Dealing with people from around the world every day, Thorsten Sauer says he is constantly reminded of how useful his time in the Excellerate program has been.
As Vice President, Networks, Thorsten says Excellerate perfectly prepared him for a field that is becoming increasingly international.
"Compared with other career choices I had after finishing my MBA, this has exposed to me to many more different countries and cultures," Thorsten, who also holds a Master of Science degree, says. "You need to develop a certain level of confidence in working in this international environment, and Excellerate was instrumental in giving me this."
Joining the program in October 2001 after starting with Ericsson in March, Thorsten says the program seemed like a great way of getting a broad overview of a large company in an industry he was interested in. "Personally, I learnt the industry really well in a very short period of time."
Thorsten started his orientation to the program in Stockholm, before requesting to move back to his native Germany to undertake his first rotation learning Ericsson's operations in the country and working with customer account Vodafone. His next rotation saw him move to the market unit office in Taiwan before working with customer T-Mobile in the UK.
He is impressed with Ericsson's flexibility in not only granting his request to continue the program in Germany but in their willingness to have people work in different fields and countries.
He also praises the program for giving participants a realistic picture of what they can expect in the company. "It's a good mirror image of what you can expect when you work for Ericsson."
