Jeni Al Bahrani is the Director for the Centre for Entrepreneurship and instructor in entrepreneurship at Transylvania University. She is the founder of the Ei District (Entrepreneurship and Innovation), a boutique consulting company focused on consulting and coaching services for entrepreneurs and small businesses, and entrepreneurship outreach education. Here, she tells us how she harnessed the skills learned on the programme to become an educator.
I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and earned my bachelor’s degree from Thomas More College and my MSc in Entrepreneurship at Trinity Business School almost 14 years later.
I came back to education because I wanted to dig into the theory of entrepreneurship. I had the entrepreneurial intelligence and experience, I just felt I needed the theory to grow my business acumen. So I sold my businesses, my home, my car, everything I owned and packed my bags to move to Ireland and start a masters. It was a strategic risk that has provided a major return on investment on my professional and personal life.
I was specific about choosing Trinity due to its reputation and location; Dublin has a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem and I wanted to be in that space. Plus, I always admired Ireland’s commitment to entrepreneurship and innovation as a catalyst for economic growth.
What’s attractive about Trinity is its proximity and connections to start-ups, incubators, accelerators, not to mention its network of 130,000 alumni worldwide. With the Business School ranked number one in Ireland and triple accredited, I knew it would provide the recognition and reputation I desired once leaving with my masters to enter the market.
Programme Insights
The programme has hugely increased my confidence, expertise, and knowledge in the theory and practice of entrepreneurship. Earning my masters in entrepreneurship has made me a specialist here at home, and I now teach on the entrepreneurship programme at Transylvania University.
At Trinity Business School I connected and learned from serial entrepreneurs, investors, and industry leaders. It provided opportunities to work on scaling small businesses, ideation, prototypes and more.
The School has invested in professors from industry with entrepreneurial experience. Each one provided unique entrepreneurial insights, knowledge, and teaching styles. The course provides an in-depth level of theory in every module, connecting students to real-world experiences. And delivers balance of group projects, individual assessment, masterclasses, and workshops.
The programme prepared me to start and scale my own business ventures. From ideation to go to market, each class, module, speaker, department, and experience is a piece of the puzzle to start or grow my business or help others start their venture.
Trinity Business School has a reputation for developing leaders, and I certainly found myself building leadership skills in an academic setting.
Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset
You don’t need to start a business to be an entrepreneur. You can apply entrepreneurial thinking to any job. The job market landscape is constantly changing, especially now, but what the market wants, whether you own a business or work at a firm, is a problem solver.
Entrepreneurs are problem solvers and can solve problems in any career field. So rather than thinking about being an employee, think of it from an entrepreneurial perspective, as a problem solver.
The programme strengthened my entrepreneurial intelligence, nurturing an entrepreneurial mindset. And with 44 nationalities represented at the business school, I learned how to lead international teams, and greatly expanded my global network. Trinity certainly delivered on the global experience I was yearning for in my MSc programme.
