Disaster Relief for Tonga

Disaster Relief for Tonga

Cyclone Ian, a category five storm of unprecedented intensity, struck the northern islands of Tongo. Over 2,000 people were displaced - 600 homes completely destroyed and 400 damaged. Access to clean water has been severely disabled as the storm polluted most reservoirs and is the country's current most pressing need. 80-90% of the water supply and storage tanks have been destroyed. Further, 95% of electrical infrastructure has been destroyed. Transportation infrastructure has been severely degraded. Authorities of the Tongan government are still attempting to reach several islands for aid.

Cyclone Ian had a major and immediate impact on the island country's economy. All three production plants for growing & exporting organic virgin coconut oil have been destroyed. All crops on the northern islands were destroyed - major exports for Tonga include banana, vanilla bean, squash, and fish. All northern island fishing equipment was also destroyed.

Pledge Me

A team of MBA students from our international exchange partners, National University of Singapore, Mahidol University (Bangkok, Thailand), and Duke University, as well as our own Donovan Clarke (Otago MBA) raised more than $2000 through a PledgeMe crowdfunding appeal to help Oxfam buy a desalination plant (total cost $11k) for the Ha’apai islands of Tonga.

Well done!

David

Meet our Students: Krister Häll

Ryf, Krister, Tapan and Ankit

Meet, Krister Häll, our friend from Finland and another member of the 2013, MBA 37 class.  Kris has been a terrific student this year, consistently upbeat, all-in for fun, and a gentleman in the truest sense of the word, with the ability to positively influence those around him.  He and his Live Case partners, for instance, chose to designate a shy/quiet syndicate member as their team leader, someone who lacked confidence and could best benefit from the experience.  He engineered a learning experience and then supported her in producing a successful outcome: their syndicate won the best case award.

Kris came to our programme with almost ten years of experience as an investment and risk analyst in the Finnish banking sector, including managing teams, analyzing risk positions and formulating hedging strategies.  He chose the Otago MBA to broaden his understanding of international business and deepen his grounding in economics and finance.  Kris performed well in our phase one core courses, demonstrating exceptional quantitative and leadership abilities: he was voted Top MBA of the Year by his peers. 

Kris will complete his Otago MBA degree through an international exchange at Duke University, to further specialize his education in finance and decision making, beginning in January.  He hopes to complete his BUSI 540 consulting project with a U.S. financial services company, either conducting research related to product/service development or process improvement.  We at the Otago MBA will continue to support Krister in his effort to pursue his career in either the European or U.S. financial services industry.

If you want to chart a similar path through life,

I invite you to apply.

David

Placement? You're kidding, right?

Central Otago

We do not “place” students, a perversion of any graduate programme

designed to train global business leaders.

We do not place our students and offer no excuses or apologies.  If the Otago MBA management team and our lecturers do our jobs well and prepare our students to compete effectively at the highest levels of business, then why do they need to be placed?  We're talking about MBA graduates, presumably some of the most talented business people on the planet!  Why shouldn't we afford them the opportunity to demonstrate their readiness and earn a position with an employer well-aligned with his or her career ambitions. Placement?  It's passive.

A recent Poets and Quants article describes the solution for improving MBA student

satisfaction as, "...increasing students' personal accountability throughout

the career management process."

Enough of the rant: we believe we have a better solution: our BUSI 540 professional consulting experience. The 540 is the highlight of the Otago MBA programme, an opportunity for our students to perform on a big stage, with a potentially high-profile client and demonstrate the ability to tackle a complex business challenge using knowledge and skills acquired in our core courses.  It is framed as a professional and mentored consulting engagement aligned with the student’s career ambition, to help him or her gain access to the right industry, right company and right professional network.  

Sounds scary right?   It's not.  Our students continually make us (the Otago MBA programme) look good through their accomplishments with major corporate and nonprofit partners.   

We are extremely proud of our students and their ability

to shine when given the spotlight.

             Note: In a later post, I'll explain the well-honed process we use to help our students 
             complete the 540 with minimal wasted effort, interact with the client as an equal and 
             express an independent voice in interactions.

             The evidence suggests we outperform many professional consulting houses.  Why?  
             Our students are good; they have us in their back pocket; and we adhere to credible
             academic frames to structure problems and design analyses to deliver solutions.  If we
             do our job well, the client responds, "That's so simple."

David