Issue No.9 January 2013
HKU MBA
Ranked 1st in Asia by the Economist And moves up in FT Rankings to
No.31 in the World
www.mba.hku.hk
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HKU MBA
Ranking Celebration Reception
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KU MBA is again ranked No. 1 in Asia for the third consecutive year in the 2012 World MBA Ranking released by The Economist. A celebration reception was held in the Hang Seng Penthouse at the Hang Seng Bank Headquarters on October 25, 2012. Plenty of honourable guests and friends attended the event and shared this honour together. More than 130 guests joined the celebration, including the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Roland Chin, the Chairman of the Faculty Board of Directors, Mr. Thomas Kwok, the Dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics, Prof. Eric Chang, Members from the MBA Advisory Board, Teaching Faculty, alumni and students.
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HKU MBA has climbed up in the recent Financial Times (FT) rankings of the full-time MBA programmes and is ranked No. 31 in the world. This is great platform for us given that we are one of the youngest MBA programmes in the region and have managed to grow and build one of the most dynamic programmes in a very short period.
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“Energy Roadmap to Support Low Carbon Economy in China and Hong Kong” Conducted by Mr. SH Chan, JP, Managing Director of Nuclear of CLP Holdings Ltd.
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n August 21, 2012, Mr. SH Chan, JP, Managing Director – Nuclear of CLP Holdings Ltd., gave a talk to MBA students and alumni about the “Energy Roadmap to Support Low Carbon Economy in China and Hong Kong”. Mr. Chan started the talk by giving some background information and history of CLP Holdings Ltd., and then talked about the challenges the energy business is now facing. Mr. Chan explained that besides taking care about the energy demand and sustainability, the company needs to find new gas supply and have a balanced fuel mix to support economy in Hong Kong and China. Mr. Chan also talked about the change of roles and contributions of CLP in mainland investment from early 80’s to nowadays. In early 80’s, CLP mainly provided funding, imported technology and gave corporate management in mainland’s investment. But nowadays, China’s operation units no longer need funding or technology, what they need is corporate governance, corporate social responsibility and benchmarking.
In the future, CLP will continue to partner with mainland enterprises for reaching out and export. They will focus on brand building in overseas market. In the Q&A session, students and alumni were enthusiastic to ask questions and to share their views. Mr. Chan gave detailed answers and insightful ideas to everyone’s questions and everybody found that the talk was informative.
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“Duties of Directors When Company is in Financial Difficulties” Seminar by Business Recovery Services Group of PricewaterhouseCoopers
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hat should directors do when the company is insolvent or having cash flow issues? Business Recovery Services Group of PricewaterhouseCoopers conducted an informative seminar and shared their professional knowledge in coping with financial difficulties at organizations. Mr Chris Chin, as the Director of the team, illustrated the roles and responsibilities of a director as well as directors’ liability in different situations.
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He explained insolvent trading and fraudulent trading could put directors into “no turning back” situation. Directors should also look for warning signs of both operational and financial distress. Mr Chin’s colleague, Mr Christopher So, the Associate Director, continued to provide practical solutions in detail. Business and debt restructuring are common ways to relieve the intensity at the early stage. Capital
injection and liquidation are required when the situation get worse. More importantly, awareness is the key of risk assessment. Mr Chin explained that consulting legal advices as early as it can is critical to rescue the business. Students and alumni found the seminar very informative. They asked questions actively during Q&A session and the head of Business Recovery Services Team also presented and answered questions thoroughly.
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MBA Monthly
Alumni Happy Hour at Angel Share
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lumni, students and friends gathered after work mingled at a lounge in Central. It was such a great time to see many new faces and catch up with some old friends. Participants enjoyed the relaxing atmosphere and they were glad to expand their professional network and stay in the loop with the MBA community.
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tudents on the London Track met with the Programme staff of the London Business School. Ms Fiona Allsop, the Senior Programme Manager and Ms Stephanie Thrane, Programme Manager of MBA Programme gave a briefing session on October 12, 2012. They explained the details about the curriculum, academic schedule and services provided by LBS when students arrive. They also answered students’ questions during the session and follow by the pizza lunch. In that evening, a networking drink was held at dragon-I for both HKU alumni and LBS alumni (HK based). A wonderful night for students meeting the alumni, hear their LBS stories and valuable experience in London.
HKU & LBS
MBA Networking Drink at dragon-I
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HKU MBA Team
debut in “Red Bull Soapbox Race 2012”
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n October 14 2012, HKU MBA Team successfully participated in the “Red Bull Soapbox Race”, held the very first time in Hong Kong. Two years ago, our MBA students had joined the “Red Bull flugtag 2010”. The Red Bull Event has become a “tradition” for HKU MBA programme. HKU MBA Red Bull Soapbox Race takes place near To Shek
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Street in Shatin this year. The downhill race track was swarmed with people down until the finishing line. The HKU MBA Soapbox Race Team was formed by around 15 current part-time students. To make all the preparation work more efficient, the team was divided up into three subgroups: engineering team, performance team and promotion & coordinating team. Before the event, engineering team spent days and night on building the race car and making sure all safety measures were in place.
The team shared that they hope this tradition can carry on, learning to work together and putting their leadership and teamwork skills acquired in their MBA to good use.
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MBA
Diwali Party at Indian Club
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party celebrating Diwali was held on November 13 at the Indian Club. Diwali (the Festival of Lights) is one of the most significant festivals celebrated across India. More than 70 current MBA Students, including Full-time and Part-time, MBA teachers, alumni and staff joined the event. Full-time students played an interesting skit to tell the story of Diwali’s origin and they performed series of Indian pop dance. The event became a showcase of Indian customs as many were wearing traditional clothes. This was also a great occasion to enjoy the lavish Indian food and mingle along with each other having fun and enjoyment.
Regional Chapter in India, First Official Gathering
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he first MBA India Regional Chapter had the official gathering on 24th September, 2012 at Mumbai. The meeting brought alumni together at a local restaurant in Bandra. MBA staff met with alumni living in India and updated about many new initiatives. Alumni shared their career updates and suggestion for the Programme to move forward. Everyone had a wonderful time and this kickoff event certainly strengthen the local alumni community.
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MBA 101
Visit Bloomberg Hong Kong’s Office
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loomberg, one of the world’s leading multinational mass media corporation, provides financial software tools such as analytics and equity trading platform, data services and news to financial companies and organizations around the world. The core money-generating product, Bloomberg Terminal is widely used. On November 15, 2012, MBA full-time students visited the Bloomberg office to get an overview of its business profile, corporate culture and operation. The Analytics Team explained the use of Bloomberg Terminal and demonstrated how it works. The Bloomberg office is located at the Cheung Kong Centre, Central. Students were given an office tour and impressed by the transparent transparent structure of the office.
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This design encourages connectivity and spontaneous interaction among employees without the barrier and hierarchy. Bloomberg Hong Kong like other office locations also includes a global television news service. Students visited the news and control room where the anchor was reporting live coverage.
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Graduation Reception at Asia World Expo
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ore than 150 graduates and guests attended the 2012 Graduation Reception hosted by the Faculty of Business and Economics on November 27th, 2012 at the Asia World Expo. Graduates along with their family and friends arrived the venue and enjoyed the refreshment provided, after the 187th Congregation. Our Dean, Professor Eric Cheng, gave an opening speech to all graduates and guests to congratulate the graduates and wish them the best of luck in their life journey. Phototaking with the Dean and faculty members on the stage followed after the speech.
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Part-time
Graduation Dinner & Professor Appreciation Night
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o extend the spirit of celebration, around 80 part-time graduates from the weekday and weekend classes organized the 2012 Graduation Dinner at Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on December 1, 2012. Theme of this year is “James Bond 007�. Participants wore black tie and formal dressing, holding gasguns and posing for photos. A funfilled evening with games and lucky draw throughout the fine dinner. The shooting game uplifted the atmosphere to the peak. Everyone cheered for the fun moment and friendship gained after the two years of MBA journey.
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Alumni Profile
Karan Choksey MBA Alumni (2011-12 Full-time Programme in London Track)
1. Please tell us your current occupation. I have recently joined BNP Paribas in their Private Banking Team. I will be joining them as Assistant Vice President and will be responsible for NRI (Non-Residential Indian) client investments across asset classes globally. My role will not only include acquisition of new clientele, but also advising existing clients of BNP Paribas and strengthening the banks relationship with them. 2. What’s your best moment at HKU MBA? Throughout the first 26 years of my life, I have been educated and have worked in India. Interaction with people of different nationalities was limited to certain clients and not on a day-to-day basis. The HKU MBA provided me with a platform where I could not only interact with but also work along with the best minds across the globe. It gave me a perspective and a reality check on how differently people from different parts of the world approach the same problem. 3. How did HKU MBA help to prepare you for your career? The HKU MBA has been the backbone of my career. The programme organized multiple networking events headhunters and various MNC visits. Every month we had speakers from the Industry enriching us with their experience and the challenges they overcome in their career path which has allowed me to grow personally. I personally found the life coach session very helpful, as Mr. Mike Hall showed me my career path from a totally new perspective. All in all I decided to do my MBA as I wanted international exposure and wanted to further my career in Private Banking in Hong Kong. Completing the MBA from HKU has assisted me in achieving the same.
4. How did you manage your transition from Indian market to Hong Kong market? Prioritizing – A term that is most often neglected, but was one of my greatest learning’s as a part of the MBA. I have been a part of private banking ever since I stepped out of college, however, I predominantly focused on Indian clients investing money in India. I was on the lookout for a role where I could leverage my prior skillsets and relationships and not start afresh. Networking and meeting with the right people from the industry made me realize that the market is still alive and corporates are hiring selectively. I segregated my opportunities into two buckets, those focusing on Hong Kong and China Markets and those focusing on the India Markets. I concentrated all my efforts on the latter. This prioritizing helped me move in the right direction and transition from the Indian markets to the Hong Kong markets. 5. Share with us your perspective on success? “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” This is a quote that has motivated me throughout the MBA and the job search. I believe that there is a door that is ready to be opened just after one decides to give up. So the key is to go that extra mile untiringly to find success. Any advices you would give to prospective MBA students? In my opinion, an MBA is less about excelling at academics but more about creating a network of you’re own and meeting with the right people. As a city, Hong Kong is extremely vibrant and the professionals working here are glad to meet MBA Students and discuss anything starting from sports to business. An aspiring MBA student should grab this opportunity and not only leverage the HKU platform but also create a network of their own by meeting with as many people as possible. After all, it is the network created over 14 months that will result in the right job. The partnership with top schools like London Business School, Columbia Business School and Fudan will give students the perfect opportunity for students to meet with others and learn from their experiences.
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Students Profile
Elizabeth Yim
Levi Ma
– MBA Student, Part-time Year 1
– MBA Student, Part-time Year 2
1. Please give us a brief background about yourself. I am a Hong Kong University graduate. I received my bachelor degree in Computer Engineering from HKU. I am happy to take my MBA here again because HKU has an excellent reputation for postgraduate studies and also world class MBA’s. After I graduated from HKU, I have been working in IT industry in Hong Kong in different sectors, including Government, horse racing and retail. Currently I am a Regional IT Project Manager in Chanel Limited focusing on Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications. 2. What prompted you to pursue an MBA? Nowadays IT plays a very important role in any kind of enterprises and organizations. It is not only “supporting” the business but also partnering with the business teams in the definition of new model to run the business. Considering my background is purely technical, I find a need to equip myself with business knowledge for further career advancement. 3. Share with us the first few months of your MBA experience. How do you manage the balance between work and study life? I have almost completed the second
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module. So far the experience is very exciting and rewarding! I am so glad to meet other students from different industries and backgrounds. It has been invaluable in that they have shared their experience with me, which has broadened my horizons. It is not easy to manage both work and study at the same time. Completing the readings and assignments from time to time creates difficulties, and often I refer to the course objectives so that I am on track in grasping the key elements of each course. However, for every group assignment, I try to contribute my fair share as I would like the group to achieve a great score and this gives me a good sense of satisfaction. 4. How do you expect HKU MBA to help you with your career or personal life? I am very happy to make a group of friends who are energetic and passionate about growing in their academic and business lives. I enjoy spending time with them after class. I believe we can keep the friendship even after graduation. In terms of career, apart from the business knowledge gained from classes, my classmates and the MBA alumni from HKU will help me perhaps later for networking opportunities.
I am Levi Ma from the Year two Part-time and I am expecting to graduate from this big family by the end of 2013. I have been working in project management and strategy formulation area for almost ten years covering growth strategy for sales channel, product mix and behavior management, and performance enhancement for finance and consulting sectors. With the increasing demand on the best quality and comprehensive horizon in strategy planning and know how of different business model from different sectors, I committed myself in taking the MBA programme in the hopes of obtaining new insights and strengthen my business networks. The course design was very up to date, ensuring that the knowledge and insights obtained are greatly relevant to the current market. Even with the tight schedule with both work and study commitments, and also the intensitivity of the course, I still enjoyed the learning experience especially when you have a commited team with valuable insights, and delivering quality work as a group in the assignments.
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Helena Gilmour – MBA Student, Part-time Year 1 1. Please give us a brief background about yourself. I was born in Sweden but raised in Turkey, Poland and Hong Kong. I moved to London for university to study Economics and stayed for 12 years, despite the awful weather. After university I trained as a Chartered Accountant with PwC and spent six years covering Banking and Capital Markets clients, with a secondment to Tokyo. I also spent two years in the restructuring practice working on the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. I returned to Hong Kong a year ago and now I work for the Royal Bank of Scotland. I started my part-time (weekday) MBA in September this year and have completed three courses so far. 2. What prompted you to pursue an MBA? I had been thinking about further study for a while but I was really enjoying my job in London and did not feel it was the “right time” to leave to study full time. The move to Hong Kong provided the catalyst that I needed to make the decision to pursue an MBA. Like many people after almost a decade of working, I wanted to broaden my skill set to help me start to make the move from “doing” and running teams on a day-to-day basis to working more strategically, and at a higher level. I think an MBA will help me to make
this change. I also quite enjoy learning and studying and there are some topics in economics and international business that I am particularly interested to explore further. 3. Share with us the first few months of your MBA experience. How do you manage the balance between work and study life? So far my experience has been very positive. I am really enjoying being back in the classroom and I have already found that I can directly apply some of the things we are discussing in class to my work. I was surprised at the diversity of professions and industries in my class. The benefit of this has become clear to me and it will be interesting to learn from each other as we move through the topics, with everyone having different areas of expertise and experience. Managing work and study is gong well, I am able to get out of work in time for class but it can be a challenge to work on group projects and presentations as everyone has different schedules. Managing study and a social life is more difficult. We are all pretty exhausted after a full day at work and three hours of class in the evening. Inevitably there
are lots of fun things that you have to miss to go to class and that’s part of the cost of the course. 4. How do you expect HKU MBA to help you with your career or personal life? Having the qualification will be a great asset if I decide to change roles, or even change industries. Without an MBA I would probably have to take a step down to make a change like that, with an MBA that move is much easier. More importantly, for me, is the knowledge, learning and experience gained from lectures, readings and discussion that will help me have a better understanding of businesses and people. This will enable me to make better decisions and at the end of the day make me better at my job and move my career forward.
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2 1 0 2 E C A R X O B P A M SO A E T A B M U HK
L L U B D RE
1 Engineering team: Amos Yung
Philip Shiu
Willie Yeung
As a member of the engineering team, I am satisfied that the car did perform its job to protect the driver in the crash on the race track. With the training by the MBA programme, the engineering team worked seamlessly and had confidence on other team members. Timing for this project was very tight as we had only two weeks from structural design, building the car to final decoration.
Helped to sign up & coordinate the event, and to help building the car. Initially, we were not able to get into the race, however, we did not give up and continuously communicated with Red Bull and finally they let us in. We, as MBA graduates, should not give up easily as hopes and opportunities are always out there.
For me this is a fun project, different from any other projects in our MBA study, yet echoing the rickshawbuilding in the MBA orientation. “Rickshaw” was meant to be a teambuilding activity when the class first came together; after two years’ hard work within MBA, sharing laughter and tears, we have become a strong team. Now, without burden of marks and grades, our target was simple: Fun! As part of the engineering team, I worked with Philip and Amos to design and construct the vehicle. I was stunned by their technical competency.
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2 Performance Team : Anson Lau
Simty Yau
Raphael Lui
Excellent coordination, team spirit and trust among team members are essential to the success of the project. I was involved in building the car and preparation for the performance. As the driver, I was well aware that there was risk inherent in such type of activity. To my surprise, I was not nervous at all because I had faith in my car and my team members. It did take courage to be the driver, and my courage came from the support of my team members. Thanks to the precautions taken by the building team and Terence, I was glad that I had not suffered from any prolonged injury during the accident. Their empathy saved me. This is an excellent example of the importance of risk management and team work.
As one of the performers in the red bull event, this is a very good experience that I have ever had. When I know that we have only 30 seconds to perform a story to our audience, this is a challenge for me. It was just like what we had been doing for group projects during our MBA programme. We cooperated with all teammates efficiently and effectively.
Apart from the stage performance, my role in the team is to create a joyful working atmosphere in the team. My takeaway is the trust and live-long friendship. Never underestimate the capability of yourself, and the strength of collective efforts.
Clover Lam It was an insanely great experience. My take-away is to have courage and believe in yourself!
3 Promotion & Coordination Team: Brenda Wong
Sam Yu
Terence Ho
Brenda helped to support the team and the whole coordination process. Promotion team had less than ten days to work on both internal and external promotion. We had fun and enjoyed working with such a wonderfully committed and effective team.
The event required a lot of specialists in a number of areas, including the design and build of the car, marketing and the coordination. Fortunately we had a team composed of diversified skills with good cooperation. During publicizing the event to our classmates, I felt the great energy in the team aroused strong interest of our classmates and alumni. Their responses were great which in turn motivated us to strive for the best. On the race day the team wore the T-shirt with the HKU MBA logo. I was greeted by some alumni who didn’t know me. I then realized that HKU MBA is such a big network and we are no strangers to each other.
Terence is our tee shirt designer and photographer. Making use of our network and knowledge to complete the production in a limited timeline. Good team work and utilization of resources were his take-away of this participation.
Emmy Wong It’s my great pleasure to be part of the winning team as a makeup & hair stylist for the performers. Actually it was a bit challenging as it was my first time to make the styling of Chinese Costumes & a Hollywood-like style for a male moon lady.
Other supporting team members: Carman, Wendy, Eric and Jacky- all helped out a lot on the event.
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Alumni
Information Update We’re very happy to connect with our alumni. In our efforts to continue this momentum, please update us should there be any change in your contact details. Thank You. Please visit HKU MBA web site to update information:
http://www.mba.hku.hk
Please contact Miss Candice Tang at tcandice@hku.hk for more information on the alumni magazine.
January 2013
alumni.fbe.hku.hk