Celebrating courage, passion and achievements

7 June 2022

Professor Marcello Russo’s greeting to Global MBA participants after a year of passion and courage that guided the learning journey at BBS.

Dear MBAs,

It has become a pleasant habit for me to address a farewell message to all the class at the end of the year. Usually, I do it with a song that can accompany the reading. As for many of us, music is essential in my life, and it is a source of inspiration and motivation in many different moments of the day.

This year the song that inspired this message is an Italian one by Diodato, and it is entitled “Che vita meravigliosa” (what a wonderful life). That song narrates the main message I would like to share with you at the end of this long and challenging year and after Wednesday’s meeting with chef Massimo Bottura who inspired us with his life story but even more importantly with his passion, determination, creativity, and energy – which are all factors that we must seek to nurture as they are fundamental antecedents of life success.

Some sentences of this song – i.e., life is wonderful despite it is sometimes difficult…which makes us sometimes dancing and other times crying… – is a perfect hymn to celebrate your courage, passion, achievements this year and your whole lives. What an extraordinary year we have spent together: we have learnt new theories and concepts and developed new skills, but above all, we have heard about new stories, your life stories that will be echoing in our minds for the next months and even more.

It was a unique year for me as well. It was the first time that I taught a course in the programme and played sport with some of you who made a great exercise of compassionate leadership in that circumstances.

Those are incredible memories that I will bring with me forever, together with the memory of the wonderful picnic we organized in March. That Sunday, I could notice the friendship between you and how passionate you are about each other, fully available to share with others fundamental parts of your culture – through the food – but also the willingness to make part of this journey your significant others.

As I told you in class, teaching the People Management course helped me to know you more. I do hope that the exercise we have done together on the future self and, above all, the one that enabled you to discover, reflect on, and share with others your unique strengths are tools that I hope could help you in your future career.

Year after year, what is increasing my motivation in the role and convincing me how lucky I am to serve as Global MBA Director is the courage and determination you have shown in going through all these long months – during which you have completed 22 different courses, exposed to different learning modalities and teamwork always struggling to excel and learn as much as possible. I am sure that all this learning will help you enormously soon to pursue your career aspiration and dreams.

BBS’s story can be written in great letters only through your experiences and future accomplishments, of which, I am sure, all our community will be proud.

You are now ready to become a constructive change agent of our society inspired by the values of sustainability, courage, and mutual respect that you have trained and enhanced by writing together this important chapter of your lives.

Stay strong and positive.

 

Warm regards,
Marcello Russo
Director | Global MBA