Vivien Francis
06:21:03 PM
Hello and welcome to today's webinar on Employability and Building a Career in Asia and Beyond, hosted by Dr. Sean Ferguson Associate Dean of Asia School of Business.
Vivien Francis
06:21:12 PM
We're happy to have you join us today. At the end of this 30-40 minute presentation, we will have a 15-20 minute Q&A session.
Vivien Francis
06:21:28 PM
If you would like Sean to answer your question, simply type your question in this chat space at any point in time. Your questions will be moderated to avoid duplicates and will appear here at the end of the presentation.
Good evening. Everyone I'm doctor, Sean O Ferguson Associate Dean at the age of School of Business can everyone hear Maine If so, just let me know in the chat box.
Juliana Roth
06:32:48 PM
Yep
Rajesh Subramanian
06:32:51 PM
Yes
Patrick Fay
06:32:52 PM
Yes, just fine
Manish Sarma Roy
06:32:53 PM
Good evening Sir
Hameed Kareem
06:32:54 PM
Yes
Manish Sarma Roy
06:32:55 PM
yes
Shao Yang Chang
06:33:16 PM
Good evening!
Alright, well. Thank you everyone for your time today for the webinar today. We're going to be talking about the subject about leveraging NBA to build an impactful karere in Asia Pacific and beyond have my co-host here. Our partner in crime. Vivian Francis social moderate. Some of the questions along the way and I'm really excited to share with you guys about this topic been in management education for the past 15 years and I've had the opportunity to see the transformation will impact that the NBA.
Can have on one's life and then being in Asia for the last 7 years? Is a really exciting time for people who are pursuing a career in this part of the world and so I have some interesting things to share with you all and I hope you all enjoy.
It's not going to the maximum.
Vishnu Dashora
06:34:02 PM
Greetings from vishnu Dashora to all of you
Alright sorry for some of the audio hiccups, so one of the things that I think people have really started to figure out is Asia is the future of the global economy and we firmly believe that the NBA is here to lead the way for business. The economic gap between the G7 and the emerging world will close by twenty twenty China continues to advance and is moving up the value added chain has become more of a service economy and is relying on internal consumption.
Alex Savchenko
06:34:53 PM
Hello, Sir.
And then Ozzy on uh the Association of Southeast Asian nations. I will pick up a lot of the sack from China's migration up the value added chain and that's what makes this part of the world very appealing, and there's a huge talent deficit in the region and that means the region needs more world class talent in ASB was put here to really help facilitate that the chart on the right you're right. It really gives you a sense of the rapid rate of growth here and how NBA have capitalize on the opportunities in this region.
If you look you see in the Gray bar. Emerging Asia has had the highest salary increases in the 2018 Financial Times rankings. So it's a good signal of all this going on well in the region. Asia is highly relevant, and there's a clear opportunity for individuals looking to pursue an MBA a lot of the factors are beyond.
You know what's recently occured you know, both developing an advanced Asia will experience significant talent deficit so the opportunity here isn't just localized to one part of the region on there. Multiple factors, contributing to this so this aging workforce on some of the advanced and developing and emerging economies. Australia and Japan S, Korea or getting old China from the legacy of the one child policy doesn't have a workforce.
A young workforce sustain its middle age workforce, but then on the flip side. There's not enough skill also so big nations like Ozzy on Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries, just haven't been able to develop the young talent fast enough to support them in the future.
We talk about the talent gap. It's most pronounced in a pack for high skill workers and these are individuals who can innovate create manage and apply in a recent Korn Ferry study. They broke down into tears. The talent deficit that this region is focused on and most of the nations that are most at risk are Japan and Indonesia with acute talent deficit So what that means is those countries are going to be 12 to 18,000,000 people short.
In the workforce for that decade China still has a significant deficit despite gains that they even accounting for games that we expect them to make when it comes to artificial intelligence, they'll be down 6 to 12,000,000 and then other many other nations are experiencing some deficit from zero to 6 million Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand. It didn't really doesn't matter whether you're a developed economy or or developing economy or an advanced economy and so.
What does this mean for employ ability well when you think about it employ ability in the digital age? There's kind of 3. Groups of skills that we can think about an and you know, there's a generic set of skills that I think everyone's familiar with things like teamwork communication organizational skills, etc. But then with the digital age. There's more discipline and technical skills that are emerging that are going to be needed in the world things like data Analytics.
Technology and digital skills and technology and digital skills. It can be from an operations management or process perspective. But digital skills can also be from a customer serving experience user experience kind of perspective and then. Lastly, there are the personal attributes things like self confidence resilience ambition, etc. These are the you know the buckets of traits that are really going to dictate what employ ability means in the digital age.
So we think about the ability to create to innovate to manage and develop and apply you think about the three buckets of employability. MBAs are ideally suited for what Asia Pacific needs going forward in the future this past year. I conducted a study to dig into what employers think about what's going on as it relates to employ ability, it was a mixed method study.
And that made the most sense given that Asia stage of development is still relatively early as far as some of the issues related to employ ability.
Annina mixed mode study we conducted interviews and surveys and there, they were based on 8 knowledge motivational and organizational influences that employers may be faced with we really focused on industries that have the most impact in this region were most people work tech and innovation. Professional services and consulting financial services unconventional another in our interview. We had 10 open ended questions and we had the opportunity to speak with.
Najam Riza
06:39:28 PM
Korea has 50 MIl vs Japan that has 130 mil population wise.
14 employers with Asia Pacific exposure and these employers range across the different interest industries mentioned above, some of them are responsible for campus recruitment. Globally, some more regional somewhere at the National National or country level and so we've got a wide range of perspective. The survey data that we used in this study was used to triangulate on the themes from the quantitative qualitative interview data and we send the survey out to 225.
It was a multiple choice like are open ended Likert scale and positive sum question survey. We sent it out to a population of 225. Employers are the employers included HR and talent people, but also business people who are involved in the talent process.
And we had a 26% response rate.
Najam Riza
06:40:21 PM
how much technology wise will korean skills needs be met in comparison with that of Japan
Najam Riza
06:40:21 PM
i suppose a look at the actual market instead of the population at large is in order
And so you know, one of the things that you know when you're working in Asia Pacific, sometimes in a career office or at a Business School. One of the things that we always feel like we're kind of swimming. Uphill is with the awareness and appreciation of the value of the NBA and one of the things that was really good to hear as we went through the study process was that 70% of survey respondents have few MBAs in Asia, the same as other schools in the world.
About 10% thought Asian schools were better and a lot of that was the fact that there was the context that students from Asian schools brought to the Asian business community made them more relevant in value. At some thought. They weren't as good as that schools outside of Asia 20%. But it was really hard to see that 70% view. Schools like us says you know on par with other Top schools. Employers generally recognized the NBA is different than other degrees for.
The ability to problem solve and think of the graduates an you know a lot of employers mention how they thought the NBA skill is a skill set that brings together that maturity and experience that people have in the workforce combined with classroom skills to make an impact.
One of the things that was very that employers in this part of the world were very adamant, though, is that the credential alone is not enough right so and sometimes I think were the NBA has gotten off to the wrong foot here in Asia is that people say, well. Look, I have my NBA have my credential. I'm looking for this high salary or I have this kind of expectation for a job and sometimes it doesn't work that way. In this part of the world now. The thing that was, I think also I open it. It goes really well with what's happening with regards to the future of the work and.
Future of work in the age of automation is that Softs kills are distinguishing feature for MBAs.
Throughout all the interviews and the survey data maturity from you know the professional work experience was key. The ability to problem solve and think was critical for employers, but also the ability to communicate and story tale right so you can problem solve you can critical thing, but can you make a story? Can you tell a story articulated engendered by am thinking strategically I'm not having such a narrow focus on a very siloed task.
And then ambition was something that also stood out so sometimes ambition was a double sided sword, sometimes employers would lament that ambition, creating a dynamic where expectation management was sometimes a challenge, but the net trade off was worth it because of the aspiration that NBA is having their willingness to push themselves and that kind of thing and then Lastly client centric is something that is.
They're also stands out about the NBA's ability to story tell the mature an think strategically really goes well with as far as engaging with the client or crafting solutions that meet the client needs.
Um one of the areas where there was a big difference, though, is how the NBA is used in when it comes to.
Probably NBA is used when it comes to corporate setting in Asia and so in the United States. the NBA is used in many different capacities client facing work back office were scattered throughout all organizations to improve process, etc. This isn't the case in the Asian context. In many cases employers in this part of the world see NBA is really client centric creators and problem solvers geared toward the.
Agenda of the region, so the NBA fits in best in this part of the world where there's a growth initiative right so you're not going to see as many MBAs on the back office side here in Asia as you will see in the front office side and So what this does is create a little bit less scale for MBAs in the corporate world and they're not as prevalent as they are saying the United States or Europe. And so that's where the Navy SEAL company will have maybe a squadron of MBAs as opposed to.
A battalion of Army Rangers right and so this might be a US centric example or a militaristic example. That everyone can relate for but the net takeaway is that MBAs aren't used for every case in this part of the world.
Going through the study continuing to talk to recruiters one of the things that was validated was an 2014. There was a study by G Mac and they were cruder survey to talk about the criteria that are used for selection of candidates for interviews and what you'll see on this slide is that your prior employer. Prior industry are the most important elements of selections So what you did, in the past kind of dictates what you do in the future.
And then you're proven ability to perform comes after that, whereas the model that you'll see in the United States is that it's all about your ability to perform and So what you what companies are looking for their as your highest upside and your ability to make impact in whatever context. You've been in and they think, OK, we that'll translate over and then we can train you on the other things in our organization and it's the opposite here in Asia Pacific and so one of the things that you know schools and.
And we've had to do here and prior places that I've worked in this part of the world is really change the orientation of how we approach careers and really make the selling of the story about your prior work experience another thing. That's different about Asia is on campus. Recruiting is a lower priority for APEC companies and a lot of this stems from the scale issue. I talked about earlier with not using MBAs to the same degree as the rest of the world.
And then being still in the early stages of development here if you look at the Financial Times Top 100 Asian full time. MBA programs, which you'll find is maybe all the schools together in the Financial Times Top 100. It maybe except a couple of the Indian schools. They're pretty big. But they don't total up to say the 900 students per year that Harvard has or 750 students per year that award has right and so in order to get NBA talent.
In order to get NBA talent one of the things that is really critical in this part of the world is employee referrals in relationships right so networking is key.
So uhm beyond some of the other things, I mentioned earlier, the hiring dynamics in Asia. The lack of scale. It doesn't really allow for NBA specific hiring channels and support an you know the challenges that are over here in this part of the world is that not only are people trying to find NBA talent, but the need for Top notch undergrad talent is even more critical here write a lot of the Top companies need people who can work in a not just a country or national context. But they have to be able to work in a regional.
And global context and so that's that's very challenging at the undergraduate level and a lot of times because Asia isn't a monolithic environment things like language or cultural awareness at the local level play much more of a priority. So recruiting process for scale may be geared towards finding you know, someone in Thailand who can relate to whatever the social media market needs are in bang. Cock outweighs the specialist case that you may need for an MBA in this part of the world.
And so that's that's what really creates the difference in hiring. Dynamic another thing. That's happened is while the NBA is valued employers can be reluctant to hire because of the inability to measure ROI. There's a tremendous cost differential between MBAs and undergrads. I used to work at a Business School in Hong Kong that had a substantial undergraduate population and in many cases, you could get as many as 3 to 5 undergrads for the price of an MBA.
Right and so that changes the whole talent equation and how recruiters and employers think about how they select talent right, whereas if you compare it to the USA like the University of Michigan undergraduate bachelors of business. Students are making 75 to $80,000 per year US and then if you're an MBA is making 125 thousand dollars per year. The values swings to the mature MBA candidate. But over here in this part of the world if I could get 3 to 5.
Otherwise, you know, people make I think there's an inclination to take the volume approach. The other thing is that the payback. Horizon is a lot longer for an MBA and so even if you hire 3 to 5. Undergrads ones probably going to be a superstar. Another one or 2 may be fine, or OK and if the other two are disasters is not really. That big of a deal and so quickly demonstrating value is key for MBAs because because of the salary levels expectation levels are really high.
In this part of the world don't expect any handholding. When MBAs come into organizations. People know what their salary rate is and such and so people are less inclined to help because you're supposed to be a superstar.
So those are some of the kind of macro takeaways from the study that we did this summer and there's some other data that we're going to share as well. This just kind of reinforces what I talked about earlier this came from the 2019 Gmat Gmat Corporate Recruiters survey and what you look at is what you'll see here is there's a Asia Pacific has the smallest salary spread between industry hires an MBA hires right and So what that means is unlike Europe and the United States were an NBA will command more.
Then a direct from industry higher say the United States on NBA the average salary for NBA is 125 thousand a direct industry. Higher 75,000 people are willing to pay for that. MBA premium some of us do because there's a lot longer history in Europe in the USA to justify that value add. But in Asia. You'll see the price for an industry higher versus MBA hires the same. And so that doesn't mean that there's not opportunity over here, it just means that.
How you go about making and building a career here is a little bit different also you know I think because it's a It's relatively Virgin territory out here for MBAs. People don't there NBA haters in Asia right so I don't think NBA adds that much value and we consistently have employers tell us that, but we have data that says. Yeah, that's not the case. Actually, if you look at the salary progression of students from Top MBA and Emba programs.
They're getting paid significantly multiple years after graduation, and we'll talk a little bit about that later on, but the long and short of the story is that while initially salaries. Maybe below the effects of the regional economic growth or fail quickly alright so we recently did.
Alesis to see OK so what's going on with MBAs 3 years after graduation. And so a lot of times people think Oh the NBA is just a signaling device of high potential people to the marketplace right and so then the market is really only paying for the signal that you have an MBA from a Top school but it's really the scarcity of talent and the high performance drive probably performance that drive a premium right and so on the left would you see our average annual salary increases over a 5 year period for working professionals?
And full time MBA students and and so the working professional data is come from NBA data from the Financial Times MBA, ranking and the full time data comes from the full time data comes from the full time NBA global rankings for the Financial Times and what you'll see is that developing Asia is the rate of progression in both for working professionals and full time. MBA students is significantly greater than the peer groups in the United States in Asia in both cases is almost double.
On an annual basis right and you know, usually when you have this kind of discrepancy. It's usually a sign of scarcity of talent and such the other thing that you'll see that we found with Asian grads full time. MBA programs because of the scarcity of talent, you see the same kind of salary increase that you do a Top Tim schools, so the salary increase between entering salary salary and exiting salary is about 85% and so.
And beyond that right uh when you dig into some of the benchmarking metrics out there what you find is that the Asia Asia Pacific has vest have faster career progression than the USA in Europe, so the impact of a quality NBA really helps you perform overtime and having been in this business for 15 years. You always hear from the popular press 0 is NBA dead is NBA overrated. You don't need an MBA and I you know, I think with people when they are.
When they're promoting or doing articles like this, they are taking very general cases, but for Top schools with unique value propositions, it always makes sense.
Now, some of the things that we're seeing in this part of the world is that the financial services industry continues to decline or techno. Technology is emerging as a dominant player and if you guys watch CNBC or any of the business news shows. Everyone now is really trying to reposition themselves as a tech player right and so and we have results to show that this is where our students have been most prominently placed in the first two classes at ASV, an we've got for markets that we're looking at.
Ozzy on in Malaysia are there's so much opportunity in this part of the world. But as the developing country. Sometimes the salaries are highly variable. They tend to be a little bit lower so you can't let pride get in the way. But if you correct for cost of living. Sometimes you can have a better quality of life here and we really had to help our students understand is that is $60,000 in Vietnam, better than $85,000 in Hong Kong or Singapore. The big numbers sounds better, but if you've ever looked at housing any those places.
Is pretty pretty expensive what we see in Hong Kong is massive restructuring large company banking and financial services job opportunities continue to decline, especially for expats. However, there is a place in our boutique financial services because they're smaller and nature salaries can be inconsistent. They're kind of all over the place and then Hong Kong is really stepped up as far as technology and startups becoming more prominent Fintech is really kind of taken off of there.
Building off the kind of Legacy Financial Services roots only thing that's concerning about Hong Kong's there's a little bit uncertainty about the market. But if you're ever familiar with Hong Kong history. It's always been resilient there in hand over people thought you know it would collapse before the handover. People thought it would collapse and so I'm confident in bullish on his future Singapore. Technology is dominating what you'll find is that most of the.
Multinational tech companies have their regional headquarters based in Singapore Healthcare continues to healthcare and life Sciences continue to emerge function wise it goes back to when we talked about from an employability perspective. They're looking for creators and innovators and people who can engage with a client this past week. We were just in Dubai for career track and diversification for international's right so as we have these strong Asia hubs and Hong Kong, Singapore Aziana, Malaysia.
So the bar provides another alternative for us, particularly in the consulting space. That's a pretty dominant industry there and technology is in high demand as well. There's a lot of talk about Emirati ization and that's where they hire locals. But if you know much about the by you know, there's 11,000,000 people there. I think and maybe there's estimates of only 500,000 to a million Emirati so if you do the math. It can't workout and so there's always going to be a role for expats.
There as well. Similarly, they're looking for creators and such now when you think about what does this mean right so for us at ASB there's a lot of research out there that shows that action learning experiential learning work integrated learning are critical differentiators for employ ability and we built our whole curriculum around action learning and experiential learning and every semester. The students have the opportunity to go on site for 4 weeks.
From one of our 120 or so corporate partners and so the way it works is they'll take classes go on site come back take classes go on site come back take classes going site rap up the project in the projects. They range from and it was really good about the projects that we do here at the age of School of Business is that they give us a sense of what's going on in the market, So what companies come with us come to us with as far as problems go.
Give us a good sense as far as OK. These are probably going to be the areas that they're going to be hiring in as well. So it gets our students ahead of the game as far as preparing them with skills at the market in this part of the world wants one of the things that we fundamentally believe is that in the age of big data and disruption by 2025 going 10 times the amount of data today. We don't think we can prepare students by knowledge through knowledge transfer of everything that's in the universe as far as information so.
Actually, learning is really built on the concept of learning to learn so that you can learn how to do and this is a more resilient skill set for the long term and it's a good way to future proof your karere.
Are actually learning not only builds problem solving skills that help you take theory and apply them in a practical setting but because we do them across the region. You build up this cross cultural savvy that I think when you just are in a Business School in Hong Kong or Singapore and kind of this ivory tower bubble and not out in the field like our students. You're kind of detached from what's going on. On the ground and so we talk about is like students are frontier minded right on the ground next to the customers next to the clients.
Now in consideration of the curriculum and things of that nature. How do you maximize your karere for success in a pack so a couple of things that we've had to you know this is kind of built up over the last my last 7 years being in the program, partnering with other schools talking to companies and this part of the world don't make the NBA the centerpiece of your search right there's no bigger advocate for the NBA for me, having been in the business for the past 15 years.
And seeing the transformation will impact that it's had on people professionally and personally right. But that's not what cells in this part of the world. One of the things that you have to do is minimize your risk profile in the eyes of the employer. So you have to build your story around demonstrated skills so if you think back to the slide where I was talking about employers wanting to know what industry you worked at and who you worked at that has to be a critical part of your story right and then you can either have the flexibility to change.
You know, we talk about 3 degrees of career change. There's industry function in geography. For many of you guys were coming to an international Business School like the Angel School of Business, you're going to automatically be changing. Your Ography Geography, so that's one dimension, so you basically have to pick either industry or function right.
Now, for some of you guys who are working professionals. You may be happy with your industry. You may be happy with their country. Your company and So what you may want to do is just change one of those degrees right and so you could be working on the procurement side and you can say. Hey, you know what we want to. We want to move into this general management or strategic management side, the other thing that.
I think as you think about your karere go to where the grass is where the pasture is right, and so focusing on industries that matter and that are driving growth so like the technology and innovation industry. The growth of that has made them be less restrictive.
What about the profiles that they bring into their organizations they're really looking for make it happen people so if you got one thing that you do well. You'll be fine. There all right. The other thing is that don't anchor on your prior market value, so sometimes we have as soon as they say, well, I was making the equivalent of $90,000 in Hong Kong and if I'm going to work in Vietnam. I have to make $90,000 and with a lot of companies do is they use purchasing power parity for those of you guys who are familiar purchasing power parity is kind of like.
And equivalently equivalently equivalency index that adjusts costs and pricing in different markets across the world to come up with a common basket of goods and this common basket of goods is then used to kind of set salary levels all right, and then the last pieces networking and I have the same with the students that there's a one letter difference between networking and not working and this part of the world. It is very easy to network and gain access to people relatively senior in the organization.
Particularly if you're a high skilled individual the pace of change. That's going on in this part of the world. People are always looking for help. And always prospecting and so, if your relational and nature. You have the ability to have a lot of success over here.
So you know this approach and some of the learnings that we've gotten from this study and research has really helped move as before from a placement perspective this year in our second year 90 days after graduation. 83% of our students were placed and this is this is very good for the second year of the program. We had a high graduation where class at higher placement rate at graduation of about 60% which is really.
Good in Asia, it differs in the US because in Asia, hiring doesn't happen in the same cyclical way that it happens. In the United States, where companies come to campus in August and September and October, an interview then make offers in November and December. Here, the horizon is most companies aren't looking to hire until 2 to 3 months before they have an immediate need. Another thing is that in most US business schools were internship conversion is in 50, plus percent.
Here in Asia, you seldom get internships, converting it more than 15 to 20% and so it's just a different dynamic that said, this year. We had a prevalence of multiple offers 41.9% of the class received multiple offers which is really good because one of the things that you have happened is because it's not a cyclical process where people get offers then what you have happen is. It's hard to get multiple offers in time 'cause you would have had.
Accept an offer when you get an offer we've gotten stronger in the bottom half of the class. We hit 90% placement quicker than last year at about 5 months and the first year. It took us about a year to get our first class to 90%. The Top end of the market was doing really, really well, we had 20% twenty nine percent growth in salary.
Also like I said earlier technology and innovation industry is dominating in terms of the volume of quality offers an their appreciation of the NBA China. We had some great wins there and we actually turned down great opportunities at companies like Facebook. Microsoft PwC in Lazada and one of the things that I've seen here a little bit more. In this class and I think this speaks to Southeast Asia. Being a great hub for international students is that multiple students have significant managerial.
Responsibilities, which is a typical for new MBA graduates, which you see is I've got a couple of students who have 12 and nine person teams and their there. They're doing really well right now. Financial services industry continues to remain a challenge success will be a product to your approach to networking and then Lastly marketplace for Malaysians is not rewarding to the same degree As for non Malaysians.
And why is this and this isn't just a Malaysian thing I think one of the things that as we coach our students in this part of the world going back to your local market may not allow you to enjoy that premium that we talked about earlier so if I have an Indonesian from Indonesia. I'm going to tell him or her that maybe you should consider an an Indonesian market because companies tend to be anchored on your previous salary history history. There's not a high degree of sophistication and so we want to get you in front of people.
Vivien Francis
07:07:17 PM
If you would like Sean to answer your question, simply type your question in this chat space at any point in time. Your questions will be moderated to avoid duplicates and will appear here at the end of the presentation.
Uh that can uh appreciate your value and not be anchored on your prior history. And so one of the things that we've seen this year has been really successful. We've increased our starting salary substantially as I talked about earlier. We do this thing called PPP adjustment, so that we can compare across markets and we continue to grow our adjusted salary are real market salary as far as US dollar annual salary based on market exchange rates.
So median uh was up 37%. The average was up 22%. I think what that tells you is that the whole distribution shift when you see that kind of shift on the median and then because we're Malaysian. We also track things in terms of Malaysian ringgit just to give us a sense of what's going on. This slide here just talks about how what our industry distribution was 52% of our students were into Tekken info industry 17% went into consulting.
14% went into financial services and another 17% went into other.
Uh as far as locations 49 percent 39% of our students stayed in Malaysia. I would say most of our Malaysian stayed in Malaysia. But we also had a lot of our international students who have stayed there also advanced economies 17% of our students went there and so advanced economies are pretty much North America and Western Europe, then we had 70% of our students. Go to China. More than the stats or anything that I've just touched on regarding placement is that we've had great stories of success.
Great success stories that I've been a byproduct of our approach in our understanding of employability in this part of the world and so this chart. You know just showcases a few aspie superstars. Fiona went to school in the US and went back to the USS where she's a business designer for a Doberman Doberman is kind of a design thinking company. They brought someone in who could bring business perspective with some of the kind of creative side of design, thinking marine rain. She works for Jeremiah Group, which is.
Uh basically Africa's Amazon, she's the head of Brandon Engagement. She's leading a team of 9 and I was just was well what's happening with her and she's knocking it out. The park there. I Diego works for Didi, which is China's Uber or grab or Kareem depending on what part of the world, he's in their global leadership development program and he'll be rotating he was just in a China stand. He's rotating back to Brazil and he'll probably be rotating back to China.
Suresh is he's a He's a local Malaysian. He's in the Liberty Mutual Global Rotational program based here in Malaysia, working closely with the chief strategy officer. Sherilyn is a Malaysian woman as well. She has a great story. She worked she worked at Gap and then is now working with the Google affiliate in Malaysia. Dory from Nigeria is working as a business development, manager for a non duh.
Which is a huge property developer in Thailand Gary Lowe? He's a Canadian born Chinese and went to school? They do came over here and now he's working for McKenzie and the Taiwan Office, serving the Greater China Resource Pool Clara Marcus Venezuelan American now, she's working for Amazon in Spain and then we have Chelsea Kohlmeyer. She's a director of innovation and commercialization working at the New Jersey Institute of innovation.
A New Jersey Innovation Institute nontraditional path, but I think you know based on the technology oriented action learning. She had positioned her well for that opportunity. Kwanghee was actually great story was our graduation day speaker.
PM with one of our board members heard him. Speak he wanted to hire him immediately and now he's heading digital transformation at the giddy tire group based out of Singapore D because she she she's one of the cases where the internship did convert to the offer. She's working as a business program manager in Singapore with Microsoft and mock sought. He is our data. Analytics guru, he was one of the of winners in our data's on here a couple of years ago.
And use the product lead, leaving at leading a team with 12 at sequences. Australian based company that has an office based here in Malaysia. So amazing stories to tell that builds on our approach to employability and really positioning. Our students and alums for career success. And so wanted to share a few stories when you touch on some of the studies that we've done here and see if you guys have any questions and if you do have.
Dmitry G
07:12:18 PM
Please can you tell a few words about executive MBAs value added in Asia, eg Singapore?
So that we don't get to my email is here. Sean.ferguson@asb.edu dot MY or you can hit me on LinkedIn open networker.
Alright alright so Dmitry can you tell me a few words about executive MBA's value added in Asia EG Singapore and so I think depending on your stage of career. I think you know any Top if you go to a Top Business School. I think there's a lot of value for the MBA program. Most cases, you'll be working for someone and your ability to contribute in an impact is almost instantaneous and so in our curriculum. We have this thing called Action Learning.
And we just recently launched are working professional program and what it does is allow you to bring a project from your company to the program and you can work on it over the course of the program. And this helps makes the case for you. If you're trying to solicit sponsorship or buying from your boss is if you look at.
If you remember the slides. I let me pull it up earlier, but if you remember the slides from earlier.
Vishnu Dashora
07:13:56 PM
You talked about smart skills, competancy , talent and prediction of future performance based on past performance ; however how do you evaluate enterprenure application and what are the opportunities available for those who wants to continue that journey?
The working professionals this includes MBAs right so if you think about advancing developing Asia and Asia. The growth rates for salary progression or pretty significant. You know typically without an MBA? What we see for average professional wages. Salary growth is only 3% and you see here depending on what part of the world you work in or part of Asia. You work in you know you have the opportunity to make significant strides in gains.
All right, the next question are you talking about smart skills competency talent and prediction of the future performance based on past performance.
However, how do you evaluate an entrepreneur application an and water the opportunities available for those who want to join continue this journey and so this is a great question because a lot of times. This data here is skewed towards corporations and entities like that because there's a prevalence of it, but one of the things that we are conscious of when when I talk about taking innovation right.
Tech and innovation incorporates kind of the entrepreneurial ecosystem right so I showed you a slide with Chelsea Kroger Meijer. She's a director of commercialization and innovation for a group. We also have people who have went on to work at startups or start their own startup. One of the things in the action learning curriculum that I think really positions. You well for entrepreneurship is that you're learning how to do your learning how to learn so that you can learn to do figure out and problem solved.
I think that's a huge differentiator for our program here. The other thing is that we just had this uh. I just had a former connection from Hong Kong reach out to Maine because he's looking for people to find an start businesses in this part of the world right and so.
And So what they have is this model where they have successful business models from say Europe, the West. Other parts of the world and they're looking to launch businesses here that they can adapt for the local markets, right and so we talked about action learning and the learning how to learn so you learn to do being able to put theory into practice this is exactly the reason he reached out to me is because this is exactly what works well for what they're trying to do from an entrepreneurial perspective.
The other thing is that because of this cross cultural savvy that you build here, you can move and go to different parts of this region right so this individual talk to me about moving if they launched. This business in Thailand. Maybe eventually they can move to the Philippines with with an adaptive business model and that kind of thing and another thing as it relates to entrepreneurship is that we just went to on a China track.
Manish Sarma Roy
07:16:41 PM
How Fintech going to grow in the coming years as we have huge skills and technological deficit in south Asian countries?
In October and the goal of the track was to learn about innovation and such and we spent a good deal of time in Shenzen and so here it was funny. One of the companies PCH International Pacific Coast Highway International, it's a company founded by an Irish man and he?
They're based in California, but they have a huge design presence here and he was just talking about how.
Since then doesn't need Silicon Valley but Silicon Valley needs shinzen right, and so the ability to prototype to create products fast prototype being in this region like your 4 hour flight away from Shenzen. If you want high end manufacturing capability and design capability. But then in Southeast Asia. If you have a product. Isable idea that requires low wage manufacturing and custom custom manufacturing that you could do that here as well.
And so we're looking for. We as soon as you want to take that on you know, we have an entrepreneurship and Innovation Center at the school. That's sponsored by air, Asia and we think this is the next step for us.
Ah my niece how often has spent at going to grow in the coming years. As we have huge skills and technical technological deficit and South Asian countries, so I can't predict exactly what's going to go on with fintech you know, I'm not I won't claim to be an expert but what I do know based on my experience in dealing with the corporate community is that they're going to be a lot of startups some of those fintech.
Developments will be acquired by the big banks and other companies. And such and so I think it will continue to grow I think.
It also depends on where you're at in the world and who has the vested vested interests right so like we were in China, a couple weeks ago.
Like you can't use a credit card. You can't use cash. It's all Ali pay. It's all we pay right so you know their approaches market specific write an in other parts of the world. You know cash is still King and there's other models and so I I think.
The The Innovation quotient that's in our curriculum. I think really helps position you to figure out how you can contribute an and partake in these new and emerging industries right.
Cinderella Alinaitwe
07:19:02 PM
Hi Sean,
Great presentation!
I have a few concerns around work authorization/visas for international students.
How hard is it for Africans to get work authorization in South East Asia?
Alright so had I knew I have a slide that actually speaks to this in a Cinderella so as was going on with everywhere else in the rest of the world work authorization is becoming challenging for international students how hard is it for Africans to get work authorization in Southeast Asia. So if you saw on the slides earlier Dar es is a Nigerian student he actually parlayed his action learning into.
An opportunity with a Thai company in bang, Cock and so I think it's it's challenging for everyone, but it's not impossible. I think the big thing is, you have to start early here as far as building relationships to let people know what you bring to the table and I think the more unique your skill set or the more unique. The area that you're going into I think the higher likelihood. There is for you to get into those markets. One of the things that you're also seeing is that?
Dmitry G
07:20:30 PM
Thank you
So you know, I'll use Dori as an example. 'cause I was like his primary career coach. You know, we're thinking about OK. Everyone wants to go to Singapore. Everyone wants to go to Hong Kong. Maybe that's not the best strategic place to go because the competition is really fierce and so we started talking about this opportunity in Thailand. You know it's not it's not as common for someone of African heritage to go there and See and seek employment right and so I think it's just a matter of presentation in the market.
Hi your skills lineup and we can pretty much make anything happen.
Manish Sarma Roy
07:20:49 PM
Thank you
There was also a former recruiter survey compared to the USA in Europe. The climate in based on employer. Responses was actually better for work authorizations of International's in this part of the world.
Shivinder Chandok
07:21:10 PM
Could you talk about a few Indian candidates
I hope that was helpful Cinderella.
Yeah, so I think our our Indian candidates have done really well here we've had a bunch who went to go work at Air Asia in various parts of the organization in the strategy group in the data. Analytics Data Science Group. We've also had people go into the product management side of the organization. If you look up. We've had also had a student who went into S apps.
Cinderella Alinaitwe
07:22:06 PM
yes, thanks
Kind of global leadership and sales rotational program based here out of Malaysia. So we've had quite a deal of success with our Indian students. You saw Deepika on there. She was she was fantastic. I think 2 as an Indian student, which you have to do or do things that differentiate yourself. So you know, sometimes I think people are just focused on grades and you know, one of the key tag.
It's not in emphasize this enough is that your technical skill is expected right so people expect you to know how to do the technical stuff. It's really your soft skills that are going to differentiate you right. So, your ability to build repor work on teams and like so someone like deep because she was a student leader on student government. You know spend a lot of time working not just were very international program. 70% of our students are international but not only was she working with international students of her age profile.
Vishnu Dashora
07:23:06 PM
Thank you very much to all ASB Team members
Dmitry G
07:23:11 PM
If still time allows: how do you assess employment opportunities in energy sector for EMBAs in Asia?
The interaction that she had with me and other senior leaders at the school was really critical as far as helping her not just know how to interact with international at the peer level, but how to manage up and down in the organization and so you know, I think we feel really good about our students and coming here and one of the things that is important to me as we go through the interview process. If you're at any school that I'm responsible for admissions, the number one thing I'm looking for is can, we place you.
All right uh Dmitry G of time still allows how do you assess employment opportunities in the energy sector for MBAs in Asia so I think if you're at the MBA level, which means you're probably a pretty experienced professional. I think there's plenty of employment opportunities for you in the energy sector. The other day, I was just in bang, Cock having lunch with a friend who was in the renewable space and talking about the.
Vivien Francis
07:23:49 PM
We'll take one or two last questions before wrapping up
Najam Riza
07:24:17 PM
Is there flexibility in the MBA Prof Program to best tailor course delivery to minimise the impact on my business commitments?
The deal flow that he's dealing with in bang, Cock you know, Singapore as the regional hub for enerji for this part of the world. So I think there's plenty of opportunity for you, whether it's here or you know, we have connections into Dubai in the Middle East. So I think I think there's a plethora of different opportunities. If you're more on the technical engineering side and you want to move to the management side. We have experienced professional career coaches who could help you reposition yourself, so that the market can see you did, it differently.
Or you can manage yourself when in the organization.
Dmitry G
07:24:54 PM
thank you
All right uh Oh that was helpful. Uh Nizam Risa is their flexibility in the NBA for professional program to best Taylor course delivery to minimize the impact on my business commitments and the stairs flexibility. But what I always tell people don't come to any NBA or working professional program. If you can't participate in it, fully right because it's going to be really challenging experience for you.
Our faculty are great their understanding and very up empathetic to the needs of working professionals. But it's not just about that. It's about you and what you want to get out of the program. This is a cohort base experience and one of the things that you want to do is to be able to experience things with your cohort learn with them grow with them. That kind of thing and so I always tell people if only come to the program when the time is right, and when you have the appropriate level of support now we understand like sometimes.
Your CEO is like Nizam, you need to go here now right and we we can work with you on an exceptional case right. But if it's a this week. I have to do it every time we have an in person. You have to leave it might not be the right time for you.
Vivien Francis
07:26:16 PM
Thank you for your time everyone!
Alright. Well, this has been great. I really enjoyed you guys questions. I as I as I did earlier. I'll put my email back up. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn where this is just a beginning. This initial web and R and a series of webinars. We cover a lot of different topics in the future. We can go more in depth and action learning. We also have webinars related specifically to the admissions process and so we look forward to hearing from you and continue to engage with you guys alright.