Building Regional Impact in Renewable Energy with MSIG

For MSc in Management (MIM) + CEMS MIM students Knut Visdal and Benedita Mongiardim, a project with MSIG became an opportunity to work on something with regional stakes.  

The team was invited to Hong Kong to present their findings to regional CEOs and senior MSIG stakeholders, after mapping policy and market potential for renewable energy across APAC. 

Benedita noted that the invitation itself carried weight. “As far as I know, this was the first time they had students present, so the invitation showed real trust in us and in the quality of our work. The fact that they thought of inviting us to share it with an even wider and more senior audience made it especially meaningful.” 

The Work Behind the Presentation 

The team built a database of more than 7,300 renewable energy projects across 17 markets, along with an interactive dashboard to visualise the findings, but building something at that scale required more than just research. 

As team leader, Benedita managed both the client relationship and the team’s workflow. “This wasn’t a simple project. There was a huge amount of data and work involved,” she said. 

A lot of the effort went into things that aren’t always visible. “Working closely with MSIG and managing our project team interactions, replying to emails, making sure everything was delivered on time; these are tasks you don’t always think about but still they matter.” Benedita added, “Because the project was going well, we also wanted to think beyond what was strictly required.”

Turning Analysis into Regional Insight 

The presentation in Hong Kong also highlighted a key shift in how the team approached their work. The experience sharpened how they approached analysis for executive audiences, with a stronger appreciation for clarity, structure, and relevance.    

Knut shared, “It reinforced that the work had to be both analytically rigorous and practically useful, a balance that is easy to talk about in theory but harder to strike in practice.”  

That setting also changed how the team thought about their work. “What stood out most was how quickly senior stakeholders cut to strategic implications,” Knut said. “The conversations weren’t about methodology; they were about what the findings meant for capital allocation, market entry, and regulatory risk.”  

Learning Through Industry Collaboration  

Working with MSIG also meant navigating real industry expectations around timelines, confidentiality, and deliverable quality. 

Knut noted that the team at MSIG “was genuinely engaged and pushed us to think beyond the academic framing, which made the collaboration more rewarding.”

The scale of the project brought its own challenges. Covering 17 markets meant dealing with very different regulatory environments and data availability. That required careful judgement about what to prioritise and what to leave out. As Knut put it, “The main challenge was the sheer scope.”  

A Project That Changed Perspective  

What surprised Knut most was how much the framing of findings shaped their impact. “Technically sound analysis can fall flat if it isn’t positioned around the questions that stakeholders are actually asking,” he said.  

In one sentence, he described the experience as “a project that taught me the difference between being right and being useful.”  

For Benedita, the biggest surprise was the openness of the people they worked with. “Everyone, from the people working directly with us to the CEO we presented to, was busy, yet they always made time to meet with us, hear us out, and answer our questions.” 

For future students, Knut’s advice was simple: “Take on industry-linked projects if you get the chance. The discomfort of real accountability is exactly what makes the learning stick.”  

Benedita agreed: “Go beyond the obvious. You can do the bare minimum of what’s asked, or you can take the time to go further, and you never know what it might turn into, how much you’ll learn, or how valuable the industry contacts you make will be.” 

Built for Real-World Business  

This MSIG collaboration gave Knut and Benedita a chance to see how regional insight is built, tested, and presented in a real business setting. 

It also showed how the MSc in Management and CEMS MIM programme creates space for students to engage with senior stakeholders, work on meaningful industry challenges, and develop the judgement that matters beyond the classroom. 

To learn more about the programme and the opportunities it offers, explore how the MSc in Management and CEMS MIM programme prepares students for impact across industries and regions.