Building bridges across cultures with the MBA & Responsible Leaders Fellowship

Anahita Moaddab, Full-time MBA Class of 2026, is familiar with making an international impact. Originally from Iran, she moved to Germany to join a global MBA cohort. Today, she is completing her post-MBA Responsible Leaders Fellowship with a Nigerian NGO focused on protecting human rights.

A global life in Germany: Anahita's story

In this blog, Anahita outlines what drew her to the Full-time MBA program at ESMT Berlin; how it is helping her establish a life here in Germany; and how she and her cohort from, as she puts it, "every background, every world" bonded over foosball.

She also takes us inside her Responsible Leaders Fellowship, a post-degree option for ESMT Full-time MBA and master's students that helps graduates work as consultants for NGOs in developing countries. For Anahita, that means working with Devatop Centre for Africa Development: "a Nigerian NGO focused on combating human trafficking and gender-based violence."

Hi Anahita, please introduce yourself

I'm Anahita, I'm 33 years old, and I'm Persian. I have a background in engineering and product management in tech, from my time in Iran. I'm also a part-time artist – I draw Persian traditional illumination art (tazhib, or tezhip).

Congratulations on completing your Full-time MBA! What drew you to the program and to ESMT initially?

Thank you! Looking back, I realize I'd always wanted to experience business school and an MBA. After some years of work experience in Tehran, some things changed in my life, and I found myself rethinking my path. I wanted to emigrate and start over in a way, and I thought this was the best time and the best way to begin that new journey.

Did you move to Berlin for the program? What was that like?

Yes, I moved to Berlin, and to Germany, for the first time for the program – I actually arrived about a month after the program had already started, because of visa timing. It was a hectic start: I landed in Berlin and almost immediately had a final exam, so it took me a while to properly get to know the city and settle into what was going on around me.

That said, it was actually really rewarding from the first day with the different classes and different faculty we had. The faculty were genuinely one of the best parts of ESMT. I really enjoyed, learned, and grew in the classes, and we got the chance to have a diverse range of subjects, from leadership to very specialized topics like operations, strategy, and analytics. I just enjoyed it very much.

More than 90% of your classmates have international backgrounds. What was it like to study as part of such a global cohort?

"You get to know people from everywhere – every background, every world."

It's one of the best things about my whole MBA experience. Everyone was going through more or less the same experience while coming from very diverse worlds and backgrounds, and that made the school and my classmates feel like a real group from the very first days. You get to know people from everywhere – every background, every world. It gives you the chance to really understand people, and to realize that in the end, we're all the same, all human, no matter where we come from.

What summer option did you pick and why? 

I picked the German intensive courses. I want to stay in Germany and build a life here, and I believe it's crucial to be able to speak the language – to understand people, and also, career-wise, it can help you more than you'd expect. I wanted to be part of the culture and learn it properly. I'm happy with that choice; it was genuinely helpful.

Which Full-time MBA track did you choose to specialize in? Why choose that option?

Managerial Analytics. I enjoy numbers and spreadsheets, and I wanted to broaden my analytical horizon by combining that with managerial and business insight. It was very rewarding, and I learned a lot.

How about outside the classroom – what are your favorite memories from the Full-time MBA?

Foosball. I used to play a lot at previous companies I worked at – that's actually where I learned it. When I came to ESMT, I saw this great foosball table next to the study rooms, and at first nobody was really playing. I was feeling homesick for the days we used to play after work. Then, after the MBA Tournament (MBAT) and one exciting match there, little by little the culture caught on – we had teams, and lots of classmates joining in and watching the lively matches. It became a real source of releasing energy after class and brought us so much laughter.

After graduation, you were selected to be part of the Responsible Leaders Fellowship (RLF). Can you tell us a bit about the RLF program?

"I didn't want my MBA to be the last time I got to work hands-on with an organization whose impact I could see directly"

The Responsible Leaders Fellowship (RLF) was a great way to close out my time at ESMT. It's a fellowship program run by ESMT Berlin in partnership with organizations like the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt – in my case, my fellowship was supported through that partnership. 

The program places recent graduates with NGOs and social enterprises around the world for four to six months, working on a real business challenge the organization is facing. It's not an internship in the traditional sense – you're brought in for a specific mandate, with real responsibility and real deliverables, and the goal is to bring the strategic and analytical skills from your MBA/master's directly into an organization doing high-impact work, that might not otherwise have access to that kind of support.

What drew me to apply was wanting one more chance to work on something tangible and mission-driven before stepping into a more traditional role – I didn't want my MBA to be the last time I got to work hands-on with an organization whose impact I could see directly, rather than through a quarterly report.

Your RLF is with a Nigerian organization. Who are you working with, and what does it involve?

I'm working with Devatop Centre for Africa Development, a Nigerian NGO focused on human rights protection – particularly combating human trafficking and gender-based violence. Their flagship initiative is the TALKAM Human Rights App, a civic-tech platform that's been recognized by the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. It lets communities across Africa report abuses and connects those cases to a network of over 55 NGOs and government agencies for follow-up and support.

My role is in business development – essentially resource mobilization and partnership building. Devatop had already built something with real traction: a policy brief and forum in Abuja last November brought together NAPTIP, the German Embassy, UN Women, and dozens of other institutional stakeholders. 

My job has been to translate that momentum into sustainable partnerships – mapping and reaching out to potential corporate and institutional partners in Germany, mostly foundations and companies with dedicated social impact or CSR functions, to build both funding and non-financial support (pro bono expertise, technical partnerships) for TALKAM's next phase of growth.

Do you think that initiatives like the RLF are an important part of global business leadership?

"Most business education teaches you to solve problems where the resources, data, and institutional support already exist. RLF puts you somewhere that isn't true."

I'd say yes, and for a specific reason: most business education teaches you to solve problems where the resources, data, and institutional support already exist. The RLF puts you somewhere that isn't true. You have to build partnerships from scratch, work across very different institutional cultures – Nigerian NGO, German foundations, UN-adjacent bodies – and make real trade-offs with limited resources. 

That's a different muscle than case studies build, and I think it's exactly the kind of muscle "global" leadership actually requires: the ability to operate credibly and effectively outside your own context, not just apply a template to it.

Do you have any tips for someone thinking about applying to the RLF program?

A few things I'd say:

1. Go in expecting to build something, not to observe. The organizations hosting fellows are often small and resource-constrained, so you'll likely own a real piece of work from early on – that's the point, not a bug.

2. Do your homework on the host organization before you arrive. The more context you have going in, the faster you can be useful.

3. Be comfortable with ambiguity. Priorities and constraints on the ground can shift fast, especially with an NGO balancing many stakeholders – flexibility matters more than a rigid plan. 

How about tips for people considering the Full-time MBA? Is there one piece of advice you would like to give your pre-MBA self?

"Don't be afraid of hard things showing up in your life, because they're part of your growth."

If I could say one thing to my pre-MBA self, it would be: embrace the ambiguity. Navigating a new country, where everything is new and everything is a bit hectic in the beginning, means juggling a lot at once – classes, projects, your own personal thoughts and stuff, all while being far from your loved ones and safe space. It can be hard, but you need to build that muscle. And in the end, you'll be glad you went through it – you come out a stronger person, and that's something to be proud of.

So my tip would be: build that strength, and don't be afraid of hard things showing up in your life, because they're part of your growth. As Ted Lasso puts it, "Taking on a challenge is a lot like riding a horse... if you're comfortable while you're doing it, you're probably doing it wrong."

Thank you, Anahita!

If you would like to follow more of Anahita's journey during her Responsible Leaders Fellowship and beyond, you can connect with her on LinkedIn.