Balancing Upwards

There were flights, classes, assignments and examinations, alongside the professional life she had already built. She was studying in Italian and English, neither of them her native language, while entering a class full of ambitious engineers and managers with global experience.

At the beginning, Ioana was quiet and shy. She was in another country, working in unfamiliar languages and studying subjects that were often far removed from her legal background. She stood out, although I am not sure she felt comfortable doing so. In time, however, what made her different became important to the class. Ioana did not look at problems in the same way as most of her classmates. Her experience as a lawyer and entrepreneur allowed her to notice things that others missed. She brought insightful questions and a different kind of reasoning to discussions. Moreover, she has a hidden, unconventional grit.

This book describes what happened behind the visible part of that experience, chronicling the fatigue of combining study, work, travel and family life, but also describing the satisfaction of seeing unfamiliar subjects gradually making sense. New ideas connected with what she already knew and conversations with classmates created other ways of looking at problems. The transformation was not sudden; perhaps it was not always easy for her to recognize while it was happening. From my position, however, I could see it. Ioana was not only acquiring new knowledge. She was becoming more confident in the way she used it.

American scholar Jack Mezirow wrote about transformative learning: the process through which adults begin to question certain assumptions that have shaped their world view. I have always found this idea important although in reality the process is more cluttered than it sounds in academic writing. Executive education gives people tools and professional skills, but that is only part of the equation because it also asks them to reconsider what they already know or are capable of doing. This can be uncomfortable, but it can also reveal possibilities that were difficult to see before. I believe this happened to Ioana. I saw her move from uncertainty in unfamiliar subjects to the pleasure of understanding them and using them in her own way. She did not become another person, but she was increasingly aware of her own abilities and better prepared to trust her judgement. For me, the clearest evidence came at graduation.

The woman who had entered the program so quietly was chosen by her classmates to speak on their behalf. She stood in front of an audience of 1,000 and delivered a speech that left a deep impression. Her classmates had come to see something in Ioana that perhaps she had not fully recognized upon her arrival in Milan. As a woman directing an Executive MBA in a still predominantly male environment, I was particularly sensitive to some of the challenges she encountered. I also became more aware of how much it can matter to see another woman take on a position of responsibility. When we see someone taking a path that we had not imagined for ourselves, the path becomes a little more real.

Her commitment reminded me that education does not move in a single direction, from professor to student. Teachers are also changed by the people who enter their classrooms. We learn from their persistence, what they bring and the questions they ask. I think Ioana’s example has meaning beyond the classroom. Her daughters have seen closely what it takes to continue learning while working, traveling and caring for a family. They have also seen that growth does not belong only to the beginning of adult life. I think, too, of the younger people who attended the graduation ceremony. Some of them may have simply enjoyed Ioana’s speech. But others surely saw a foreign woman on that stage, speaking in a non-native language with confidence and in her own voice, and perhaps imagined something new for themselves.

A few years passed since Ioana’s graduation. Time changes the way we remember an experience. The deadlines, flights, examinations and exhaustion move into the background and the meaning of the whole experience becomes clearer.

This book has given Ioana the opportunity to look back and understand what that period meant to her. It is not a story of effortless success. Rather, it is a personal account of difficulty, discovery and change, written by someone who continued even when continuing was not easy. I hope her story will be useful to people facing an unfamiliar chapter in life, especially women who are trying to reconcile professional ambition, personal growth and family responsibilities, particularly when they find themselves in environments where women are still a minority.

My dear Ioana, I hope you continue to learn, to travel between different worlds, and to find paths that are truly your own. Above all, may you continue to trust the voice your classmates once chose to represent them.