Month: December 2023

Reading List 2024

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The time has come to have a look back on reading during 2023 and create a new list for the upcoming year.

In 2023, I read 14 books with 5 837 pages in total. There was around 10% YoY growth in the number of pages in comparison with 2022.

For 2024 I selected 12 books so far and tried to cover following themes:

  • People Management and Performance Management
  • Preparations for GMAT exam and MBA course
  • Networking and relationship building

Leadership and new skills

  1. First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently
  2. High-Performance Coaching for Managers: A Step-by-Step Approach to Increase Employees’ Performance and Productivity
  3. GMAT™ Official Guide
  4. The Shorter MBA
  5. Principles: Life and Work
  6. Connect: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends, and Colleagues
  7. The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business
  8. Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It
  9. Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World’s Top Minds
  10. Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

Non-Fiction

  1. The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
  2. Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium

Guest lecture at Chalmers University

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As a great wrap up of the year, myself and Sebastian Lennskog have delivered a guest lecture at Chalmers University, Gothenburg. We spoke about AWS Global Infrastructure and Sustainability to master’s degree students at the university facilities.

This was the second time I was honored to be invited as a guest speaker and I hope to continue this collaboration with Chalmers in 2024.

IELTS Exam

IELTS Exam

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With this short post, I want to celebrate a completion of the first step towards my MBA degree. I have passed IELTS Academic exam with overall band score 8.0 out of 9.0.

As per official IELTS score system:

This means you’re a “Very Good User”. The test taker has fully operational command of the language with only occasional unsystematic inaccuracies and inappropriate usage. They may misunderstand some things in unfamiliar situations. They handle complex and detailed argumentation well.

I have used the official IELTS 18 exam guide and the practice tests included with it. Overall, the exam for me was more about learning the expectations of the exam itself rather than about knowledge of the English language.

The next step is the GMAT exam.