One of the two main specializations during his master studies was the competence field “Management in Central and Eastern Europe”, offered at that time at the WU.
Consequently, he participated at the JOSZEF Program and spent one semester in Kiev, #Ukraine. The Master Class CEE, from which he graduated in 2009, was a logical final step at the WU to further deepen his knowledge about doing business in CEE.
“What I liked the most, was this extraordinary mixture of international colleagues interested in CEE, very engaged faculty staff, blue chip companies operating in CEE which we visited for instance during our field trip in #CzechRepublic and last but not least another piece of theoretical know-how about the CEE economies in their ongoing transition process, after joining EU and the global financial crisis, both of which had tremendous impact on the region” – Michal recalls.
While working on the seminar paper Michal Szuba interviewed representatives of Mondi Group (a sponsor company of the Master Class CEE), where he started his professional career after graduating from the WU.

After spending several years at Mondi, where he had a lot of touch points to CEE, Michal had a chance to build-up finance and controlling activities in newly established CEE region at ALPLA Group, an Austrian hidden champion in the area of plastic packaging.
After that he moved to Mayr-Melnhof and took over the responsibility for financial controlling of the Board & Paper Division.
In 2021 he joined Croma-Pharma an Austrian family owned business operating in the field of aesthetic medicine, where he acts as Global Finance Director.
He summarizes: “Looking back I can definitely say that the Master Class CEE was for me a career accelerator. I recommend to take this additional business and practice-oriented study program to all students, who are interested in the CEE region – this will be for you a nice adventure and will pay-off during your further professional path”.