Lisa Duke

Lisa Duke

"An early job supervising a small team of data processors in a marketing department set me on a path of studying Business Computing at the undergraduate level, then onto working for large banks and earning an MBA from London Business School. Upon graduation, I was a consultant directing Private Finance Initiative projects for hospital trusts across the UK for two years, when my husband's job took us and our young daughter to Switzerland. Although somewhat of a ‘forced' career break, life was busy, just not in the way I had expected - we had two more daughters, and I focused on volunteering, centered around alumni work for LBS, including being elected three times to the International Alumni Board, co-founding the Women's Network, and founding the London Alumni Club, of which I am still President.

"About three years ago, as my youngest daughter started primary school, I was ready to relaunch my career. At that point I had been on career break for eight years. My strengths and interests seemed clustered around consulting, and even more powerfully around all I had learned and accomplished through my LBS volunteer work. I am now building a consulting business specializing in executive education and degree programmes, academic research and writing, and education management for European business schools. I enjoy the variety of the work and feel at home in the business school environment. I realize now that my unplanned career break gave me the time to build a broad range of skills and the beginnings of a network that has served as the foundation for my relaunch as an entrepreneur."