MIF student Vasileios Tsianos´s perspective on Finance and Politics

IE is perfect for the kind of student that comes here with a very clear vision of her or his career path. IE however is equally perfect for the misfits, or the career rebels who have the ambition to risk a lot at a very young age and create their path either by building their own startups or creating their own careers. (Vasileios Tsianos, current Master in Finance student)

Vasileios (Greece), student of the Master in Finance at IE Business School and contributor of the Huffington Post Canada, is currently co-leading the launch of a consulting firm facilitating trade and investment between Greece and Canada, while also completing his graduate studies in Finance. Previously, he served as the Vice President for Corporate Development at Keela.co (a social enterprise that tackles the annual $100 billion inefficiency of the non-profit sector in N. America), served as an Associate at Social Change Rewards (a $15+ million startup utilizing behavioural economics to increase the efficiency of public policy delivery), and researched data for the Brookfield Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He completed his undergraduate education in Chemical Engineering at the University of Toronto, along with professional designations in finance. He is also the youngest to be awarded the Professional Risk Manager designation by PRMIA.

By the age of 24, Vasileios has already volunteered almost 8,000 hours to his communities and served in leadership capacities in multiple non-profit, corporate and political organizations. He recently served as the Director of the Hellenic Canadian Board of Trade, co-led the initiative to create a Modern Greece Studies program at the University of Toronto, and published opinion pieces on the LSE 's EuroCrisis and the Huffington Post. He has advised several political candidates for leadership in Canada, Greece, and the United Nations, while he has fundraised cumulatively over $1M for various social causes and startups.

Vasileios is one of the youngest to be invited at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, the G20 summit, the Clinton Global Initiative, and the UN Climate Summit, and has received climate leadership training by former US Vice President Al Gore.

He has been recognized as one of the 100 Future Global Leaders by the Web Summit, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a member of the Royal Economic Society, and a Global Shaper of the World Economic Forum.

Let´s hear the Vasileios´s story behind, why he chose to do a Master in Finance despite his background in politics.

Viet Ha: Hi Vasileios, why finance?

Vasileios: During my previous studies in Chemical Engineering, I had the chance to study numerous equations. But ever since high school physics, there was one equation that stood out for me: impact equals mass times velocity. Although great ideas, talented people and useful infrastructure that provide a mass in our world are in excessive abundance, successful institutions (corporate, non-profit, or public) with great impact are very, very rare. What is usually missing is the velocity factor: the financial support that transforms great ideas into great businesses that create useful products and services. Finance is this velocity in my equation.

Viewing Finance through its catalytic role in providing velocity to great ideas and talented people to create economic and social impact was the driver behind my decision to join the MIF program.

Viet Ha: But with a background in politics, non-profits and startups, how do all these seemingly irrelevant fields tie with finance?

Vasileios: Well, there are two elements to this.

Finance and the notion of maximizing value on behalf of a stakeholder (or shareholder in finance), are omnipresent in all of these 3 sectors actually. In politics, finance is not only about how governments spend public money, but how they raise it too. The debate on sovereign debt sustainability and high taxation is more relevant than ever in Europe and countries like Greece, Spain or Portugal - much of the EU's delayed response to the crisis is attributed to the lack of very fundamental finance knowledge both by the voters and their elected representatives. In the non-profit sector, donor want to know that management is maximizing their philanthropic dollars by minimizing administrative costs and maximizing impact. In addition, some of the most innovative financial instruments were facilitated by non-profits, such as Social Impact Bonds or Debt-for-Climate Swaps.

In business startups, when I had to raise money from investors, the first doors I knocked where from the same people I had asked them to donate to non-profit or political causes. Because I had established a track-record of not disappointing them with the impact that the non-profit had using their philanthropic dollars, or with the promises that politicians kept after being elected with their support, these same individuals were positively biased to invest in the business because they knew that I respect their money and would make the most with it. Finally, a less known side of the finance world is power struggles on the Boards of Directors or the politics of change management. The shareholders’ elected Directors on these Boards resemble the democratic process with which parliaments are formed and alliances come together. Many private equities and most professional investors tend to overlook so much the importance of the human factor and the power dynamics of their investment target, simply because of their lack of political education or experience. Many corporate leaders struggle so much with executing Change Management because the people with the best skill to do this tend to be in politics, and they both put a distance between them instead of learning from them, simply because of stereotypes of the difference between the business and government sectors. Politics teaches you (through both victories and disappointments) the ability to accomplish results through favourable interpersonal relationships outside formally prescribed organizational mechanisms. In other words, the ability to get things done.

I believe that our generation of youth is the first one that can develop systemically tri-sector leaders, that will be hopping between sectors during their careers. I feel very fortunate that IE Business School is already providing the foundations of this to its students.

But for me the most important is when all three sectors collaborate and accomplish together what they couldn’t achieve alone. A lot of my work is about identifying such opportunities and striving to be the architect behind these collaborations.

Viet Ha: Why did you choose IE?

Vasileios: Duality of student profile - IE is perfect for the kind of student that comes here with a very clear vision of her or his career path and benefits from the incredible, personalized support of the career center and the school's and MIF program's reputation to the industry. IE however is equally perfect for the misfits, or the career rebels as I call them, who have the ambition to risk a lot at a very young age and create their path either by building their own startups or creating their own careers.

Our Master in Finance class is only in its 5th month, and I have heard so many success stories from my classmates already. One moment we are all celebrating together the jobs that so many of our classmates secured at top investment banks, and the next moment we are passionately discussing a fintech startup idea of another classmate. Then there the moments between classes that professors join us during coffee-breaks and debate with students an investment strategy or ask for advice on how to set up a hedge fund. The program is designed in a way to make you both the best analyst and employee who will thrive fast in the industry (which is reflected by the leading place of IE in global masters in finance rankings), and a self-starter investor that can create the next year her or his own hedge fund (as many alumni have successfully done so). For me personally, an additional example that showcases the value of IE's intellectual environment is my study mate who he's doing the Masters in Big Data, and we've spent almost all our study breaks discussing how Big Data and Machine Learning can be applied to finance and brain-storming ideas. These kinds of conversations and cross-pollination of ideas from so many different fields can only take place at an institution like IE.

Finally, for the MIF program specifically, it is about the professors – they are current of former executives in the industry, and they were the leading decision-makers of their organizations during the 2008 global credit crisis. The way with which they share their thinking process and personal stories is something that no textbook could ever teach you. The unique knowledge flux between our professors and us the students is what makes IE’s MIF program so unique and why the graduates develop into so successful professionals.

Viet Ha: How would you describe the admission process?

What makes IE truly unique is the excessive effort the Admissions Team makes to identify the best and unique qualities of candidates. The school genuinely cares about the special personal traits of the candidates it selects, and pays a lot of attention to their ethical and leadership dimension, beyond focusing solely on their academic excellence track-record.

Vasileios: Overall, it is very competitive, but what makes it truly unique is the excessive effort the Admissions Team makes to identify the best and unique qualities of candidates. Unlike the usual buzz-words that many other universities use, IE genuinely cares about the special personal traits of the candidates it selects, and pays a lot of attention to their ethical and leadership dimension, beyond focusing solely on their academic excellence track-record. And this is what makes all the difference in the classroom experience. We learn so much from (mostly debating) each other in class, and one can easily tell how much the professors enjoy being the catalyst of this and how it motivates them to teach us as many of their personal industry insights as possible.

Viet Ha: Any advice for candidates who wish to enter the Master in Finance program at IE?

Vasileios: My personal story is that I only wanted to study at IE, and had to do everything in my control to maximize my probability of admission. I knew I was a special candidate, in the sense that I hadn't worked in or studied Finance, so I decided to turn my uniqueness from a liability to an asset. I worked on my admissions "brand" for months, and reached out to IE's Admissions Team and their North American offices 2 years ahead and attended 4-5 IE events. At the same time, I reached out to more than 20 IE B-School alumni to really understand the value of being an IE student.

My interview with you (Viet Ha) was hands-down the most pleasant interview of my life. The conversation was natural and my reasons for wanting to be admitted to IE's MIF were very clear. Although I realize now that reaching out 2 years in advance might be a bit extreme, I wholeheartedly recommend to every applicant to reach out to alumni and attend the numerous events the IE team does at all major cities around the world. This kind of proactive attitude and communication skill is something that is appreciated a lot in the Finance industry and will make all the difference when candidates apply to equally competitive jobs afterwards.