My work experience in brief
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Shrenik Shah (right) |
My last job was at an automotive parts manufacturing company and my role saw me responsible for product costing and driving cost improvements. I was also aligned with a sister company in the IT industry and my role there was a more traditional accounting and finance manager.
My education
After graduating with a Bachelors in India, I decided to study full time for the Management Accounting professional qualification CIMA in London. I successfully passed the Advanced Diploma and returned to India. I started working full time whilst completing the final CIMA papers, achieving full charter status in early 2013.
Having worked in the accounting, finance and costing area for more than three years, I felt I wanted to change direction and grow faster, and so I decided to study for an MBA, and headed back to London.
Why did you chose the Royal Holloway University of London MBA ?
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Presentation skills and group working feature highly |
I chose the Royal Holloway MBA because of its focus on International Management not the typical Finance, Marketing or HRM. So, studying for a masters degree with a strong international management perspective will give me the chance to broaden my horizons and deepen my understanding of multinational/globalised businesses.
Where you hope to end up after the MBA - what skills & experience will it bring ?
After MBA I am looking forward to work in a multinational enterprise where I hope to be able to use my international Management MBA learning. I have had a wonderful learning experience so far and experienced some excellent networking opportunities.
What were the MBA highlights for you ?
The programme offers opportunities to engage with a range of small, medium and large companies through visits and guest speaker sessions, for example; both dimensions of the brewing industry with craft outfit Hogs Back (how small brewer compete with large enterprises) and Peroni's owner FTSE10 ranked SAB Miller (even though being on the top does not come everything easily there are several issues to look after), Thorpe Park (how to be innovative and creative as a stand alone SBU), and US mobile giant Verizon who offered us the opportunity to undertake real, in-company business problems as the basis for our dissertations.
The experience of living in UK
Although studying and living in the UK is not new for me, living on campus was. It has been wonderful so far, I have had the best time being in close, regular contact with the other MBA students. I have also made a number of good friends with students following other study programmes and learning about a wide range of cultures and countries has been amazing, especially students from EU countries.
Working in multi-cultural groups
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Drama class |
Before the MBA I rarely worked in a multi-cultural environment. I found that things can develop very unexpectedly and sometimes it is hard to work with people from different cultural and professional backgrounds. Most of us found it challenging to work in groups as everyone seems to have different perspectives and motivations to study. Differences here have created some conflicts at times, often because the workload is very demanding, but we all have learnt how to manage new approaches to these challenges, bringing valuable experience to our management and leadership skills.
