Life after the Executive MBA, taking up new challenges - Tomasz Tchórz
Following an Executive MBA next to your job and family responsibilities requires a lot of commitment, discipline and perseverance. The MSM Executive MBA attracts participants who are strong in character and not afraid to challenge themselves to the fullest. With the end goal in mind, they know how to focus, how to overcome obstacles and how to deal with setbacks. Once they have reached their goal – obtaining the MBA degree – they are ready to take up the next challenge, either in their personal life, in their professional life or even both.
In this blog, the spotlight is on Tomasz Tchórz, who graduated in 2019 from the MSM Executive MBA with a specialization in Sports Management.
An incredible offer in India
“In fact, my professional career gained tremendous momentum during my studies in Maastricht”, Tomasz enthusiastically starts his story. When Tomasz started the MSM Executive MBA, he worked at the football academy of the Portuguese club C.F. Os Belenenses. “Combining my duties with work in one of the Lisbon hotels, where I have been learning for exams at night,” he adds. Shortly after receiving his academic title, Tomasz got an incredible opportunity from another part of the world – India. “Accepting the offer as the Head Coach Assistant at a club with 130 years of history – Mohun Bagan AC in Kolkata.” Tomasz proudly explains. “When I landed in Kolkata, I was greeted by a cheering crowd of several thousand people. I might think that the applause I received at the airport was congratulations on completing the MBA program, as these events coincided,” he adds with a smile.
While studying at MSM in The Netherlands, Tomasz tried to use the learned knowledge in a practical way. “Thanks to this, already in my home country Poland, I made myself known as a valuable person to the Spanish football coach Kibu Vicuña, who invited me to cooperate. Initially in one of the Lithuanian clubs, then in Poland, to finally reach India with him.”
The route to being a football coach in India
Tomasz has a keen interest in new experiences. He likes to go beyond the comfort zone and to confront himself with difficult challenges. “During the Executive MBA at MSM, I understood that as people we are able to master every challenge. The most important thing is to completely surrender to the issue. In Maastricht I experienced that combining patience with total immersion in a given subject, allows you to start improvising, playing with a given field,” he states. “I spent all my childhood playing football. At some point, I came to the conclusion that I do not understand this game at all, and it got more and more difficult for me to make progress. I decided to look for other life disciplines to be able to develop,” he continues. Originally, Tomasz wanted to go on a student exchange to Turkey, but ended up in Portugal. “I knew that Vítor Frade – one of the best football educators in the world lives there. Not wanting to lose this chance, I decided to wait for him in the places where he used to spend time. Getting to know him created in my mind a passion for becoming a coach.”
Some years later, working as Head Coach Assistant in Poland with experience from Lithuania, Tomasz felt the desire to learn more. “At MSM, we had a subject that talked about the importance of adapting to the new environment, and when offers from different countries came, I was convinced that it was appropriate to verify myself in a completely different cultural context, in Asia.” he concludes.
Benefits from the lessons learned during the Executive MBA
In his current career and for his career ambitions, the MSM Executive MBA has been instrumental for Tomasz, not only as a source of inspiration but also for the lessons learned: “More than to prepare me for the professional global world, I see that Maastricht School of Management brought lust out of me to change the world of football. That is why I started to continue producing professional books and interactive applications with the purpose to control and develop the market of football coaches. Following the module Developing a Business was a great inspiration, as nowadays I don’t only want to conquer the Polish market but also the Indian.”
Finalizing the Executive MBA with the Global Responsibility module came in quite handy given Tomasz’s move to a completely different culture. “I could not be happier with the fact that this was the last module of my Executive MBA at MSM. One can never believe how difficult the process of adaptation to a different culture’s marketplace is, until he is involved in it. The course Managing Cultural Diversity helped me to know how to deal with different approaches and work styles, which resulted in being more productive in Asia.”
Three ambitious career projects
Looking at his ambitions for the future, Tomasz is far from done yet with his professional aspirations. In fact, the Executive MBA inspired him to set major goals for himself: “Spending time at MSM, I understood that each person somehow is responsible for the direction of the development of the world. I think that when we come into the world, we receive a huge gift from fate and in some way, we should repay the world for wanting to accept us.” Tomasz explains, and he wants to repay the world in implementing three challenging projects: “As football is my passion, I have prepared three projects that I want to implement throughout my professional career. The first is the creation of books allowing others to draw on my experience in order to achieve success faster than me. The second one is a scientific platform, which in the form of courses explains selected football issues. The third refers to the mobile application that would be designed to control the development of football in a given country. All of the presented projects are aimed at bringing up unified football players, who are less affected by their ethnic and cultural differences.
Advice for future students
To conclude Tomasz would like to extend some advice to future students: “I thank Maastricht School of Management for the chance to follow the Executive MBA and I would wish for more people to have such a positive experience of personal development as I had. To everyone still deciding if the effort is worth it, I would say to be convinced: everything you can imagine, MSM will help you to implement it in real life.”
Are you ready to challenge yourself?
And do you want to share the classroom with like-minded peers? Then check out the MSM Executive MBA – a demanding but enriching program preparing you for the next step in your career and for any other challenge you would like to take up in your life.
