INTERVIEW
For me, MBAs are for people who have reached a juncture in leadership and are tired with the norms and who want to build something new
What are your next career goals? Currently, I help organisations deliver their CSR goals, but I’m looking forward to tackling the gap between CSR deliverable goals and the activities of non-profits and charities. We are looking at the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals – at how to tackle environmental issues, how to end poverty, how to end hunger. But why do we approach these challenges with siloed efforts? There is a huge gap between what companies are doing to help society and what non-governmental organisations are doing to help society. I believe that if we want to push society forward, then there needs to be more connection between companies’ CSR goals and the activities of non-profits. For example, if we are tackling plastic pollution, there should be an integrated approach as compared to a collaborative approach in meeting this challenge. I’m working with some organisations to help them integrate the activities of NGOs into the wider CSR framework to make sure that there is more partnership and more of an integrated approach to this common goal of finding solutions to the ills of society. Also, for example, the KPMG Impact Report 2019 outlines that the uptake of sustainability reporting in Africa and developing countries is very low, and as a sustainability reporting researcher, I’m doing more research into sustainability reporting in the hope of empowering small-and-medium-scale
working in industries you don’t usually find represented on an MBA programme. I was interested in learning what was happening in these industries. How do the football and horse-racing industries interact with sustainability and climate action?
enterprises to reconstruct the whole practice of sustainability reporting and CSR in Africa. Where and when did you achieve your MBA? Why did you want to study for an MBA in the first instance? And why did you choose to do an MBA at this School? I am an MBA student at the University of Liverpool. For me, MBAs are for people who have reached a juncture in leadership and are tired with the norms, and who want to build something new. It’s for the people who are bored with monotony and want to create something new, be it technology or innovation. I chose the University of Liverpool, for various reasons, due to my CSR
What is the most interesting thing you’ve learnt from your MBA so far?
When you’re young, your parents always tell you to study hard and be top of the class and make sure nobody beats you. You get to the MBA class, and you realise it’s not about who come first in class – it’s all about collaboration and networking. It’s not about competition – it’s about how the work gets done. It is not the person who comes top of the class that is guaranteed to do well in industry. It’s the person who can develop solutions to mitigate challenges in the business world. So, moving from having childish thoughts about competing and being first in class, to enrolling in a programme where the goals are collaboration, networking, partnership and getting the job done, has been an interesting shift for me. What are some of the challenges you’ve faced when studying for your MBA? Having done a master’s, I can say that doing an MBA is completely different. You walk into a master’s class and your knowledge base is expanded. You walk into an MBA class and it’s like
background. I was looking at an MBA that was diversified across several industries.
The University of Liverpool is the only university offering an MBA in football industries, and an MBA in thoroughbred horse-racing industries, as well as the traditional MBA. When you have an MBA programme where you interact with cohorts from football and horse racing, and realise it’s not just about the commercialisation of these sports but looking at them from a CSR perspective, you begin to think about how they are able to contribute to society on the levels of sustainability and ESG. Choosing the University of Liverpool gave me the opportunity to go beyond the traditional MBA learning environment to interact with people
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