As a Full-Time MBA alumna, Mireia Fontarnau Vilaró recognised the value of the Strategy Project when she completed her studies at Copenhagen Business School in 2013. Today, she supports current MBA participants as a Strategic Advisor, guiding them through one of the programme’s most practical and developmental components.
The Strategy Project is a defining feature of the Full-Time MBA. Over several months, students work with an organisation to address a real strategic challenge – anything from sustainability and market analysis to organisational design, operational optimisation or product strategy. And in her advisory role, Mireia works closely with students to ensure each project becomes a valuable bridge between academic learning and real-world impact.
Learning from experience
During her own MBA year, Mireia completed her Strategy Project at Harboe, a Danish brewery. The project quickly became a cornerstone of her MBA journey – a practical, challenging and eye-opening experience that blended academic learning with real-world strategic problem-solving.
“It was genuinely one of the most enriching parts of my year, one that gave me lifelong friendships, taught me a lot about how to navigate different work styles, priorities and expectations”, she recalls. “I found it rewarding that the company trusted our team and was invested in our personal development.”
Her own project experience is one reason she returned to CBS years later. As a Strategic Advisor, she now helps students navigate their projects with confidence, supporting them through ambiguity, cross-cultural collaboration, stakeholder management and the process of discovering what they want from their post-MBA careers.
“I see this advisory role as having two legs,” she explains. “One is the support on the project – the scope, the tasks, how to communicate with the company. The other is more of a mentor-coach role: helping them reflect, helping them grow, and helping them see what they want to get out of the project.”
A project that mirrors the realities of work
For many participants, the Strategy Project is the point where classroom learning meets the complexity of professional life.
“This is real life. Things change, things happen, and expectations don’t always match what was originally agreed,” Mireia says. “The project is where they learn to navigate that.”
Her role is to help students develop the tools to handle this complexity – aligning expectations, managing relationships, scoping tasks, and building the communication skills needed to operate confidently in an unfamiliar environment.
Trust at the centre
“If I had to summarise what makes a Strategy Project successful, I would say trust,” Mireia says. “Trust is essential – between the student and the company, and also between the student and me.” This connection provides Mireia with a clear view of how these projects unfold and how they shape participants’ professional growth. “Ultimately, this is a meaningful experience that teaches students valuable lessons,” she explains.
For many international participants, the professional context they encounter during the Strategy Project is new. Danish workplaces tend to be less hierarchical, more informal and highly collaborative. Expectations are often implicit rather than explicitly stated. For students used to more directive or structured environments, this can be an adjustment.
“This is the biggest challenge for many of the international students I meet,” Mireia explains. “It’s nothing they know about. They sometimes think, ‘This is how it works in Turkey; this is how it works in France. But this is Denmark. If I want to succeed here, maybe I need to do things differently.’”
Helping students recognise and navigate these cultural nuances is a key part of her role.
A platform for self-discovery
Many students begin the Strategy Project with clear ideas of what they want next – a particular role, industry or company. Yet the project often reshapes those assumptions.
“Use it as a journey or a platform for self-discovery,” Mireia says. “That’s what I always tell them.”
Throughout the process, participants examine their working style, motivations and strengths. They learn how they respond to ambiguity, how they communicate when the project brief evolves, and how they build relationships in a new professional community. Some discover they enjoy stakeholder management more than expected. Others realise they want a different direction entirely.
