right hello everyone good afternoon good evening wherever you are in your part of the world um my name is Hassan Malik um and this is um episode four of our African initiative illumini panel where we will be in discussion with some of our lumine um who have completed their Oxford MBA um and would also be a testament to the African initiative uh which is quite uh renowned at s business school um said my name is Hassan I'm one of the Recruitment and admissions managers for the Oxford NBA uh with a
primary focus in Africa um and we've got a panel of alumini with us today and what I'll do is I'll let them introduce themselves um so would um nor would you like to go first please yeah sure hi everybody thanks for joining uh my name is nom I was part of the 2021 2022 class I hope that's right guys correct me if I'm wrong and uh currently I work um at Oliver Wyman in our Johannesburg office as a financial services consultant brilliant thank you very much no um Pasa would you like to go next ye
s sure thank you Hassan hi everyone uh my name is peka and I was also part of the 2021 yeah I think one cohort with n and I currently work for IBM Consulting as an Enterprise strategy consultant in London brilliant thank you much Pas um BK you're up next well I think you've actually organized a reunion for our class because it's four of us from from the 2122 class so thanks for that um hi ran boski lovely to to be on this webinar um I was at Dee before the NBA and now I've started a company call
ed lra um which started during the MBA so excited to talk a bit about that thanks brilant thank you very much BK um Tristan would you like to go next please yes sure hi everyone um I'm Tristan I live in London now and I work for an American tech company um there a software company that essentially provides search to a wide range of businesses uh they headquartered in the US but yeah I'm based in London and I was in the yeah I'm the odd one out I was in the 201617 class thank you very much Trista
n and last but not least we've got um Clayton hello everyone uh Clayton Redford here I'm currently based in Johannesburg and work for a company called Mo Johannesburg part of the mo Global Network and I'm a COO of the Johannesburg office and yeah looking forward to to having a chat this evening brilliant thank you very much there you have it guys that's uh um panel of fumina who would be joining uh us in a conversation um and as we all know I think with the S business school has always had this
focus in Africa and I think um we you know made a pledge to to continue to invest in Africa to support the next generation of um inspiring African leaders uh who are looking to make their mark on the continent and also to understand the role big business uh plays in driving economic growth um so from our promise of um having at least 10% African representation on our Oxford MBA to stimulating vigorous conversations about business investment and Entrepreneurship in the in the continent through th
e African Alliance and to the commitment of um of of ensuring um African Talent representation on the Oxford MBA through a wide um host of scholarships which are only open to the African um candidates I think the African initiative has been pivotal for a lot of our African alumini um to kick start um Pas um you were the head of comms for the off Oxford um Africa Alliance here s during your time um so why why would you think it's important in your view to showcase the Journey of African students
and the impact the large representation of African students within the MBA has on the wider CBO um I think when it comes to generally um in corporate or any in business when it comes to Africa and um the experiences that we have as Africans and um how we just run our businesses how we run our careers it's very important for us to be able to share that with the world firstly because we have a lot of learnings that we we can share starting with the fact that um you've seen in the recent years sinc
e covid there's been a lot of disruption in the world and I think mostly the west or or the first world class um countries do not really know how to actually navigate that but with as Africa or Africans or rather from the third world we've got so much experience in terms of disruption we're used to having all these diseases and all these challenges and businesses in terms of how to grow businesses in a third world country so um when you bring in African students into the cohort you bring in that
wealth of experience different experiences from different backgrounds Consultants business people people who have been um in in the NPO space or the NGO spaces in their own respective um careers when you bring that into the MBA um it's it's very important because as everyone says we learn more from each other than we do from the actual content so if you bringing a wealth of experience from across Africa that wealth of experience that can showcase all those experiences that we have with the chal
lenges that Africa faces that is different from the West uh with everything that we've just learned in our careers it's I think it's very important to have those conversations in the class I think it brings uh more value into the NBA itself and the NBA experience for everyone that's involved and it also just opens everyone up to understanding the opportunities that are in Africa or um the opportunities that as Africans we can bring to the rest of the world if we come into um certain carers here
thank you much M so moving over to you Clayton um so what was your perception of the school's commitment to attack attracting African Talent yeah perfect I think purely from a demographic perspective if you looked at the numbers I think there were 16 South Africans on the course uh similar number of Nigerian students and I think it was at least six from Ghana um and then quite a few from the rest of Africa as well um I think what is quite important though is representation from Africa as a whole
uh I think having high degrees of concentration from one or two countries I think the school's making an effort now to to broaden that and I think for me being part of that MBA I feel like the African voice was definitely heard uh and it definitely had an impact on the students around us to to Echo what B said and I think if they continues it will it will give a school an advantage in in a sense that it gives a very holistic view of how business is done in Africa particularly if people want to
expand into Africa or if they see a carea in Africa as well thank you very much Clayton um so moving over to you n um you were part of the Oxford business um Alliance committee during your year MBA year here at Oxford um so you know what was it like to be at the Forefront of the African initiative and you know what are the benefits of the African Alliance in your opinion yeah sure I think it's quite similar to what my former classmates have said um I think a lot of people's big reason for doing
an MBA or at least one of them is the networking aspect um and so being part of the African Alliance One enabled me to work with some of my other African colleagues um on a closer basis and so kind of build deeper relationships from that perspective um but also so the role I was head of Partnerships and so I really got the opportunity to interact with other kind of African Business Clubs from other MBA cohorts or from LBS or fora from Cambridge judge um and to really try and bring those together
and enable a wider kind of networking ecosystem um and so yeah that was a really really great experience bril thank you very much um so over to You Tristan but so much choice in terms of Business Schools and mbas out there um what was the thought process behind you choosing Oxford for your MBA um and how did it help in achieving your goals so far um so it was a couple of things for me I was quite keen on moving to London post MBA it was something that I had explored prior to applying for an NBA
and I had actually visited Oxford once when I was on my travels and I loved it as a place and I think over and above that what really attracted me to the business school was what a lot of the others have mentioned it was the diversity aspect of it the class is really really diverse they people from all over the world that come from all different career paths and that was definitely What attracted me to Oxford it was actually the only business school that I applied to and I think just having tha
t name on your CV definitely helps in terms of opening up opportunities particularly when you're looking for a job outside of the country that you come from um so yeah it's definitely assisted me in a big way in terms of finding next careers and jobs opportunities brilliant thank you very much Tristan um and botch you know um prior to joining us for your MBA did you feel that the school's focus on entrepreneurship um played a key part in your decision-making process yeah thanks for the question
I mean if I if I had to put myself back into the position I was in before applying or before the NBA I think definitely I mean I looked at I I researched bit of like the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Oxford and and the business school um probably didn't know how you know how much support there was at that stage and I was phly surprised with it but um definitely a drawing card especially like access to the wider ecosystem of Entrepreneurship as a whole and just before joining the NBA i' I'd gone
and ventured into my own business a little bit so i' already had that like draw card towards entrepreneurship and knew that I would use this as a bridge in yet into into a startup so absolutely brilliant thank you very much B um so now um Pasa um you know considering you moved from extension in South Africa to IBM in the UK in your experience what previous skills helped you with that career advancement and also with changing locations um so before I joined um IBM Consulting I was with Accenture
in South Africa essentially I was I stayed in the same industry um still strategy so all that knowledge and all that experience that I had ex I had uh from a previous job also applied in this current Consulting uh space I think the biggest part of it was the the soft skill skills were the most important thing for me rather than um the hard skills in the sense that when you're moving to a new country into a new job into a new um city it's you need a lot of um firstly people skills secondly the ab
ility to have to build a strong Network and a brand for yourself in a new space because no one knows you and um whilst it was something simple for me to do in South Africa because um it's it's we're all the same I see more people that like are like me and then moving into London it's like a very different culture a different culture totally firstly there's the company culture then there's the London culture which is different to the rest of the UK then there's the British culture and you need to
kind of be able to adapt to that kind of space and I think one thing the MBA will teach you because it's just one year and there's about 300 people from different places in the in the world and um different backgrounds and honestly speaking if anyone can tell you it can be overwhelming as n has mentioned that networking is one of the biggest things that people come into the NBA for so uh when you're in the MBA you learn how to adapt how to build the right networks the strong networks uh within
a short space of time and build your own brand within that space I think that has been very helpful for me um in terms of my previous job and moving into a new job into a new space brilliant thank you very much P um so over to you Clayton so could you tell us a little bit more about your professional trajectory pre and post MBA yeah perfect so I was in stock broking before so I worked for a company which was originally called paragan Securities then went through a Rebrand um it's now called per
sec Prime Brokers which was one of the largest stock brokers in South Africa U my role there was was similar in title to what I have now but very different in terms of what I was doing so uh it was it was more about running the operations of the business as a whole but at the same time building out our product and building out our platform uh very much from a technical perspective so my team was software developers um data analysts that type of skill set what that looks like now for me is somewh
at different so I've moved into a different industry somewhat adjacent but different so it's in Professional Services so order tax advisory that kind of thing but working for a very fast growing company so it's a company that 5 years ago had a head count of about 28 and as of today it's about 220 with aspirations of of more than doubling in the next three years and the skill set that I'm using now as a result of the MBA MBA is very different so it's a case of how do you tap into human capital uh
in the Professional Services industry was very different doing things around marketing around employer value proposition strategy which looks very different and I'm very grateful for the skills U and exposure that I got on the NBA because I looked at problems very differently uh back then to what I do now uh and I think you know going forward as we get later on into our careers we can lead into um some of those other aspects of the MBA that we were exposed to as well brilliant thank you very mu
ch Clayton um over to you nay um so you had quite an interesting pivot as well um post MBA would you like to talk a little bit about that and you know what advice would you give to someone who's looking to do the same yeah sure um so pre-mba I worked for investe bank for a long time I did my CA articles there and then I worked in the real estate team um and then I decided to do the NBA and within the NBA I think my decision- making as to my career was more focused around what kind of skills do I
want to learn learn as a professional in kind of the next three to four years um and kind of the industries that would position me for that were it was like a short list of like consulting or Investment Banking um and I always tell people that my husband's an investment banker and one is enough in the family so I went through to Consulting um and I think what's great or how the school really helped is one there's a lot of people who are thinking at least thinking about doing a pivot to Consulti
ng and so there's a lot of support um in terms of firstly just how to Think Through the decision is it the right one for you secondly the actual prepping for the interview so if you know anything about Consulting there's a lot of like case interviews it's like a completely different skill set and way of interviewing if you've never done it before um and so there's a lot of support in terms of having um like case days and they bring in um really great Consultants who come in um and give you kind
of one-on ones and these are you know kind of Consultants who have been head of recruitment at BCG and London and head of recruitment at Bane and so it's like people who really know what they're talking about and can really put you on the right path and so I think for someone who is looking to make a switch um especially for careers that um are quite popular so like IB Finance Consulting Tech um is use the resources that are available at the school um there are a lot of them uh and so it's reall
y to kind of think through who's best to chat to um and really kind of using those resources thank you very much um monly um so over to You Tristan you know you mentioned earlier your your move from you know South Africa to the UK how helpful was the MBA in helping you move locations um and also change um uh Industries yeah I think it was super helpful in both aspects um so I come from an investment banking background I worked at R&B in the Capital Market space prior to doing my MBA and I didn't
have a very clear idea of what I wanted to do Post MBA but I did know that I wanted to move out of finance and I think what Oxford really helped me with was getting a broader understanding of what are the other things that you actually can do that are not investment banking or consulting or and I now work well I actually I don't work with the company I joined post MBA I uh post MBA I went to work for uh It's a UK based online only grocery retailer and they have now got a tech side of the busine
ss they essentially sell their software everything from the front end all the way through to the software that goes within the Fulfillment centers uh to International Grocery retailers and I worked for them for nearly four and a half years and I think just having this the opportunity ities to learn a whole lot of different things at Oxford that I would never have learned if I was still back home allowed me to explore other opportunities and I think the one thing with moving countries and trying
to change careers and all these sorts of things I think you've got to be mindful that there's a big chance you may not find your dream job in a new country in a new industry on the day you leave but that's also okay um what was important to me was finding a company that I thought was interesting they were going to a really interesting time there was a lot of opportunity for growth and also a lot of opportunity to move around and within the four and a half years that I work they I actually had th
ree different roles and yeah I think it's set me up really well for the job that I am now which is quite different to what I was doing before but a lot of transferable skills um I now work as I said for this American tech company and their pricing and strategy team brilliant thank you very much D um so over to you bark I think you know there was another question I think that's popped up in the Q&A but we come to that in a bit but would you like to tell us a little bit more about the the the leve
r journey and how did the concept come about especially while you were um at Oxford for your NBA yeah sure I'll try to keep it try to keep it short because I can talk about it for for ages um I mean going back to some to what some of the some of my my fellow classmates were saying you know when entering the NBA like one of the first things was putting you into different groups are you an Explorer are you an accelerator like which kind of bucket do you fit in and like I was a bit shy to go toward
s the Explorer bracket but most people were actually explorers because a lot of them were like wanting to change and pivot and I was like okay not everyone is like doing this to accelerate from one role to the other so it was Absolut in my case was absolutely comforting to know that there was so many other people there that were trying to break away from um whatever they were doing into a completely new role and in my case I broke away from being a CA or AUD him for seven years into into a start
up which is a which is a big shift um how it really I mean maybe I'm maybe I'm diverting a bit but how really started was through the entrepreneurship project and the business will the NBA allows you the opportunity to get into a team of five people and this is at our stage was mandatory for everyone to get into a team of five people and do whatever I mean you can do whatever entrepreneurship project you want to and whatever you're passionate about so we had everything from blockchain companies
to a cat cafe I mean and whatever you kind of wanted to wanted to do and and I remember going on stage and pitching this idea of I've got a I've in at Dee I've SE a huge skills Gap and I wanted to help young adults be better as I know you mentioned this ear at soft skills at human skills how can you make better better at presenting more confidently or better at speaking to senior staff members or putting up your hand and asking for help whatever the case may be anyways we got a team together of
five and that was really like the starting point because we had focused time to actually start the idea to think about it to do a financial projection to get help to reach out to the entrepreneurship Center for mentorship and two of us so my co-founder Emily and I who's just sitting outside in our office now in London we both stayed on after the project and decided to go full-time with it so that's that's how it kick started I mean I'm sure I can speak a lot about the journey but that's really t
he kickstarting of it and and born through the entrepreneurship project which is which is quite special brilliant thank you very much bch um so over to you P um considering the Oxford MBA provides a lot of choice in terms of you know the Oxford business networks there clubs and communities what was your experience um of of these um sort of different elements of the off MBA um first I'll say the one thing about the MBA is there's just so much choice so much op like options to choose from in terms
of from a social uh perspective from a career perspective and from the actual academic perspective so I think firstly it can be very overwhelming to know which one to go for what to uh get involved in what to uh which Community you want to be part of um and there's not again enough time to able to do it all or to even like figure it out so um I think my first um thing that I learned during my experien is I should have done more research in terms of what um what co-curriculars are available for
me during the tenure and then be able to beforehand make a decision which one I want to be part of and which one I don't want to be part of but then I'll say the nice thing about this is uh you never feel alone firstly um because I was part of uh the the African Community the African students started their own community and we'd go out together we um we still actually are in in in communication or in contact we still have our WhatsApp group for example uh where we we talk about everything from g
eopolitics to soccer right now the F car and right now we talk about uh we used to go out together we used to support each other in terms of um applying for jobs or your next career we share and I think it the the fact that there's just different communities and different experiences you'll find your place you will find your people so I think I liked that aspect of it the options and the fact that you will find your people brilliant thank you very much B um so with you Clayton so you know lookin
g back um at the at the point where you're you know still choosing what um school to go to for your MBA um what elements were you most attracted to the Oxford NBA and you know why did you choose Oxford yeah perfect um I'll maybe just start with a bit of an origin story um and I think it will be quite similar for everyone that there was probably a point in time where they started thinking about something mine was a bit obscure it was probably at 3:00 in the morning I was out in in New Town and I
ran into someone I used to play rugby with and I hadn't seen him for a year and uh I said to him where have you been I haven't seen you what's going on and he said no was busy doing an NBA at Oxford U and it's one those things I sort remember the moment not like I was a little bit taken aback um and I remember getting getting home in a semi inebriated State and and started Googling it and um you see the r Cliff camera for the first time and it's it's very much an emotional connection it's someth
ing that's it's quite moving and obviously when you see it in person it's on a whole another level but just going back more specifically to your question I think there's both the Practical element and then the emotional uh connection as well so on the Practical side one the length of the NBA for me was important I didn't see myself being out of the way Workforce for 2 years or for 18 months um and that obviously narrows it quite quite a lot so it it takes away the North American schools but also
in Europe takes away perhaps like the likes of lbs I wanted something with a very strong brand name and that takes away a whole lot of other schools as well and then I was probably left with inad Oxford Cambridge um and that's when you start to look at the emotional aspects I was lucky enough to go see both Oxford and Cambridge prior to applying uh got into both but had a much stronger emotional connection with ox there was just something about the place that resonated with me that didn't neces
sarily resonate uh with Cambridge so so that for me is is pretty much how how I got to to picking the school and uh yeah one wonderful experience very happy that I had the opportunity to go thank you very much Clayton now over to you nonay um you know we know Oxford offers a host of internship opportunities I know you embarked on a project doing your time with us so how did that help you in your professional Journey yeah I think that's an interesting one yeah so the internship opportunity is um
really interesting so you either get to do an internship or you get to just do more courses um that are more targeted um and electors that you find super interesting and have a bit of a summer break um so that just depends on you and and and kind of what you're willing to or wanting to learn in those kind of six to eight weeks um so I was lucky enough to do an internship at L'Oreal in South Africa I was working with the CFO and the head of sustainability on kind of projects that intersect the tw
o um in terms of how it assisted me in my kind of career Journey I'd say I mean we're seeing sustainability and ESG become more and more topical um and I think they will be for a long time to come um and so from that perspective just being able to be within a multinational corporation seeing how they think about things really upskilling myself from that persp perspective was really helpful um and it's really helpful now because I'm seeing a lot of projects within Financial Services um where we n
eed to help Banks think about these things right so already that's just a really clear link um to the work that I'm doing now brilliant thank you very much um so Tristan you know in in your time and off you know what was the um experential opportunities or the courses that you were aligned to that you found really useful yeah I think i p actually touched on it earlier the main some of it you're going to learn in the classroom but I feel like a lot more of what you learn is from the people around
you and there were two courses that I did particularly enjoy which I felt have been useful in my jobs that I've taken on post the MBA and that's the coures that were more focused on strategy and then there was one that I would highly recommend everyone does because regardless of the job that you end up and it's a really good life skill but negotiations I would really recommend that and then and yeah you just you get the opportunity to meet so many amazing people both within the MBA and in the b
roader University which I think is something that's really important to take advantage of it was another reason that I actually chose Oxford it's embeded in this amazing University and I'd highly recommend that you get involved in your college and you meet a whole lot of other people there because they've also got lots of other experiences to share and help you also build your network broader than people within your class thank you very much TR um so BK you know what electors would you recommend
to someone who's looking to follow your path and get to venture into their own startups post MBA yeah thanks um I think I was I I came to the NBA of course wanting to break away from corporate into the startup world but only didn't solely focus on just that I mean I did did a number finance courses to which um which I can talk about a bit but particularly the the entreneurship ecosystem not only the electives but actually just getting stuck into the ecosystem is very important from an elective
perspective to answer your question there was something called entrepreneurial search funds which was a really good summary elective um then also earlier in the year things around leading digital transformation or te enabled um electives were really good because I didn't come from a strong technical background in terms of Technology background um but I knew that the world was advancing at such a rapid Pace technologically so I wanted to also push my my boundaries to understand what was happening
in the digital age and that's actually where we combined a lot of new technologies in our in our startup um so I would I would recommend not only just focusing on solely like entrepreneurship ones but also you know from like a macro perspective what is what are some of the trends that you want to learn about that might help your future business um and then the actual ecosystem so the entreprene the entrepreneurship Center getting stuck into initiatives like o which is a big annual conference th
at happens once a year in at at the campus um opportunities to go to pitch nights and Pitch events and the the more you dig in I'm still trying to map the system because there's like ox Venture Capital there's C there's the seed fund which provides funding to to new businesses there's oep which is a conference there's different funders like there's so much to get stuck into to a point where actually and this is a question on the chat I saw earlier one of our lead investors or actually I'm sorry
our lead investor was linked through the Oxford Network and is a managing partner at a big VC in San Francisco but he's directly invest in Oxford based Founders so getting stuck into the whole ecosystem is absolutely vital brilliant thank you very much BK um so talking a little bit more about the scholarship side of things um you know other than the host of African specific scholarships we also have scholarships available say from foundations like lad law who are um looking to encourage um extra
ordinary women in their leadership potential um to enroll at the at the Oxford MBA um as a late law scholar pasac what advice would you give to other females um looking to get into Oxford um I will say firstly one of the Common Thread across all the lad law Scholars that I have had the privilege of um engaging both well from Oxford from all the other universities that they fund and also just looking at the Oxford MBA itself it's important to check or assess if your leadership is rooted in impact
ing lives because that's the most important thing um as a leader especially a female leader in today's context it's very important for you to have the attitude and just at your core the belief that you want to impact lives for the better and hold the door open once it's open for you for others to come in but also demonstrate how you plan to hold that door open for others um in whatever that you do whether it's your career or your future Ambitions and the most important thing is uh go for what yo
u want unapologetically be loud about it that is what it's about that is what both the MBA and the lad law scholarship I think are a common you know how they they come together brilliant thank you very much for that b now moving over to you Clayton you know what advice would you give um for someone who's looking to you know um get into Financial Services post MBA what would be the most important um sort of um electives or co- modules that they need to concentrate on yeah perfect I think maybe to
your point you're talking about people getting into the financial services industry I think it's important to know where you are um and if you're lacking hard skills I think it's important to focus on the electors around that so the finance lab for people who did do that they found it very beneficial I didn't go that route considering that my my background was in that but people really enjoyed that um their courses around private Equity that people find quite useful I found it useful just to un
derstand what it was from a structuring perspective uh understanding the concepts uh within it but what I would say and maybe to some of the point that we mentioned throughout the school particularly from from BK and P is some of the soft skills that are important in finance too and maybe picking courses that are aligned to that considering that if you look at the life cycle of one's career hard skills tend to be more important in the beginning but over time the soft skills uh become the things
that move the the needle a little bit more so what I found quite quite useful is entrepreneurial Finance which looks at valuing a company slightly differently particularly in the startup space u the other one is negotiations that Tristan spoke about I think that's something you can apply in many different contexts but particularly if you're going into deal making or anything along those lines within the financial industry I would say look at that um the other one I found fascinating but very kin
d of left left field is uh leadership perspectives from the humanities very different uh it's not something I I would normally recommend for somebody going into Finance but you start to look at leadership in a different way and if you start to look at the trajectory of your career it's not necessarily how you're going to get into Finance but maybe what it looks like a little bit further down the line considering that you can pick up a hard skills course online or something along those lines so i
t's rather about leveraging the courses that are available to you uniquely on this degree and perhaps not elsewhere thank you very much Clayton um over to you n um so in terms of the the host of obn communities clubs out there as part of the Oxford MBA what what did you take part in that you particularly found useful yeah so I think other than the kind of Africa business Alliance um I was quite involved in my college which was Queen um and we were quite like a social gang so we still talk now um
and so I think Tristan mentioned it before but like really get involved in your college um it's it's also a really great place to show you that Oxford is bigger than sa business school um and so it's a really kind of easy way for you to interact with the rest of the university and just be across from like someone studying neuroscience and someone studying Fine Art um so that was really great just from a wider networking perspective um a bit of a left field one that I did was I joined the Univer
sity's cheerleading team which was just something I've always wanted to do maybe I watched too many American movies growing up um but yeah that was a lot of fun because again it allowed me to interact with a lot of girls um just from the wi University studying medicine studying you know law um and so that was great just just from meeting different people and I think for me probably you're seeing the thread in in my responses it's is my experience was a lot about the people um and I think it spea
ks to what um Tristan was saying as well and I think PGA mentioned it as well just around how you're learning from the people and and of course you're you're learning within the classroom um but a lot of it is from experiences and the people that you learn and the networks um and so that's that part was useful for me brilliant thank you very much nonay um so Tristan um you know going back to your Oxford experience how did you feel this helped you in your career aspiration considering you know yo
u mentioned earlier you you had a big move um and then chain Industries things particularly didn't go in the direction that you wanted them to to so so how's the SBS experience impacted that for you yeah I think the biggest thing for me was I was really unhappy in my career before joining the NBA and I think if I hadn't done the NBA I probably wouldn't have considered switching careers because I didn't even know how to go about it and I think Oxford really helped me in that sense in terms of und
erstanding that there are other jobs out there and even though you may not have worked in that job before there are skills that you required to date which can be transferred into a role that you are looking for and I think being there has also helped me identify what those skills are and help me identify the things what are the things that I actually do want to do and don't want to do and what are the things that I want to learn more about and I'm not particularly keen on um and I think that Oxf
ord was that starting point and once I've started to work post that as you go through each job you are able to better identify again what are the things you enjoy don't enjoy how can you leverage the skills that you've gained to date in looking for a new role and yeah it wasn't an easy transition at the beginning but I had four and a half incredible years at my pre previous company I learned so much travel the world um and yeah I'm very happy on my now job which is different to what I was doing
before brilliant thank you very much Justin um and bark um considering you change also changed locations post MBA in your opinion what skills or activities are needed to build and support a network within the UK for those candidates who are looking to make a similar move move into the UK post NBA well I think I've learned more than ever that South Africans make a good presence wherever we go um and I think the latest unofficial numbers is that there's like a million South Africans in the UK a lo
t of them are on different passports so registered with African passports might be a lot less but it's true that wherever you go you'll hear like familiar accents a small example last night literally walking down the road with fellow a fellow mate and he he heard my accent he goes oh you're laer like you know just randomly or in the business school last week I overheard uh we were doing some work with him and I overheard um arrian's accent and it was just after I don't know if any of you watch U
FC but it was just after the South African guy TR D won the fight so I looked at him and I just said hello Viet Viet you know like that's the the same and immediately connected and I don't think anywhere else like if if two Americans see each other they're not going to like say hey you're also from the states like you know have this Embrace embra embracing feeling but South Africans are just different and especially the South African feeling there's certainly a strong Network in London um that p
eople tend to gravitate towards in a bit of like a comfort zone what was good about Oxford is that you they pushed out to Compton you get new friends and stuff but particularly after NBA in London I've seen spending a lot more time with South Africans because we just come from like the same resilient and fun nature so that made it a lot easier there's also ways to actually then set up groups we've we've set up a network in London called The Brothers in UK and working on the sisters in the UK now
too where it's where it's male and female entrepreneur groups to basically put together events once every six seven weeks get guest speakers majority of that Network there's about 200 of us in that group at the moment are South Africans actually that are all in London putting together events listening and learning from each other and all have like the same ambition and goal so it's definitely needed it just sometimes requires a bit of effort and like just getting out there a bit brilliant thank
you much P sorry but um are we the same sorry about we're all African sorry about that um so P I think the last question I'll probably raise to you is um and this is again going to be Universal to the panel what would your top three tips be to anyone who's looking to pursue an MBA I think the first one will ring I think um relatable to all of us is find a balance between the academic and the social aspect of it as you've heard everyone's answers mostly there's a wealth of experience to be um ta
ken from the MB experience besides the actual content and also not forgetting that you're actually there also for the content you're paying for the content find that balance but then my second advice which follows that is in finding that balance try not to get yourself overwhelmed curate your own experience Choose Wisely what you want to get from the MBA and go after it it's easy to uh get overwhelmed by all the advice everyone has something to say in terms of how to do the MBA which means it's
a good thing to know that there's that much advice out there because it shows that every everyone's experience is unique um do not feel the pressure of um I have to apply for a job now I need to go into Consulting now or oh my gosh I'm not networking enough because that will then take away from the authenticity of you just experiencing it so it's very important to create your own space and the third advice again very linked to the first and the second is enjoy every single moment I emphasize thi
s one year is not enough it's it literally you blink and it's done just make sure that you enjoy and you're in you're in the moment thank you very much P Clayton your top three tips please yeah they're very similar um but maybe with a slight slight difference um so the first one is not what you want to get out of it I think I I maybe made that mistake um so I I very much felt into the Explorer category that Bart spoke about and the difficulty is we had a class of 355 people all of whom had very
strong opinions about their views in the world and what they wanted to do and if you don't know where you're going any Road's kind of going to get you there and those opinions are going to influence you and it's very important to know what you want to get out of it and stay true to that course yes you can explore yes you can do certain things at least know the direction I would say that's the most important thing and if the NBA is not right for you don't do it I think it's also important like if
just know what you want to get out of it trust um that's the first thing second one very much alarmed uh to what B said is is just get involved Beyond The Business School Oxford is a wonderful place it is a place that's been there first evidence of teaching was in 1096 founded in 1231 it's a place that is so much history so much tradition so much going on there I I absolutely loved going to night lectures and weird and wonderful places of the universities and listening to Super eccentric speake
rs who are top of the fields um in the world phenomenal um if you spend all your time at the business school you're going to lose out on so much um and probably the last one again somewhat aligned to to what P said I just like look up look around um enjoy it for what it is because it's going to be over very quickly um some of the things I really enjoyed doing is after I had a six-month-old daughter when I moved across and I drop off in the morning particularly in Winter um and the the sun rises
a little bit later in the morning and I just go for long walks take a camera and just go take pictures of of the sunlight hting the sandstone on the buildings and walking through the the green spaces and and you know before you before you know it it's over um so just look at the detail look at everything around you take it all in um and and just enjoy it thank you very much Clayton noray um your three top tips please sure but I feel like there's going to be a lot of repetition um yeah so I think
my first one was definitely is very simpar to Clayton's which was just be very clear about your why um and I think it relates to what basa was saying and that there is a lot going on I I actually got really great advice in my first week when someone said you know I'm not going to say yes to something unless it's a hell yes and that was really helpful Because unless I'm really really Keen to do this there's probably like something else I could be doing that I'm really interested in right so be c
lear about your why because it'll enable you just a better way to pick and prioritize and see all the different opportunities that you want to be a part of right so that's kind of the first one the second one also very similar to Clayton's is that SPS is not Oxford um and so see the full University get involved in your college I had the best times there um it was probably my favorite part of Oxford Queens College whoop whoop um so so yeah just just get involved um get involved in like uni activi
ties just meet um you know people outside of the 350 people in your cohort which is already a lot right so completely understand that that may be daunting um but yeah just just definitely get involved in wider Oxford um yeah so that was my second one and then what was my third one let me check I have it written down oh yes my third one was just take hold of every opportunity right and I think it could be again daunting because you could you almost you almost could feel like you have impostor syn
drome because you go to school with a lot of amazing people who have done amazing things um and so I mean I was caught by imposter syndrome a number of times to be like oh but should I be applying for this like will I even get in um and I think just take note of the fact that you've made it to Oxford you've made it here and so you have just as big a chance of getting into whatever it is that you're trying to get into um as everyone else and just ready take hold of all of those opportunities and
make the most of it thank you very much mon playay Tristan over to you for your three tips yeah I mean I think they've all been covered so for in the interest of time and I'm going to keep them short I mean everyone's covered what I would have said but there two other things that I small pieces of advice that I personally think are great the one does extend to the broader college experience definitely try rowing um it's so worth it it's something you only have going to do in Oxford and it is an
amazing experience I was definitely not very good at it and getting up at 5:30 in the middle of winter to go and sit in a boat on the freezing cold water sounds like a terrible idea but I would highly recommend it and then the second thing I'm hoping they still do this but when we started the NBA on one of our very first days and in the first week they asked you to write a letter to yourself and then you put it in a box and they give it back to you at the end of the course I would highly recomme
nd you do it um and yeah I think everything else has been covered just take advantage of every opportunity that you get and as P said it goes by in a heartbeat and I'm now more than 6 years later and yeah it was without a doubt the best year of life thank you very much Tristan over to you bch yeah well I absolutely agree with with everything that's been said um and it's funny when you ever you speak to anyone from from side business school they all had the best year of their life and everyone ha
d a different year right everyone had had a year according to what they wanted to do so what I you know what I did in my year is completely different to what some other people did but we both had the best experiences because Oxford allows you the opportunity you to do whatever you want to do and as much as you can within reason so that's kind of like my first thing like do as much as you can with within your limitations and and those are different for certain people um secondly don't be scared t
o actually to step out your comfort zone and do things that you've always wanted to do good example is cheerleading for nor like amazing you know she went did that to fulfill her American Childhood dream in my case I played golf for for the Oxford team and I playing against Cambridge was something that I dreamed of and like thought about that would never exist so push your push your comfort zone as much as you can and lastly and probably most importantly you got there for a reason so be authenti
c don't go into the NBA and try change everything and TR to fit in and and I think that is a a good life lesson which a lot of people in the first few weeks are like imposter syndrome don't know what's going on and have this feeling I've wanted to change but be authentic because you are there because of you not because of what this the class thinks you are that makes sense um but yeah absolutely best year of my life too wish I could do it again brilliant thank you very much for that B I think th
at's all we've got time for um we can take a few questions I think there's only a couple of questions in there um from the audience I think the first one is about external funding sources um there was another question about scholarships and what I've done is I've I've given them a link to the African specific scholarships available for those who um are talented and cannot afford um the um MBA fees there's there's a host of scholarships out there that you can um look at and apply for in terms of
external uh resources I'm not too sure if if yeah you know I'm happy to jump in on this one so I actually should have mentioned this earlier I think one of the most daunting things besides the fact that I was applying to Oxford and trying to do my MBA there but particularly coming from and I think this will resonate with a lot of you coming from South Africa is the the cost and before I applied I was like even if I get in how am I going to make this work and what is the long-term impact that it'
s going to have on my career and the best advice I can give is actually Tammy I don't know if those who do or don't know her she was like just apply and somehow it will work out and that is the best advice anyone ever gave me because you will find a way to make it work um and personally I ended up taking a loan through Prodigy it is a big Financial investment but it's definitely manageable and there honestly is not a day that go I'm still paying it nearly done but honestly there's not a day that
goes by where I think I shouldn't have done this so there are definitely resources available to you and yes it is Big Financial investment but I would definitely say it's worth it brilliant thank you very much Tristan um so I mean I I can give there's a question um in the Q&A section about tackling the application essays um I can give you my perspective or the admissions committee perspective um but if anyone from the alumina would like to to to answer how did they tackle their application essa
y I'll I'll jump it on that one if that's okay I think they're going back to to bot's um barel comment about being authentic the end of the day we're all in the business of Storytelling right and it's about how do you bring value to the cohort and then how do you explain to the admissions committee how this MBA is going to help you along your growth journey and at the end of the day if you can tell that story well and convincingly and get that across and um and position yourself well I think tha
t tells an authentic story and something that is obviously attractive to the business school um and I think what's also worthwhile mentioning is what it looks like post MBA for you uh so how does that MBA become part of your growth Journey and that will distinguish you from other people who are just going there with a very generic answer so that's probably something I would say brilliant thank you very much Clayton exactly what I was going to say that's your little window of talking to the admis
sions committee directly so anything that you cannot mention or you don't have space on your application form where you would want the committee to really know something unique about you about your journey um about the reason or the reasons why you pursuing the Oxford MBA and how would you utilize it to um to you know take your career to new heights um so that is your space to get in touch directly with the admissions committee to to give them a little bit more to work with um and the final ques
tions um is someone's asked how best to prepare for the GMAT or the gr um and how crucial are the University academic results um so I can answer the academic results part um it is crucial because it is part of the entry requirement um however if you have slightly um less academic results or not the most Optimum uh academic results please do not think that that would be um something that's not going to help you in the admissions U process because the application is judged holistically we look at
each and every different aspect of the application uh is scrutinized um from your essay to your um video assessment to your references so uh a slightly lower academic result doesn't mean you cannot apply or you will not be in the running for um an offer now as far as the GMAT or gr is concerned we do offer help um to students who are um serious about um pursuing an Oxford MBA um but then you know that that is something that uh we can provide uh to anyone who's interested um but um let's let's go
to the panel and see what tips or tricks would you um say are essential in someone preparing for a GMAT or a gr read um I'm happy I'm happy to start I think there's probably so many tips that you can go out for for ages about but the most important thing and I got this tip from someone who had previously done the NBA was make sure you just book a date to do the actual test and that gives you something to work towards because you can start looking at I remember starting on exam like looking onli
ne like what are some of the questions and then trying to commit a couple of hours and then like no real not real working towards and one of the alumar challenges was like just book a date make sure you give it yourself enough time of course to to get there but once you've got that you can then come up with the structure that was very important and secondly which is linked to that SPS is a very good culture of like paying forward and alumni are always like the best source of information I find I
spoke to at least three four NBA from Oxford before I to help with essay to help with gdms to help with all those things and I think you know all of us and I'm sure all our classmates would then also be happy to to P it forward it's like this continuous cycle of assistance and that certainly helped me I think maybe just to to to add to that as well um if that's okay um I think one obviously discipline is important and and just steady burn doing that but also exam technique that's probably the s
ingle most important thing um and prepar live for what it's going to be like on the day when you write the exam so be very clinical with how much time you have per question because before you know it the exam's over um you only got so much time and time pressure is the thing that's going to kill you so get really really good with your exam technique um to add to that just one thing that I realized while Was preparing for the Gat is um exam technique is very important because everyone thinks it's
just about studying and remembering all the work that you did in your entire schooling life but then that's not what it tests so the the G testing is very different from what you've ever been tested at school there's a specific um trick that you need to learn and if you go to The Economist um there's different um resources out there that help you prepare and they'll also give you the tricks because it's about knowing how to answer specific questions in the quickest way possible more than actual
ly uh the actual math itself or the actual English language itself so it's important to find out what the trick is and how to answer the question as quickly as possible so technique is very very important and give yourself time um that's the other thing um I think also if you give yourself enough time you might also give yourself enough space to write for the first time and fail it and then go rewrite it again which can either help your self-confidence or um not help it but give yourself enough
time brilliant thank you very much basa there you have it um that was um our conversation with our Lum and I from the southern African region um this Series has been an eye opener for me and the audience who who joined us um I hope you've thoroughly enjoyed the conversation as I did um thank you very much for your time and until we see each other again have a good evening and thank you very much again U panelist illumini for joining us as well thank you bye go bye good evening and that's that
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