“Leadership is about being comfortable when you don’t have the answers”, FHNW School of Business

Nikos Koukiasas spent more than a decade as a scientist, doing a PhD and a postdoc in life sciences with a focus on agronomy and agriculture in the UK, before moving into industry at a global agrochemical company in Basel, where he worked in global regulatory affairs and consumer safety. After completing the Dual Degree MBA Programme (MBA FHNW Cross-Cultural Leadership/Edinburgh Business School), he made a major career shift, moving back to Greece for a senior role in agricultural banking at the intersection of finance and digital transformation. The MBA played a direct part in landing the role, even before he had finished his thesis. In this interview he talks about why he chose the Dual Degree MBA Programme, what surprised him most, and how the programme shaped the move from technical expert to business leader.

Nikos joined the MBA at a turning point in his career. While working in global regulatory affairs at his previous employer, he was being pulled more and more into strategic conversations where he felt he was missing the right language. “I was hitting a ceiling in terms of my technical knowledge. I had the analytical mindset, but I was missing the business vocabulary and framework.”

The decision was entirely his own. His manager supported the idea, but for Nikos it was clear that closing this gap was the right next step.

For Nikos, the FHNW Cross-Cultural Leadership programme stood out for two reasons. The first was content. In his role at the time, he was already working with stakeholders and teams across Europe, the US, Asia and Latin America, with Brazil being a particular focus. The cross-cultural focus of the MBA matched what he was doing day to day.

The second reason was the Dual Degree MBA Programme structure. Studying at FHNW and Edinburgh Business School in parallel meant earning two degrees from two institutions. “The combination of FHNW and Edinburgh Business School gave the programme both the European grounding and real international credibility”, he says. FHNW is well established in Switzerland, Edinburgh Business School adds international reach. For someone planning a career across borders, that combination was the deciding factor.

The MBA had a direct effect on Nikos’s next career step. He returned to Greece for a senior role at one of the country’s largest banks, working at the intersection of agricultural finance and digital transformation. The MBA played a clear part in landing the role. Nikos says he was chosen for the role specifically because of his MBA, even though he had not yet completed it: he was still finishing his thesis when the interviews took place. “The interviews I had with other organisations were very much valuing the fact that I had an MBA from FHNW and the Edinburgh Business School.”

The other big change was internal. As a scientist, he says, confidence comes from knowing the answer. In a leadership role it works differently. “Leadership is about being comfortable when you don’t have the answers and still being able to move forward, being comfortable when there is ambiguity.”

“I was expecting strong content, and it was strong. But I didn’t expect how much I learned from my peers.” The cohort came from banking, pharma, consulting and the NGO sector, from different countries and different career stages. Nikos came from a different background again, and for him the most valuable learning happened in the group work that was part of many of the modules.

The leadership and cross-cultural module also gave him something he hadn’t expected: the right language for his experiences. “It gave me language for things I was experiencing but wasn’t fully able to articulate”, he says, including why certain communication styles create friction in one context and flow easily in another, and how trust is built differently across cultures.

Combining the MBA with a global corporate role was demanding, and even more so when Nikos and his wife were expecting their first child during the programme. The flexible, part-time structure of the MBA was what made the combination workable. “What saved me was the flexibility of the MBA”, he says.

He also made the most of that flexibility. Knowing that family life would soon take more of his time, he stacked modules early and got the bulk of the coursework done ahead of the standard pace. The part-time element of the programme, in his view, was the key element that allowed him to balance everything.

Nikos’s thesis, titled “Bridging the Readiness Gap”, looked at drivers and barriers to digital transformation in Swiss startups. He reached out to over 100 organisations and conducted in-depth interviews with founders and senior leaders, asking why some startups embrace digitalisation while others struggle, even when the same technology is available to everyone.

The topic still follows him into his current work. In agri-food digital transformation, the same questions come up again, just in a different sector. He had spent years in academia and was familiar with research methods, but qualitative research was new to him, and ended up being one of the parts of the thesis he uses most.

“I would definitely recommend it to technical strong professionals who feel that they are hitting a ceiling. Scientists, engineers, specialists who want to move into broader leadership roles.”

His honest advice to anyone considering the programme: come with a real professional question to explore, not just to collect a credential. “The programme gives back to people who bring something genuine into it.”

His one-sentence summary of the MBA experience: “The MBA gave me the language and the confidence to lead at a level that my scientific background alone would never have opened up.”