Jenny Peng

Jenny Peng, China & Canada
Full-Time MBA Class of 2021
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Academic Roles, Achievements and Activities

During undergrad in UBC – International entrance scholarship

What is invisible but essential about YOU? or ESADE? or Barcelona?

Malcolm Forbes had once stated, “Diversity: the art of thinking independently together.” As a child who moved around a lot growing up, and coming from a collective culture of China, I was very insecure about being different. I was left out and bullied entering my 4th primary school, after coming back to China from Cambodia, known as the “Cambodian” girl. I recall shortening my stay in Cambodia in my stories in order to seem less different. As a result, I was conflicted between wanting to be like everyone and the person who I truly was, and had a hard time connecting with people.

Moving to India had helped me to see differences in a positive light. Even though I still felt foreign, I realized that most people were genuinely curious about our difference, and their goal was not to judge but to understand. During my 5 years growing up in India, I had made myself home, and found my group of friends who accepted me as the unique person I was. Because of my experience of being different, I had gotten out of my way to help and listen to others who seem less comfortable in an environment that’s unfamiliar for them.

After high school, I started my life anew in Canada. I was then exposed to so much diversity in one sitting and was mind-blown at how much uniqueness was celebrated. As I listened and asked more, I realized that every person has his/her unique story to tell, but I could only learn that by being patient and receptive while avoiding quick judgment. I was lucky that I got to work in product education localization during my tenure at lululemon, where we were only able to succeed by learning how different culture process and digest information. In the creative world, more opinion and debates will help with generating new ideas. While my role, as a facilitator that improves the creative process, helped me build the skill to listen to all that are involved in the work and create solutions that best meets everyone’s needs.

Many had told me that I had a hard decision to make to move so far away for my MBA, but seeing more of the world had always been a priority to me and moving to Spain has been amazing. The amount of diversity in the city and within ESADE is inspiring. I had the chance to connect with people coming from different professional and cultural background and learn from their experience. Best of all, because of the high mobility within EU, the city is receptive to new culture and different perspective, regardless if they are the same to their own or not. I am very excited to work with the extremely diverse student body here in ESADE and look forward to find out what we can achieve together.