Corporate Visits

Part of the curriculum of this MBA program is to go to different corporations and learn about what they do and how they do it. The point is to network and show us what kinds of careers and businesses are out there. In Leiden, we went to a record six corporations, some more interesting than others. Most recently we went to Tommy Hilfiger and Nike, each having their European corporate headquarters in/near Amsterdam.

At Tommy Hilfiger, we entered a row house in the center of Amsterdam which I learned house the showrooms in which buyers come in each season and decide what they’re going to purchase for their stores. We had our presentation in the middle of the men’s sportswear showroom on the first floor, and the subsequent four floors each housed a different category of clothing. The showrooms were elaborately decorated to go with the theme of that season. We were looking at Fall 2010’s clothes, and the theme was “Exploration.” My favorite showroom was the top floor—the children’s collection—where it was elaborately decorated with kid mannequins trekking through mountains and even had a space man attached to the ceiling. It’s amazing how much time and money the fashion industry puts into these showrooms. If I were to go back in a few months, everything would be redesigned to showcase the theme for the spring 2011 collection.

Nike’s European headquarters are located in a tiny town about 45 minutes outside Amsterdam, and are pretty much the main attraction of the town. The campus consists of about seven buildings, a track and field, multiple gyms, and their very own Starbucks which you must have a Nike ID to enter. The employees were all casually dressed in jeans and Nike shoes, and as we were leaving we saw a soccer game forming in one of the gyms. Seemed like a cool place to work.