I’ve had a fairly generalist career to date. Roles have included quality management within plastics; transport and logistics management; sales & marketing within the tech and tertiary education sectors; recruitment; professional skydiving; and operations management within the security industry. I also did 13 years in the NZ Army and was privileged to go on a few overseas deployments in planning, operational, and logistics roles. The common thread is probably seeking out challenging and interesting roles.
I planned to do an MBA since finishing my BCom, but it took 18 years to get here. I saw an MBA as one way to pursue more challenging roles, increase my level of impact, and eventually lead to greater levels of responsibility. UC’s revised MBA was attractive for it’s focus on digital transformation and data, and it offered a chance to make great connections in the Canterbury region.
There were tonnes! The lineup of guest speakers in some papers was awesome, guys like Jim Boult pouring their hearts out. Christian Walsh’s Creative Challenge paper was a highlight - I ended up as a finalist in the HealthTech Challenge, participating in their pre-accelerator programme, met passionate entrepreneurs, mentors and staff from ThincLab and the Ministry of Awesome, as well as VCs and angel investors in that ecosystem. My MBA cohort had some pretty good social events along the way too. Heading to Tauranga for the 2020 National MBA Case competition with Elle Archer, Kevin Irvine, and Lorraine He was another highlight, even if we didn’t win!
