With the beginning of the New Year, and of my third session at Insead, it seems an appropriate time to reflect on where I have been and where I am going.

It’s disconcerting to watch the new students of the December 2008 promotion arriving on campus and rushing around during the introductory classes of “welcome week”. I remember, with a Proustian flash of recalled anxiety, the feelings that I grappled with when I came to this prestigious – and at first intimidating – school, full of hope, apprehension, and excitement. Like many of the new students now, I was taking a first step on a journey, knowing only that I was looking for learning, a major change in my life, a chance to meet new people and to connect to new networks, and a way eventually to pay off an $80,0000 loan at the end of it all.