Part Time MBA

After coming to Hong Kong in 2015 for family reasons, I chose to do an MBA when I reached a stage of my career where I felt like I had maxed out on job learning opportunities. With the support of my boss and former company, I started investigating options and found that The University of Hong Kong’s programme was the most compelling offering.

Having spent my entire career in the global liquor industry, I was attracted to the MBA programme at HKU because it offered me international exposure, both through the curriculum and the class cohort. If I had to sum up the coursework in two words, I would say it is both “diverse” and “contemporary.” The courses constantly evolve and stay relevant to market changes or new developments in the industry. For example, in response to the FinTech boom in recent years, HKU Business School introduced a FinTech course to give students exposure to a new, strategic industry in the city.

As an HKU MBA graduate, I feel I really developed my strategic thinking. By going through different corporate case studies and working closely with talented classmates on group projects, I honed my negotiation and teamwork skills in order to make decisions more efficiently.

Towards the end of my degree, I was headhunted to join a new company as a Sales Director for Asia. When I was going through the interview process, my hiring manager was impressed by the fact I was doing a part-time MBA while working full time. For him, it wasn’t so much the coursework and skills I was learning, but the fact I could balance the workload with having two kids (I’m up to three now!) and a demanding job, which demonstrated that I had a good work ethic.

To that end, I really did appreciate the programme’s flexibility. I was allowed to take a few EMBA electives, which were eye-opening, intensive courses in management that also helped me speed up the time it took to complete the degree.

I preferred to reserve the weekend for family, so I chose to take courses during weekdays. I would work during the day, attend lectures in the evenings, and take part in group meetings at night. I learned to be smarter with my time – I would prepare study materials for my daily commute to the office instead of wasting time on things like social media.

Even though the workload was challenging, the overall experience was very rewarding and my classmates and professors motivated me to do better. Since finishing my degree I’ve been promoted to a General Manager position at Accolade Wines and feel the hard work and effort really did pay off in my career.

Industry: Wine & Spirits
Company: Accolade Wines
Job Title: General Manager – North East Asia