuku (Udo) Richson is Manager of Strategic Projects at Eli and Lilly Company, and an MBA graduate from IE Business School in Spain. Earlier this year he won the coveted MBA Student of the Year Award 2020 at the AMBA & BGA Excellence Awards. Ellen Buchan caught up with Udo, to find out more about him and how the MBA has had an impact on his life and work
Can you start off by giving us a little bit of background about yourself and your career to date?
My name is Udo Richson, I’m from Austria and I have a background in life sciences. I studied molecular biology and immunology.
Then I worked for a couple years in the public sector in research funding. My last role was national contact point and expert delegate for a big European funding programme called Horizon 2020. After a couple of years there, I decided I wanted to accelerate my career and do an MBA at IE Business School.
Congratulations on winning the AMBA MBA Student of the Year award. How did it feel to win it and has it had an impact on your career so far?
To be honest, I was totally surprised. It is an amazing milestone for me. I would say it’s one of the biggest honours one can get when pursuing a professional degree, apart from meeting all the amazing people among the nominees. It was really a fantastic experience.
An important award like this certainly has a big impact on any career. In my case, I was fortunate to already have a position secured but [the award] has really strengthened my profile within my new company, and positioned me well for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. I think it will really help me to accelerate my career path and communicate my value. However, it certainly doesn’t mean that I can now sit back and rest on my past achievements, but rather recognize my responsibility to uphold these high standards and values that brought me here.
You came to the MBA from a non-management background, with degrees in molecular biology and immunology. Was coming from a different background a challenge, or did it provide an opportunity for a fresh way of thinking in your cohort?
To me it seemed like a challenge at first, but it turned out to be a really fantastic opportunity. There was so much I was able learn – especially from my classmates and hopefully vice-versa.
It was particularly valuable from my point of view, because of the different ways of thinking; having come from the life sciences and then going into business management, really opened new doors and showed me a new way of looking at things. I was able to combine those different views from all my classmates and faculty, and that’s where a lot of value lies.
I would say it’s definitely doable for anyone, no matter what your background is and, at the end of the day, you get so much extra value through this diversity, so I think it’s really worth accepting the challenge and pursuing an MBA.
You managed to innovate during your MBA by founding the IE Pharma and Healthcare Club. How did you identify that this was an opportunity in the Business School, and how did you create interest from your fellow students in joining the club?
I have an interest in the healthcare sector and the pharmaceutical sector due to my background.
When I joined IE Business School I noticed that it did not have any professional club where people could meet or organise events. I was really eager to use this as an opportunity to be in touch with the industry and meet people, like colleagues and classmates, who were also interested in that sector.
Once I found a couple people who had a similar interest, we founded the club and we tried to promote it to all of our classmates and peers. We decided to write newsletters and planned a couple of events together. It was a great experience because, over time, we were able to put together a number of events which had amazing speakers and attracted more and more people. The club is still standing – and the next generation of MBAs has taken over. I am super happy it has worked out.
Why did you choose IE Business School to do your MBA?
IE stood out because innovation and entrepreneurship are important to me and [IE Business School] is the number one School when it comes to that.
I am someone who always studies everything meticulously before making a decision. I had a long list of more than 50 Business Schools that I had looked at and then I narrowed it down to my top 10. I tried to go really in-depth and determine the soul of each School and what they stood for.
I took the time to visit the different Business Schools, so I went to Paris, Switzerland, and Spain.
When I visited an open day at IE in Madrid, I met some of the students and prospective students.
I just had the feeling that these people were much more open minded and different than you would usually expect in a Business School. They came from very diverse backgrounds from different counties, with very open minds, but they were also very smart. I thought I could really grow around these people and in this environment – that’s what made me pick IE.
What advice would you give someone thinking about completing their MBA?
It’s important to know where you want this journey to take you. This way you can start thinking about your strategy – where you want to go and what you need to do to get there.
For example, since I was very interested in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors, I really tried to gain more exposure in these fields.
I tried to attend classes that would fit in with these fields; I went to extracurricular events to connect with people from the industry and to learn more about the industry itself. Of course the healthcare and pharma club was also a big step in that direction.
There are things you can pursue such as internships, and there are plenty of opportunities out there just to be in touch with your favourite industries.
Always try to make use of the opportunities outside of the classroom. You will be surrounded by so many smart people with diverse backgrounds, so make sure to use the opportunity [to build your network].
If you had to change anything about your MBA experience what would you change?
I think every individual could see some things you could tweak but in my opinion I think what was really challenging is that I did a one year MBA. Sometimes the pressure is really high, and you barely have any time for anything.
Sometimes I wish it could have lasted longer, so there would have been more time to fully enjoy and make more use of all the opportunities out there.
Spend more time with colleagues, classmates and faculty. I wish I would have had more time to work more with the faculty and to really leverage [their experience] a bit more.
This is something that’s really up to each individual to how you spend your time. Invest the time and try to make the most out of [the experience] but, at the end of the day, there’s only so much you can do. Overall, I was really very happy with my experience.
How did you manage to juggle your MBA and all your extra-curricular activities?
To be honest, I didn’t sleep… I am just joking.
It’s not easy, and you have to be really well organised. I think IE throws you into cold water a little bit, and you realise how much you can actually improve your time management. There are so many actives going on – back to back – and you have to try to maximise time in the best way that you can.
Once you really start doing things your passionate about, you realise how much you can actually get done, if you have the right mindset. Nevertheless, it is equally important to take enough time to recharge your batteries and maintain your inner balance.
You have had achievements as a rugby player and a musician, have those pursuits given you different perspectives or skills you’ve been able to take into business?
I think I’ve always been someone with many interests and always trying to find balance between them, I never want to let go or miss out on something. I love sports, I played rugby for more than 10 years. This is something that has taught me a lot about teams and team spirt and working together on a goal. I don’t think there is anything better than sport that can teach you these lessons.
It’s really about learning how to lose but also learning how to win together – learning from every little setback and coming back stronger.
It’s about when you get hit and when you get tackled, you’re lying on the ground and you feel the pain in your body but you know the game is still on and you can still turn it around. You get back on your feet and you develop this mindset to learn how to get yourself together. You go to your team mates and you get a new plan; you find that energy and you energise each other.
These are things that are valuable and can also help you in business and elsewhere.
Music has always been a big part of my life. I think that’s more the creative side of things, I think it helps you look at things from a very different angle and to give yourself more space to be creative and to bring some happiness and joy into your life.
You created a charity for integrating refugees into society called Rugby Opens Boarders. Can you tell us a little more about this?
I had just started my first job and at the time I had an injury, so I had to stop playing rugby for a while. My Club ‘Rugby Union Donau Wien’ approached me and said that, since they finally had a new pitch and club house, they would like to launch a social project – but they weren’t sure what would be a good idea or what they could do.
So I gave it a bit of thought and, since I wasn’t playing at the time and had a little extra time, I talked to some friends and we had the idea that we would like to do something that would really add some value.
We identified that in Austria we had a lot of minor unaccompanied refugees. They would have to wait a long time for the asylum procedure and during that time they would not have the opportunity to take part in any activities, nor meet any Austrians. They would not have much of a chance to learn the language so that could be very isolating for them, and it doesn’t aid integration.
We thought that we could step in and leverage our club, inviting those kids to our training and bringing together the community, so they could meet some Austrians and we could get to know each other.
We ended up having a team of more than 20 volunteers and I think we have worked with more than 200 kids over the entire time the programme has been running, participating in training and workshops.
It became a great community, we were training and cooking together every Sunday and taking them on excursions. It was a beautiful experience and the project is still running today. We received funding from the World Rugby Association and had so many positive experiences through which we could all learn and grow together. It’s a really beautiful story and shows that rugby has this spirit of adding value to society and to the community. That’s something that I love about this sport – how powerful it can be.
You are now working in the pharmaceutical industry, what do you see as being the next big innovation in the sector?
That’s one of the topics that I’m most interested in currently. We have a situation with Covid-19 that was really a big shock for all of us. It also showed us that, in many respects, we were not ready to handle a pandemic of this level. I think we are going to learn a lot from it.
One big learning is realisation that the stronger shift towards digital is more necessary than ever. Some innovations, that you will see coming, are going even further in the direction of digital. For doctors, I think that telemedicine will have a huge impact in the next couple of years. There are other technologies that will allow us to connect customers and to patients such as a blockchain, for example.
New technologies – such as artificial intelligence – will play a major role in drug development,supply chain and other areas. There are a lot of opportunities coming thanks to technology and it’s really going to be all about who’s able to leverage them to make the best use of them.
I think one thing to keep in mind is that we really want to create value for society. It is important to try to integrate all of these pieces and use these technologies to go in the right direction and do something good for society, whilst not losing the human touch.
