Meet your MBA lecturers: Dr. Khaled Wahba

Let me introduce myself…
My name is Khaled Wahba, I am Egyptian and recently moved to Canada. My relationship with MSM is a twofold relationship. On one hand, I am an adjunct faculty for several MSM MBA courses such as Digital Transformation (DX), Decision Making Tools (DMT), and Research Methods (RM). On the other hand, I am the academic dean (since 2016) for the MSM MBA program in Kuwait, so you can say I am a partner of MSM as well. In addition, I teach for MSM in many other programs all over the world. I am currently teaching in Romania, Suriname, Hungary and Kuwait. I also taught for MSM in other countries such as, Egypt, Vietnam, Colombia, Peru, Suriname, Mongolia, and Saudi Arabia.

If you follow your passion, you will not only be good at what you do, but you will also enjoy it…
I became a lecturer without knowing, and here is my story: If you follow your passion, you will not only be good at what you do, but you will also enjoy it. Before my position as dean for MSM Kuwait, I was director of another outreach partner of MSM in Cairo (Regional IT Institute, RITI). I believe I was a successful director; numbers talks. My team and I achieved a lot of successes in the Egyptian market on both facets, academic degree programs and professional programs. As a director, I was not caring much about numbers, I was caring more about my people. I always tell everyone; personal relationship matters and stays forever, I wanted to build strong ties with my people. I have been trying to build my asset for the future, and my asset was to be human and to show understanding to everyone. This can only be built when you understand your people and pay attention to the good and bad things objectively. My role was to let them learn and not just go through firefighting nightmares to achieve the target or meet the deadlines. From this point, I decided to be inside the classrooms instead of outside. Like other lecturers, I decided to play a role in the lives of people, especially at the level of their “Self-Actualization” suggested by Abraham Harlod Maslow (1908-1970), in his theory; “Hierarchy of Needs”. I decided to contribute to building the required skills and fulfill these needs.

What students can expect from my course?
Foundations are very important to plot and realize bigger and more prettier dreams. With weaker foundations, all dreams and plans will fall apart. I am not rich and to be honest, I did not want to be rich. I just wanted a decent life. Each person can define what a decent life is, but for me it was to live in a nice and clean place with essential things that are accessible, affordable, of good quality and without any fancy features, and I also wanted to have a job that I don’t call a job. Teaching for me is not a job, but a passion, a mission to implement. My mission is to help my students to think differently, to be critical objectively, to be creative realistically, to be humble rationally, to be understanding humanely, to wonder enthusiastically, to act ethically and to be a long-life learner and a teacher.

In my courses, I encourage everyone to perform tasks that will ignite their thinking engines
I deliver two types of courses, hands-on courses and knowledge-based courses. If you want to know how to swim, you will not watch a YouTube video to learn how to swim. You will need to go and practice. It works the same way in my courses. To learn how to think is not just to listen to the lecturers on how to think. You will need to do stuff that make you think. In my courses, I encourage everyone to perform tasks that will ignite their thinking engines. I give students the guidelines and the starting point, but they must excel in them by themselves. I encourage students to work together, to be open minded and to remind themselves of this statement “I might be wrong”. If the students remember this very statement and remind themselves about it before they go to sleep or after they wake up, life will look different in a better way.

A first insight into my classes…
My courses have different natures. Since they are building and developing skills, hands-on is very important and the norm during the sessions. My lectures contain a mix of presentation, group work, case studies analysis, hands-on tasks and group presentations. The final assessment is means for challenging minds and not muscles.

The main take-aways…
Think, rethink, and rethink again. Go out of your comfort zone, break the boundaries, ethically and morally. In the end, I am not going to tell them what to do or what to take away from the course, I want everyone to figure out and to decide on what they want to take away. I believe my course is about showing the possibilities of various paths and not only a single and  unique path.

My course is not the destination, my course is the starting point...
Life outside the classroom is totally different from inside. Behavior and habit can only be gained and enhanced through practice. My course is not the destination, my course is the starting point, so, do not wait until you face a situation in which you practice what you learned. No! Just go and find them. Make mistakes, go and fail, and fail again, you will learn more and more. In the end, you will find the code, and the formula of success that no one has taught you before.

To my future students I would like to say…
Welcome and good luck! You are here because you decided to change. This is a big step and the first one in the change process. Second step, be persistent to make it happen, do not stop. Ups and downs, laugh, smiles, tears are all the usual norm in this journey, be prepared and resilient. Third and final step, you will make it because I trust your judgment when you decided to join the MSM program.
Most important message to you before we meet, hopefully in person:

• grades are not the objective, they are the by-product of enjoying of what you are doing,
• grades are the by-product of commitment and dedication in learning,
• grades are the by-product of hardworking, being cooperative, and understanding.

So, come here with a smile and optimism and leave with laugh, satisfaction, fulfillment, happiness and proudness and more optimism!

About the MSM full-time MBA
The MSM full-time MBA will challenge you to develop your management skills in a diverse, international and multicultural environment. The one-year program is normally conducted at the MSM campus in Maastricht. However, these insecure times has required MSM to remain flexible, and adapt, to the situation at hand. To accommodate your needs, we have therefore opened a special January 2021 intake.

• ​Start your full-time MBA journey on-campus in January 2021

Besides the regular classes and activities we also offer you a special optional Career and Personal Development Track (CPDT) to help you achieve your career goals and an Innovation Week and many extracurricular activities if the Covid-19 situation allows. To allow you to customize your MBA around your specific study needs and career perspectives, MSM offers a number of business-related and industry-focused specializations.