MBA student visa choice: Italy over London
A wealth manager chose an MBA in Milan, Italy, over studying in London, seeking a broader perspective by stepping outside his professional comfort zone.
Arya Matamedi, a wealth manager at Coutts & Co, chose to study for his MBA at Italy's SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan for two years, despite having no plans to build a career in that country. He made this unconventional choice to gain a broader perspective on business and leadership, stepping away from his day-to-day role in London wealth management.
Matamedi says his prior education at Warwick and his role at Coutts had given him a strong technical foundation in finance and client work. However, he felt that to progress into senior leadership roles, he needed to broaden his perspective beyond investments alone. He believed understanding the businesses behind the balance sheets was crucial, a principle he links to Warren Buffett's advice to never invest in something you don't understand.
He reasoned that studying alongside classmates from different industries and countries, in a setting completely removed from London, was the fastest way to gain that understanding. The setting of Milan, unconnected to his career hubs in London and the Middle East, was a deliberate part of the plan.
The value of distance from your career hub
Matamedi is candid that an MBA can widen the door to certain opportunities, even if it doesn't guarantee a specific career outcome. For him, the value of studying in Italy was not about direct market access but about the distance it created from his existing professional assumptions. Being based in Milan while orienting his career toward London and the Middle East forced a kind of independence that studying in a more obviously aligned financial capital might not have.
He had to build relationships and confidence in a setting where nothing was handed to him by geography. This experience, he says, gave him a much broader perspective on business and leadership than he could have gained by staying in his daily role.
Building a global network from an unconventional base
The physical distance from his target job markets did not make his network irrelevant. When he later interviewed for his current role at MIO Partners, a firm he had not previously heard of, he met several alumni from the wider Bocconi network during the process. Matamedi states that while the SDA Bocconi network did not lead him directly to the job, conversations with these alumni reinforced the value of the international perspective he developed during the MBA and influenced his confidence in pursuing the opportunity.
For students considering where to study for a career-focused master's degree, Matamedi's experience suggests the safest, most connected location isn't always the most beneficial. Sometimes, the value lies in the distance it puts between you and the assumptions you didn't know you were making. The views expressed by Arya Matamedi are his own and do not reflect those of MIO Partners or its parent, McKinsey & Company.
