Guénolée de Lambert

Age: 39

Hometown: Paris, France

Family Members: five, including me

Fun fact about yourself: 

Huge fan of Twizzlers!

Undergraduate School and Degree: 

Medical Doctorate, University of Tours and a few extras

Where are you currently working? 

Paediatric Surgeon at Hôpitaux Universitaires Paris-Sud

Extracurricular Activities, Community Work and Leadership Roles:

Skiing, waterskiing, cooking, ballet fan

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school?

Learning to network and liking it!

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? 

Becoming one of the few paediatric surgeons in France performing liver transplantation while building a family with three children.

Who was your favorite Executive MBA professor? 

As INSEAD celebrates women, I want to highlight Lily Fang, our only female professor for core courses, who did a great job for an entry-level student like myself and made me realise finance and financial education are a necessity in life.

What was your favorite Executive MBA course and what was the biggest insight you gained about business from it? 

All courses were a plus to me. I did not just get insight, I discovered a brand new world.

Why did you choose the INSEAD Global Executive MBA? 

I chose the GEMBA for the diversity of the participants and the Leadership Development Programme in parallel.

What did you enjoy most about business school in general? 

The people (its most valuable asset!): classmates, teachers and staff.

What is the biggest lesson you gained during your Executive MBA and how did you apply it at work? 

My Executive MBA was both about learning new material but also about learning to change and taking a new direction. All in all, the ability to change was probably the biggest lesson learned during my GEMBA year. However, it comes with hard work and motivation.

Give us a story during your time as an Executive MBA on how you were able to juggle work, family and education? 

I stepped down from my job during my INSEAD year because my job as a paediatric surgeon doing liver transplantation is 24/7. I wanted to have full time available to study and to work on myself. It was a family project and my husband was my first support.

What advice would you give to a student looking to enter the GEMBA? 

It is not a decision to be taken lightly and you have to know why you are going down that path.

What is the biggest myth about going back to school? 

Medicine is about continuous learning so I generally feel I have never left school! Still, sitting in class for eight hours again was my biggest fear but turned out to be not that bad.

What was your biggest regret in business school? 

Time flies and I wish I could have had more spare time with my classmates.

Which GEMBA classmate do you most admire? 

This is a very difficult question. I am amazed at the number of talented people (professionally and personally) attending the class. And I believe I admire a little something and have learned a little something from each and every one of them.

I knew I wanted to go to business school when…

I felt I wanted to open myself to more than medicine.

If I hadn’t gone to business school, I would be…

Still operating on children but with no clue on how to improve the system.

What is your ultimate long-term professional goal? 

In a dream world, I would find the answer to help cure children’s cancer. In the real world, it’s still an answer I want to give.

In one sentence, how would you like your peers to remember you? 

Honest, helpful, different and fun.

Favourite book: 

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Favorite movie or television show: 

Any cheesy movie to relax.

What are the top two items on your bucket list? 

Learn yoga and travel to Japan.

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This interview was originally published on Poets&Quants Best & Brightest Executive MBAs