Student Experience, Action Learning, MBA – Page 4

On August 23, ASB commenced its Immersion Week for the Full-Time MBA and MBA for Working Professionals programs. Designed as an intensive week of “drinking from the firehose”, Immersion Week is aimed at getting students acquainted with the life and culture at ASB, academically and beyond. ASB Dean and CEO Prof. Charles Fine and Co-Chair of ASB’s Board of Governors and former Malaysian central bank governor Dr. Zeti Azhar Aziz kicked off the week with their opening notes.

In her opening note, Dr. Zeti shared her inspiring vision for the school and the history behind Bank Negara Malaysia’s decision to partner with MIT Sloan to bring global management education to the country. Meanwhile, Prof. Fine encouraged the students to think about their journey as the start of an exciting quest for what ASB is calling the “MBA 4.0” – an action-oriented MBA, set in Asia, adaptive to pandemic challenges and rapid digitalization, and in collaboration with MIT Sloan.

During the week, ASB Senior Associate Dean and Faculty Director of Action Learning Prof. Loredana Padurean also gave the students a crash course in ASB’s action-oriented learning approach, emphasizing that “ASB is here to create transformative and principled leaders – that’s clear from Day One!”

The rest of the week covered important introductions to topics including the Smart X Sharp skills we aim to inculcate in ASB students, the curriculum, career development services, coaching and counselling services, and more.

The action-packed week led students to describe Immersion with words like “enlightening” “intense” “rollercoaster” “refreshing” and “unconventional” when they were polled on their Immersion experience. While the road ahead may seem daunting for many of the incoming students, “It’s always the darkest before the dawn,” as Senior Associate Dean Dr. Sean O. Ferguson reminded them during a career development session. “And we are here to help you connect the dots!” he added.

The week wrapped up with an exciting and emotional team-building session that combined role-playing and theatre, that culminated in an unexpectedly heart-warming ending and received rave reviews and feedback from students. In a year where rapid change and digitalization continues to be the norm, learning to adapt and thrive in uncertainty is a more valuable skill than ever.

And for the Class of 2023, their ASB MBA will be the perfect training ground to hone their skills, promising to be a transformative experience that will equip them to be Smart and Sharp future-ready leaders!

Applications to business schools in Asia are on the rise, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council’s (GMAC) Application Trends Survey. And if you’re one of the candidates who’s committed to going to business school in the East, then you’ll want to know the best way to approach your MBA application and choose the right school. From your career goals to networking ahead of time, here are the MBA admission tips you need to consider when choosing the right business school in Asia.

1. Choose a location that aligns with your career goals

Marie-Reine Seshie, an alumna from Asia School of Business (ASB), worked in Ghana’s finance and banking sector for more than five years before deciding to study an MBA. She joined an MBA in Malaysia because she believed she could learn a lot about business from studying at the heart of the accelerating South East Asia (SEA) region. “I could really learn from SEA, especially what it’s doing to grow so fast, and come back home to implement these learnings in my future career,” says Marie-Reine.

SEA is renowned for its technological expertise, with Malaysia’s digital economy set to contribute 20% to gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of 2021. The opportunity to gain exposure to a rapidly developing economy excited Marie-Reine, cementing her decision to join the ASB MBA.

2. Be proactive in reaching out to business schools in Asia

When considering studying for an MBA in a different country, it can be difficult to get a feel for the environment when you can’t visit the campus. That’s why you’ll need to thoroughly research the school, as well as be proactive in reaching out to admissions staff and alumni.

After initially hearing about Asia School of Business from a friend in Ghana, Marie-Reine began looking into ASB’s partnership with MIT Sloan School of Management. Visiting MIT Sloan faculty teach many courses at ASB, and there’s even the opportunity to study at MIT for one month during the program.

“When I read about the ASB and MIT collaboration, it was a no-brainer for me,” she reports. Deciding to look beyond online information, however, she reached out to the admissions team, and even had the chance to virtually interact with ASB students. “That gave me more ideas of what kinds of people I’d be meeting and interacting with and the kind of culture to expect,” she says.

3. Choose an MBA that’ll teach you to think globally

If you’re unsure about where you’d like to build your career after going to business school, then you should consider choosing a program with strong global links. One of the main reasons that Marie-Reine chose the ASB MBA was for its Action Learning path—an immersive component of the program where students work with ASB’s host companies on multiple projects.

“I‘d struggled to find an MBA program that fit my personality because I knew I wouldn’t thrive sitting in class nine to five,” admits Marie-Reine. Action Learning provided her with the perfect opportunity to explore new fields and geographies and gain relevant skills to transition from banking and finance to a new career path.

She worked in operations at AirAsia in Malaysia, advised the marketing department at Johnson and Johnson in Bangkok, Thailand, and supported a social enterprise in Chiang Mai, Thailand. This diverse exposure provided her with a unique edge, she says, equipping her with ‘smart’ skills like the ability to understand multiple perspectives and ‘sharp’ skills such as the capability to advise on strategic direction and interpret data.

Marie-Reine has since leveraged her experiences to launch a career in tech. After graduating from ASB, she joined Supplied!, a Californian-based startup that provides a wholesale platform for small businesses and brands.

She’s the head of marketing in the Ghana department but has also worked in Canada. On track for a truly global career, she works with colleagues across the world in places like the US, Romania, the Philippines, and China to drive value for Supplied! and its customers. “The diversity and versatility of action learning is what I needed to succeed in the world of business, especially in a startup,” she says.

4. Be prepared to go out of your comfort zone

Choosing to study an MBA will naturally push you out of your comfort zone. Intense academic rigor, constant networking opportunities, and career planning don’t come easy. Then there’s the challenge if you’re an international student of adapting to a new country and culture. For ASB graduate Marie-Reine, the process of moving from Ghana to Malaysia came quite naturally.

“The entire school, including current students, were so supportive and made it super easy,” she notes. You’ll also need to research visa requirements and plan ahead to avoid any delays, Marie-Reine advises. She reached out to the admissions team when applying for a visa, which she believes was a straightforward process. “The admissions team was there every step of the way to provide guidance and support,” she says.

With the experience of moving to a new country for an MBA under her belt, Marie-Reine felt equipped to transition to a new career at a multinational startup upon graduating. She credits the global nature of the ASB MBA with providing her with the confidence to make her career jump and succeed in her new marketing role in tech.

Read the full article here.
This article was originally published on BusinessBecause, a network helping MBA students make connections before, during and after their MBA.

In the pursuit of saving lives, livelihoods sometimes get compromised. As the Covid-19 pandemic extended into the first half of 2021, unemployment in Malaysia rose to 4.5%. For some who lost their source of income, it was an unsurmountable challenge to say:

“I need help.”

To lower the barrier for people to signal distress, a grassroots movement sprung up on June 28. Named the #benderaputih movement, which means “white flag” in the Malay language, anyone who needed immediate help can signal to the public by displaying a white flag.

The movement quickly caught on and spread through social media. Within a few days, dozens of #benderaputih Facebook groups emerged to connect those who needed help and who offered help. However, as a general social media platform, Facebook was limited in its ability to optimally connect the needy with aid.

A group of software engineers thought they could make it better. With the intention to connect scarce resources more effectively, Kita Jaga Malaysia, which translates to “We take care of Malaysia”, was born as the decentralized peer-to-peer charity platform to power this movement.

On the platform, anyone needing help could pin their location to receive the needed aid, and anyone providing help could likewise pin their location and contact details. Kita Jaga Malaysia was well received. Within the first month, 1.5 million unique visitors visited the platform, and 90,000 white flags were raised.

Two months after the platform was founded, the website continued to receive 2,800 flags per day. Kita Jaga Malaysia has become the go-to site for many people to receive immediate relief.

As MBA students taking a course on Platforms, Auctions and Competition taught by Prof. Melati Nungsari, Assistant Professor of Economics at Asia School of Business, we had the opportunity to listen to Reza Razali, founder and CEO of an app development house and the custodian of Kita Jaga Malaysia, share his journey in founding the platform.

Here was my glimpse of the key lessons learnt by the Kita Jaga Malaysia team that can be beneficial to anyone working with platforms, whether for social movements or commercial purposes:

1. Seek feedback from a diverse audience early and frequently.

In the Kita Jaga Malaysia case, the feedback happened daily, right from the start, with an audience of 15,000. Reza had a Telegram group of 15,000 members, from whom the team sought feedback and gauge reactions.

“The team communicates with the members daily – what features they want, and what features to take down. That has been very beneficial for us. We are able to get feedback in a very timely fashion.” At only two months old now, the team continued its focus on engaging diverse communities.

“We actively scour various platforms for feedback from those who need help and those who give help. Each platform has their own audience – Tik Tok users are mostly young digital natives, Facebook has civil societies serving the underprivileged, Instagram is for direct user-to-user communication. We have to communicate differently on each platform.”

2. It’s a continuous journey to discover what your users’ needs are, and how to fulfil them well.

“When Kita Jaga Malaysia first started, we wanted to see if there were people with food surplus to offer to people nearby who need it,” Reza recalled. Quickly, the team realized pressing needs went beyond just rice and oil.

There were also legitimate needs for formula milk and diapers for the babies and infants, for money to pay for rents, utility bills and school fees. People also needed jobs. “I was surprised to see one third of the flags were raised to ask for formula milk and baby diapers.”

Kita Jaga Malaysia realized it needed to figure out how to effectively fulfil the diverse needs, while preserving the simplicity and security of the website. “At the beginning, we focused on optimizing the platform to handle the large volume. Now we need to figure out how to fulfil diverse needs, especially the financial needs because it can be tricky,” said Reza.

3. The future of Kita Jaga Malaysia is DAO.

DAO stands for decentralized autonomous organization. It is an innovation in organization design, where an organization is run by computerized rules and contracts rather than humans. DAO has been seen in cryptocurrency projects such as bitcoins and Ethereum.

In DAO, governance tokens will be distributed to organization members. The holders of these governance tokens, not the founders, will collectively make decisions on changes and improvements in the organization.

Reza aspired to turn Kita Jaga Malaysia into a DAO, so the organization can sustain itself and continue to serve even beyond the pandemic. “If you haven’t been exposed to DAO, it’s something you might want to read up more on.”

Conclusion

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused some households to sink into poverty and created concerning social issues. The Kita Jaga Malaysia team was innovative to leverage their past experience in software development and the latest innovations available to alleviate the problem.

As the saying goes: “Necessity is the mother of all invention.”

The world is never short of problems that need to be solved. While some of the future problems will continue to be unprecedented, we can perhaps seek solace in our collective expertise and latest technology to develop new solutions, just like what Kita Jaga Malaysia has done to take care of the needy in Malaysia.

PETALING JAYA: Providing cash prizes through lucky draws may be one way to get more people to sign up for Covid-19 shots, a local study shows. Conducted by the Asean Research Center at the Asia School of Business, the survey was done among 1,307 adults across the country. It indicated that 80% of the respondents who had yet to register for the vaccine would do so if there was a chance to win a cash prize.

Another experiment with the respondents showed that the punishment of forcing people to pay for PCR Covid-19 tests every two weeks was more effective at promoting vaccinations compared to the incentive of being enrolled in a lucky draw offering a large cash prize of RM1 million.

The researchers said that although the study was not representative of the entire population, it suggested that providing the chance for people to win cash prizes through a lucky draw was an effective way of increasing the inoculation rates. Citing health ministry data, the researchers said that when the easing of travel restrictions for the fully vaccinated was announced last month, registration rates increased by 10% as of today.

This indicated that offering carrots works although “the stick could be even more effective”, they said. Among the incentives offered to the fully vaccinated include allowances to dine-in and a lifting of the 10km radius for inter-district travel.

Noting that cases are still at a record high following the emergence of the Delta variant, the researchers said that in order for Malaysia to move to Phase 4 of the national recovery plan and arrest the surge in cases by the end of the year, the individual states could resort to a more demanding approach to ramp up their vaccination take-up rate.

“It is important to note that we are still not sure whether cash incentives can still work with those who are extremely anti-vaccine,” said Melati Nungsari, from the Asean Research Center. “We also did not focus on increasing access to vaccines for vulnerable groups such as undocumented persons. However, these are empirical questions which we may be able to answer in the future.

“Based on this study, we hope to be able to work closely with policymakers to help design, implement and measure interventions to help increase the vaccination take-up rate in this country,” said Melati.

Read the full article here.
This article was originally published on FMT Malaysia Prihatin

There has been a lot of discussion about the pandemic and the externalities it has caused. One of these results is the exponential growth of digital adoption and its impact on e-commerce. For context, 36% or 1 in 3 digital consumers in Southeast Asia (SEA) are new to e-commerce platforms, a statistic especially true in the FoodPanda’s case.

As MBA students taking the Platform Strategy course taught by Prof. Melati Nungsari, Assistant Professor of Economics at ASB, we had the opportunity to listen to the Sayantan Das, Managing Director (Malaysia & Brunei), for FoodPanda, share about FoodPanda’s culture and plans to understand what makes them unique and successful, as part of a guest lecture during the course. Read on for some takeaways during this talk:

The importance of customer onboarding and customer insights

One of the reasons FoodPanda has so many new users is because the platform is reaching new regions where they were not present before and where they are often the only player in the market. What are the implications of this? Many. For example, it requires thinking about how to position a brand which many people have not heard of and do not associate with food delivery.

In non-metro areas, many of the customers are non-digital natives, so the expansion of the company begins with the education of the users. FoodPanda is closing the entire cycle, working on simplifying the user experience, and keeping people engaged by interacting with their daily lives, whether it’s ordering food, shopping or simplifying payments, for example. With these complete strategies, “59% of our new customers have come from non-metro areas, said Sayantan.

Also, customers are the center of FoodPanda’s development, so the company constantly evaluates how the experience with the platform went, and the team aims to measure how helpful the service was. This company is creating meaningful experiences, iterating to drive stickiness of the product, and constantly trying to ensure that customers are actually getting the most of every interaction.

For everyone time is important, but for FoodPanda, it’s the core

Another effect of the global pandemic and how it restricted people’s movement is the increase of the hours spent online per day. According to Sayantan, in Malaysia, an average user spent 3.7 hours per day on digital platforms before the pandemic; however, with the new reality, they are spending 4.8 hours on average. For FoodPanda, customers’ time is an invaluable currency, and they really appreciate their users’ attention.

This is why they regularly analyze which screens the customers are browsing in the app and how in general, customers are spending time on the platform. This data-driven approach allows them to focus on developing the best solution to save the user’s time. This delivery company is working hard to make the best use of time as a currency, while simultaneously keeping customers engaged.

What makes FoodPanda unique and allows them to grow fast?

Eating is an activity that we do, more or less, around 120 times per month, assuming we eat an average of four times a day. Knowing this, FoodPanda didn’t want to be only a prepared food delivery platform, but the “Go-to” APP when it comes to food delivery and quick commerce. By using the logistics fleet they have built over the years focused on food aggregation, from prepared food to groceries.

The expansion also implied a market testing strategy in which FoodPanda launched in cities with extreme numbers of inhabitants (including cities with a population of less than 2,000 and cities with more than 50,000), to evaluate how these markets perform with the same services portfolio. The learnings? In terms of the expected order volumes, both groups performed as expected.

However, it’s important to highlight that in the smaller cities, FoodPanda became a source of entertainment. This happened because they don’t have many of the entertainment sources that we usually associate with fun in a big city. This new platform empowered the inhabitants to be part of something bigger, and made them feel included in this whole technology movement.

With all the insights learned after the market testing strategy mentioned above, the trend and results obtained, FoodPanda decided to execute its operation in all the cities with population sizes between the range they tested with, regardless of the population size or the type of inhabitants there. After launching with this disruptive market strategy, FoodPanda conducted further studies to understand its users in detail.

They learned that in metro cities, users are looking for convenience and value, which means productivity (“less time spent on going out and driving -> finding parking -> getting groceries -> looking for the food…” However, in non-metro cities, the benefit for the user is in the access to products and services. In Sayantan’s words, FoodPanda “is in the business of making your time worthwhile, in the business of delivering time.” In short, life is precious, so make it count!

Conventionally, an MBA is the pinnacle of business education achievement. In recent years, however, a segment of MBA holders – particularly those with a passion for research – have opted to pursue a PhD in related fields as well.

One such determined individual is Andrew Foley, Asia School of Business MBA Class of 2018 alumni. Recipient of the MIT Sloan Dean’s award for academic excellence during his time at ASB, Andrew is currently a PhD student at the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, pursuing a doctorate in Management.

Before that, however, Andrew obtained an MBA from Asia School of Business and was a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology while completing his MBA. Recently, Andrew was named a “Leader of Tomorrow” for life at the St. Gallen Symposium in Switzerland.

We spoke to Andrew about his unique trajectory of pursuing a PhD after acquiring an MBA, how ASB supported him in making it a reality, and what he thinks others should know before following in his footsteps.

ASB: At what point did you decide to take both an MBA and a PhD?

Andrew: It was a little bit unique for me because I knew I wanted to do a PhD even before I applied to the MBA. Generally, the MBA isn’t the “typical” route to a PhD

In my case, I had several conversations with Charlie (Charles H. Fine, Founding CEO, President & Dean of ASB), and I told him that I wanted to do a PhD in Economics, and I was also applying to other research-based Master’s programs. Charlie said, “Look, if you come to ASB, not only will you get an MBA and be part of the founding class – but we’ll put you on some research projects.” This was a key factor in getting me on board at ASB.

What convinced you to join this (then) unknown B-school instead of a more established institute?

I think for most people wanting to do a PhD, there are a few things to consider. Your academic performance needs to be very good, of course, but even more important than that is having a good relationship with faculty members. With ASB, it became obvious that I would have opportunities for a lot of face-time with MIT and ASB faculty. The relationship-building factor became an important one for me.

Another crucial point is that usually, an MBA would prepare you for everything – except research. So when the founding Deans, Charlie and Loredana (Padurean, Associate Dean and Action Learning Faculty Director at ASB; MIT International Faculty Fellow), told me I would be working on research projects with them, it was a huge advantage for me. I was able to gain research experience before even starting my PhD.

Even though an MBA doesn’t give you in-depth research skills, you DO spend two years thinking about things from an executive’s perspective and learning how an organization fits together. So even if you don’t have technical or research skills, you can walk into a company and notice why things are done in a certain way.

The MBA teaches you a lot about how to understand the people you’re going to be studying. These points – getting a business perspective, research exposure, and access to MIT faculty – were, to me, worth their weight in gold.

Would it be safe to say that someone following a similar path should prioritize developing research skills?

Yes, definitely. I think if you want to do a PhD right after an MBA, as soon as you figure out you want to do that, you need to get research experience – something that shows a deep commitment to it, like doing a full-time research fellowship. In all of my PhD interviews, the majority of the conversations centered on my research experience.

Around the time that I graduated from ASB and was (fortunately) getting a few PhD offers, many of my friends who were doing MBAs at schools like Stanford, Wharton, and Columbia did not get any, likely because they didn’t have research experience. What might be a good tip for anyone looking to follow this path is that you must be able to articulate what your research interests are.

So, saying that you’re interested in entrepreneurship is one thing. But, being able to articulate that you’re interested in a particular aspect of how industries form when major corporations enter developing markets shows that you’ve already been thinking deeply about the problem.

When I initially started talking to Charlie and Loredana about conducting research at MIT or Harvard in my first semester, for example, they’d ask me “What are your interests, and what do you want to learn?” I knew they were willing to help me, but I often struggled to be clear about what kind of work would be most beneficial to me.

So I tried to dig into my interests – mainly by reading management journals – and started to think more carefully about the questions I wanted to pursue. After doing this, I was able to share with them a sharper research statement; then they – and other mentors – started making comments like “Ok, great. Here’s this person to talk to, and here’s that person”. Very soon, I got a research job at MIT through one of these introductions.

How did the MBA help in your PhD work? What advantages did this bring?

One of the good things about the MBA was the intense Monday to Friday class schedule; you get used to working very hard and managing your time really well. In some ways, this intense MBA training may even give graduates an edge over other, more “typical” PhD candidates. In my case, I’ve tried to bring this rigor to my research: most PhD students present their papers at conferences at the end of their 3rd or 4th year; but, I’ve been fortunate enough to present every year so far.

I think the stamina you get from an MBA (especially one like ASB’s) really helps me to propel projects forward. The other advantage is the executive perspective. If you complete an MBA before becoming a business academic, you really get an “executive perspective” that will help you pursue meaningful research in organizations.

In my current projects, whenever we get a data set with some paradoxical results, I tend to be quick in identifying why disconnects might be happening between executive decisions and organizational outcomes. Maybe there are warring coalitions within the organization, for example, and that’s having an impact on performance.

Or, maybe we have a case where the executives act less as “managers” and more as “figureheads”. We could then test empirically – like, is there a bigger impact of rhetoric on the organization than there is of decision making? From there, we can find out what decisions to focus on, which is huge.

Any last bits of advice for anyone driven enough to do both an MBA and a PhD?

Well, what you learn in an MBA is so different from what you have to do as a PhD student. With an MBA, it’s all very practical and you’re meant to implement it right away, and so the keywords are speed and implementation. You learn a set of theories and frameworks, and then you’re evaluated on how well you apply it.

The idea is that you will become a leader who can make quick, effective decisions and drive organizational performance. Research, on the other hand, is a long process; it’s also theoretical and not necessarily practical (at least in the near term). And, of course, the outcome is that you’ll publish in a journal – you’ll spend perhaps five years just trying to say something that will be published. So, it does involve a different set of skills.

What I would tell anyone who intends to pursue this route is to do research early on and then when you finally get into the PhD, be very open-minded and listen to other people who have more research background. Listen to how they ask questions, how they engage with literature, and how they approach the material.

As companies and the financial world moves towards becoming more responsible and transparent to their members and stakeholders than ever before, a rise in sustainable finance initiatives can be seen. What does the future hold and what kind of career opportunities lie in this space? This article explores these questions.

Everybody has been talking about sustainability. Left and right, companies are announcing their commitment to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. While transitioning businesses to sustainable practices entail heavy investment, investors see these financing requirements as a new opportunity to generate more return.

According to BloombergNEF, the global sustainable debt market exceeds USD 730 billion in 2020, despite the pandemic, and has a 61% compounded annual growth rate for the past eight years. This showcases that there is an increasing demand to finance corporate sustainability initiatives. With such demand and growth, is sustainable finance an emerging industry MBA students should consider entering?

To shed more light on sustainability and sustainable finance, the Career Development Office at Asia School of Business (ASB) recently hosted a panel session inviting Keith Lee, Senior Analyst of CICERO Shades of Green, and Yuni Choi, Director of Investments of RS Group, as panelists to share about their experiences on sustainable finance with Gloria He from the MBA Class of 2022 as the moderator.

What is sustainability?

Before jumping into sustainable finance, let’s understand what ‘sustainability’ is? Sustainability or sustainable business ensures our actions stay within the planetary boundaries and a fairer distribution of wealth. At the same time, sustainability is a term people hear in conjunction with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) issues in businesses.

During the webinar, Keith Lee focused and elaborated on the environmental issues. Most familiar to our ears is climate change, but he emphasized that there are other environmental issues. Including climate change, he highlighted nine planetary boundaries (from ocean acidification to land-system change, among others) proposed in 2009 by research scientist led by Johan Rockström that defines the Earth’s limit and how it can be “a safe operating space for humanity.”

Next, Yuni Choi zoomed in on the social aspect of sustainability, where she shared that we are experiencing a lot of inequality which causes uncertainties and volatilities. Alongside the environment, sustainability must also take into account a fairer distribution of wealth. A good example is that senior citizens can access basic goods and services in the community. There is a lot to understand about sustainability, but as the experts describe it, sustainability is simply doing good for the environment and people around us.

Diving into sustainable finance

These ESG issues create risks that are increasingly recognized as material to businesses. Therefore, it opens opportunities to financial managers lending to and investing in these businesses. Keith illustrated this in terms of the automobile industry, where he asked, “Would you invest in a car company that has no plans to produce electric vehicles?”

Producing a petrol-based vehicle that contributes to high levels of CO2 emissions and creates a risk to the environment opens an opportunity for investment in electrification. Keith simplified this scenario as transition risk arising from global efforts to address climate change, resulting in changes in regulation, technologies, and market conditions.

Yuni was positive about the increasing inflow of assets under management (AUM) in sustainable finance. However, the funded assets are still in the ‘light shades of green’, where most of the assets are on an exclusionary approach, such as funding companies that transition out from the tobacco industry instead of an inclusionary approach, such as a company entering the electric vehicle industries.

She believes there will be more robust ESG activity and greater focus on promoting companies with better ESG performance. She summarized it as impact investing, which means investing intentionally to create a positive social and environmental impact.

Yuni shared that we are still well below USD 1 trillion of investment. However, based on the latest data where investment stands at around USD 730 million, shows that there have been a ton of growth in this area of finance. A great example of ones of these funds is SJF Ventures III, where the fund has achieved tangible impact in six themes: clean energy, circular economy, health, education, workforce, and food.

As Keith shared, in layman’s terms, sustainable finance is “investments that are trying to do less harm, while mitigating environmental risk” and is aimed, as Yuni expressed, “towards investments with more positive impact.”

Does going sustainable mean less return?

Yuni has encountered the question of responsibility and return a million times and believes there is no trade-off between the two. There are two ways to look at it. First, investors are getting savvy and looking at an investment long-term and considering ESG issues. Financial models consider the impacts of issues such as the diversity of the board of directors, the carbon emissions of companies, and so on, in each business.

For example, a company who is polluting the environment may in the future, be regulated and pay a carbon price, deteriorating its profitability and affecting its long-term value. Second, established private equity firms and asset management are joining the bandwagon. Last year, BlackRock, a globally renowned investment manager, jumped into impact investing and is now a leader in the field.

Sustainability doesn’t degrade future returns because investments are supported with a logical point of view in investing, and established institutions are also paying more serious attention to impact investing.

Sustainability vs Greenwashing

Keith shed light on ‘greenwashing,’ defining it as “claims about sustainability that are blatantly not true”, which can be willful or through ignorance. Given the growing attention to sustainability, there is a temptation to slap ‘eco’ or ‘green’ in front of everything. Regulators, investors, and banks are now expecting practices and strategies to become sustainable, increasing the pressure for companies to represent themselves (accurately or not) as sustainable.

Keith emphasized that we have to make sure that the companies’ claims are meaningful from a scientific perspective. A great example is achieving the Paris Agreement goal to limit climate warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100. Companies were under pressure to contribute towards this “1.5 degrees” and started announcing that they will achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

But we can assess the company by asking, is the target meaningful? Have they set interim plans – for example, targets in 2030? How serious are they in achieving these targets? Are the performance measures linked to the remuneration of senior executives?

With a multilayer requirement around sustainability, companies may ‘greenwash’ sustainability claims, but for those in the field, we can equip ourselves with scientific facts and scrutinize the company’s strategies and plans, holding them accountable to serious actions to achieve those targets while reducing greenwashing.

What are the opportunities in sustainability?

Yuni shares that there are three types of organizations. First, there are the asset managers like private equities and venture capitals. Second are asset owners like family offices, foundations, and pension funds. Lastly, there are the service providers like the Big Four, ESG analytics, and the like.

In terms of roles, she sees two types of roles. One is an investment-related role, and the other is an impact measurement role – supporting the investment team. As the industry is booming, securing opportunities lies in building a network, putting yourself out there, and researching sustainable finance.

Keith highlighted interdisciplinary knowledge, as you need to understand finance and economics and how those link to environmental and social concepts. He also emphasized sharp skills such as machine learning and artificial intelligence because the industry lacks data to support analysis and institutions are looking for alternative data sources and analyzing unstructured information.

Final takeaways

As of writing this takeaway article, I am currently on the journey to sustainable finance, working as a summer associate in sustainability at a major commercial bank. My understanding of sustainability at the beginning of my journey was simply that sustainability is all about “reuse, reduce and recycle”, and supporting less plastic waste.

My perspective has since expanded. I’ve seen interrelated technical information on different industries’ impact on ESG, which eventually affects the bank’s overall profitability. Step-by-step, as sustainability leaders emerge and more regulators support sustainability, sustainability will become an integral part of doing business and our day-to-day living.

Latisha Udani (ASB Class of ’19 alumni) is a Customer Success Account Manager at Microsoft. In her current role, she is able to combine her passion for serving customers with the problem-solving skills she gained in her prior experience in the oil & gas (O&G) industry and during her ASB MBA.

Before landing her ideal job with one of Malaysia’s Top 3 Graduate Employers of 2020, it took a journey of self-discovery and reflection, many intense rounds of interviews during the job hunt, and even being made redundant in a prior role.

In a recent chat with Latisha, she spoke candidly about how she navigated these challenges and successfully landed an internal transfer within Microsoft into her current position, in the midst of the pandemic.

How did you decide that you wanted to pivot from oil and gas (O&G) into big tech?

I guess you can say I was the typical MBA student – I wanted a change of industry, but didn’t know what exactly I wanted to do next. I was interested in tech from the start, but it was more because it seemed like that was where the world is headed – towards greater digitalization, rather than any specific reason and interest.

Aside from tech, I considered many other industries as well just to see what would be the best fit. A big part of the reason I ended up applying to Microsoft is because I had such a great experience interning with them as part of my Summer Action Learning Project (SAP) at ASB.

Tell us more about how you landed the role in Microsoft.

My first exposure to working at Microsoft began with the summer internship as part of one of my ASB Action Learning projects. I must say that even in the application and interview process I realized that Microsoft’s recruiting team was very familiar with the concept of Action Learning.

ASB’s Action Learning team did a really good job communicating the structure and vision of Action Learning, which is to narrow down a large problem into smaller, scoped down problems that can be solved within a compressed timeframe.

In the first meeting I had with my manager during my internship, I was already being briefed on the broad problem they wanted to solve. I was tasked to drill down and scope it down, and was given a lot of freedom to do so – I practically defined my own Action Learning project.

I was also given the liberty to work with other parts of the organization to collect data quite independently, and when I delivered my final presentation, it was pretty well received. (In fact, when I returned to a full-time role after graduating, many people remembered me thanks to that presentation, including our Country General Manager.) I believe having a prior relationship with the team at Microsoft, thanks to my internship, also helped me land the full-time role at Microsoft.

What was the interview process like, and any tips for interviewing?

The interviews for the full-time role, post-MBA, at Microsoft was primarily focused on behavioral questions. I was able to talk about how my Action Learning experiences equipped me with a lot of transferrable skills.

This included sharpening my communication skills, learning to speak with brevity and make my points very clear, and to work in diverse teams. Beyond the interview with Microsoft, as I was considering all my options, I went through at least 70 interviews (including multiple rounds of interviews with the same employers).

What I found fascinating is that for most of these interviewers, they were most interested to learn about my Action Learning experience. They tend to ask me questions like, “You’ve had all these diverse experiences – what have you learned and what’s the common thread that holds all of them together?”

My response was that beyond experiencing working in diverse teams, on diverse projects – Action Learning gives you the opportunity to hone what ASB calls Smart and Sharp skills – that are highly applicable to any industry as well as different customers with different needs.

Were there any major cultural shocks of pivoting from O&G to big tech?

Yes and no. Many skills from my past experiences were transferrable. For instance, O&G engineers are very technically sound but don’t always have the right skills to explain things to the customer. In my previous roles, I had to act as a translator to the customers.

This is very similar in tech – on one hand, you must spend time upskilling yourself and understanding the technical terminology and how does it feed into the overall solution. But in my day-to-day role, part of what I do is being an interpreter for our customers to help them navigate issues they are having with Microsoft’s products.

That said, it does take time to get to that point of enough knowledge to have an intelligent, sophisticated business conversation. Perhaps one of the big culture shocks for me was that at Microsoft, a tech company, everything is self-served, and you need to get good, quickly, at searching for resources, information, and training materials.

There isn’t always someone you can go to for information, unlike in more traditional industries where you’re more used to just walking over to a colleague’s cubicle and asking them a question. At Microsoft, vast amounts of resources and information are all stored in self-service platforms. You just need a bit of savviness in looking things up.

Was it difficult to adapt to shifts in work approaches during Covid-19?

There’s definitely a big benefit of working in a tech company during this pandemic. It was really easy to pivot to working completely from home. Even before the pandemic, my team and I weren’t in the office every day. We work very flexibly, but we have the same level of interactions and conversations as if we were physically in the same place.

Microsoft really does trust and empower its people, not just with the flexibility to work from anywhere. They also support us by giving us the hardware we need to work from home comfortably. I saw so many other people from struggling to adjust because their companies would not or could not support them with the right tools to continue to maintain their productivity and effectiveness at home.

That said, there were some challenges with working completely from home. There were many days I would just have back to back calls, and not take any breaks. Before I knew it, I’d realize I had been sitting at my computer the entire day. For me at least, at the earlier stages of the pandemic, there was a psychological need to work continuous long hours to prove to colleagues you are doing work.

This was even in spite of the fact that at Microsoft, our leaders are always encouraging us to take breaks and downtime to decompress. I’ve since gotten better at saying things like, “Can this conversation wait till tomorrow?”, “I need to send my daughter to school” or “I need to have my lunch break.”

You mentioned that midway through the pandemic, your role was made redundant. How did it feel to go through this in the middle of a pandemic, and how did you respond?

Being in a fast-moving industry, it’s quite common for the organization to restructure on a regular basis. In the process, some roles get removed, not because the people were not performing in those roles, but simply because business priorities or market needs have shifted. One of the impacts of the pandemic is that the business was growing much faster in other areas and outpacing the area I was in.

Microsoft was very supportive in helping me transition out of the role, giving me supported time off before my last day to look for another role. Individuals in the organization were very supportive – many shared similar experiences where they had gone through the same thing, and were now in different roles in the organization.

I was also supported by a career coach to help me look for my next step. I was still hoping to land another role at Microsoft so I could transfer internally, rather than leaving the company. The opportunity came up to apply for another open role, and many of my colleagues were very supportive of my efforts.

For example, the recruiter handling my application accelerated the whole process for me as she wanted to personally ensure that I landed on my feet despite working on a very short time runway. I had our HR director calling me close to midnight, to make sure they had everything they needed for me to get transferred to my new role before my last day, so I wouldn’t have to leave and rejoin the company all over again as a new hire.

In the end, even though I ‘lost’ my previous role, I was able to seamlessly move to my next role in Microsoft without being unemployed, thanks to all the wonderful people I was surrounded with who are as invested in the success of others as they would be for their own.

What tips would you give to others who might be in similar positions to you?

You need to harness all the street smarts, initiative, persistence, and networking skills you possess to move past an unexpected bump in your ambitions. One thing that really helped me was talking to others who went through the same process of having to leave their current roles and look for new roles internally in a short span of time. It helped me feel less hesitant about talking to different people and asking them about potential opportunities.

What do you do in your current role, and how is it different from previous roles?

I’m enjoying my new role even more than I did my previous role! I’ve since moved to the customer success side of the business versus sales. My goals today are focused on driving adoption of the tech that our customers have already invested in. I feel that this is more aligned with my personality, and my interest in helping our customers succeed with their digital priorities over the long term.

Industry-wide, I’ve also noticed there has been a marked uptick in demand from tech employers for customer success roles. With the market shifting to subscription-based offerings and savvier corporate customers expecting tech to be solutions that are tailored to their exact needs, it is even more imperative to understand how and why customers engage with our products and provide them with a seamless usage experience to ensure they realize the full value of their digital investment and want to stay with us.

What advice would you give to ASB students about to graduate and begin their job hunt?

Don’t be afraid to put up your hand and ask for help. Help often comes from the most unexpected of places. When people know you are looking for help, they are going to remember you and you’ll be top of mind just because you reached out and asked. Especially during these unusual times, it’s not the end of the world if you get retrenched. Many people are in the same boat.

Take time to reflect, work on your resume, think about what previous experiences you’ve had and skills you have that would be transferrable to the next role. Try to talk to as many people as you can and don’t be embarrassed to ask for help.

For those specifically interested in the tech sector, I would encourage you to apply for roles even if you don’t have tech background. The beauty of the industry is that it is looking for smart, critical thinkers with a fresh perspective. More so than I initially thought, a healthy chunk of the technological skills can be learnt on the job – I had zero background in tech before I joined Microsoft.

There are ample training resources provided to support your upskilling. The most important factors are your adaptability, capacity to respond to change well (as the tech industry moves fast), openness to learning new things, and ability to work well with people, all of which we are well-trained for at ASB, thanks to Action Learning.

In 2020, the discovery of the novel coronavirus sparked a ripple effect that brought the world to its knees. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted every economic sector across the globe, leaving no area of the world unscathed. Still, even amid a complete upheaval of our lives, the show must go on. As many of us hunkered down inside our homes, business leaders scrambled to navigate the unpredictable terrain.

Professionals around the world experienced accelerated digital transformation that challenged the reliance on the physical workplace. More than a year has passed, and many countries have begun their journey towards recovery. Yet as we begin the gradual return to normalcy, the questions that are top of mind for many are: What will ‘normal’ look like?

Will the great COVID-19-induced experiment on remote work usher in a new era of workplace dynamics? What opportunities and challenges will this present? We don’t have all the answers yet. But we realize that change is inevitable and how we respond to change will determine the future we create.

In alignment with that sentiment and true to its vision of creating future-ready leaders, the Career Development Office at the Asia School of Business in collaboration with MIT Sloan (ASB) created the “Recovery & Growth” webinar series. The series aims to address many of the burning concerns as we recover from the pandemic and rebuild.

In the first instalment, an expert panel leveraged their collective experience and unique perspectives to shed light on the topic. The panelists included Yvonne Lee, Country Head at Common Ground Malaysia, Iwo Szapar, Co-Founder & CEO of Remote-how and Indra Dhanu, Director of Workforce Transformation at PwC Malaysia. Moderating the discussion was workplace and workforce transformation enthusiast, Wan Xin Low, MBA full-time class of 2022. Here is what our experts had to say.

The pandemic underscored many ills of the traditional workplace

After enduring several lockdowns, many professionals began to re-examine their perception of work. Aspects of work that came under scrutiny included the micro-management that pervaded the pre-pandemic workplace. Under the watchful eyes of supervisors, many employees believed that hours at the desk equaled productivity.

However, the results of the COVID-19 work from home (“WFH”) experiment have shown us that employees can be productive even at home. According to Iwo, “the workplace of the future will not be built on hours, but instead on the outcome. An outcome that is tied to the trust that [employers] need to give to your team, and employees to truly empower them.

This trust constitutes the foundation of success in the workplace of the future, whether it be remote, hybrid, or distributed.” His insights align with what many employers have started to realize. Today, several employers are investing more resources to nurture their company culture.

The disruption in workplace dynamics is inevitable

The digital transformation that took place during the pandemic may have accelerated change, but change was already upon us. Both the workforce and the workplace post-pandemic will look drastically different. Echoing this sentiment, Indra noted that “the conventional 9-5 career employee is on a steady decline.

[This is] not because professionals have become more restless but instead due to the increase in demand for niche skills. These are roles that employers tend to fill on a project basis and last for a shorter duration. Consequently, employers are more inclined to locate talent willing to work on an ad hoc basis.”

Though this may sound more beneficial to employers, people gravitate to such arrangements, as they offer something traditional jobs do not: flexibility. Many gig workers choose this lifestyle to have multiple streams of income without being tied to a specific locale.

This then begs the question: If neither the work nor the workforce is permanent in nature, why should the workplace be permanent in nature? The pandemic gave us the opportunity to reevaluate how we view both the workplace and the blend between our lives and work.

The future of work is filled with new possibilities

For many, the limitations of the lockdowns forced us to tap into our creativity. It challenged our resilience and ushered in a new facet of workplace dynamics. Business leaders realized the important of arming their teams with the appropriate tool stacks. With the right collaboration tools, creativity can happen anywhere.

Drawing from his experience, Iwo highlighted that “virtual meetings can be as productive as and, in some cases, even more, productive than in-person meetings. Furthermore, employers around the world are more willing to hire and work with remote teams. [This] allows them to expand their talent pool to include more diverse and competitive applicants.”

Yvonne agreed with his observation by stating that “many organizations are re-evaluating the need for permanent office space and investing in building more robust digital systems than corner offices with skyline views.”

Moving forward

As organizations reflect on the lessons taught by the great WFH experiment, one key area that shouldn’t be neglected is human connections. Though the digital world offers countless opportunities for efficiency, it often comes at the cost of authentic human relationships. The Zoom world eliminated incidental exchanges, an important part of building connections, and replaced them with purpose-driven calls.

Indra emphasized the need to be more deliberate about fostering human connections at work. “Organizations have largely been relying on the relationships that were built before the pandemic. Thus, as organizations continue to construct their new normal, they need to implement conscious steps to ensure that organic bonding does happen for both current employees and new hires.”

Managers must toe the very delicate line of building and maintaining these connections without increasing the burden of calls. At present, there is no perfect formula to resolve this challenge. Each organization should examine their unique needs and design a plan of action that suits them.

One thing’s for sure: MBAs love a challenge. But few enjoy a challenge more than those successful grads who go on to complete the MBA ‘triple jump’—changing job, sector, and location. The MBA ‘triple jump’ is popular among graduates who crave new professional and personal experiences and are excited by change and novelty.

One such ambitious grad is Oludare Oluwajuyitan (Dare), an Asia School of Business (ASB) MBA alumnus. Mirroring his name, he took a daring leap into the business world after his degree, completing the fabled ‘triple jump’, which gained him a competitive edge within the Thai real estate sphere.

Moving from banking to real estate

MBA grad Dare travelled from his native Nigeria to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to join ASB. With a desire to explore Asia, ASB’s setting at the center of Southeast Asia was an attractive feature for him. “I had never travelled to Asia, and I thought it was a great combo—to be able to visit, study and potentially work in one of the fastest-growing regions in the world,” he reports.

But why an MBA? Having worked as a relationship manager at First Bank of Nigeria for four years, immersed within business and working alongside c-suite executives, Dare still wanted to challenge himself. “I felt I still had a lot to give,” he admits. Through ASB’s Action Learning (AL) program—an initiative where students participate in projects within global companies—Dare gained exposure across television, investments, private equity, and real estate.

AL projects function as a critical bridge between classroom theory and real-life application, he believes. “In class, you have all the data, so it is easier to solve problems and devise a perfect solution,” he adds, “in real life, you realize there is no perfect solution, and you can never have enough data.” Throughout these practical projects, you’ll learn what it takes to be a good decision-maker since you’ll often be thinking on your feet instead of planning and deliberating like you would in a classroom environment.

It ended up being real estate that struck a chord with Dare, who recognized the room for technological growth within the sector. The growing role of property technology, or proptech, showed him the possibilities of applying technology across areas like building design and transactions. “Unlike traditional banking, which I found was a highly regulated environment, in real estate there’s more room and flexibility in terms of strategy and execution,” he notes.

Leveraging ‘Smart X Sharp’ skills when transitioning to a new role

The practical projects you’ll participate in during your MBA will teach you valuable skills to take into your future career. It’s been exactly these skills that have helped Dare pivot from relationship management within the banking sector in Nigeria to business development within real estate in Thailand, where he works as operations and business development manager at a real estate firm in Bangkok.

His position involves improving processes and operating efficiency, which entails collating data from developer projects into the database, reviewing new market data and financial forecasts, and developing business strategies based upon the analytics. Throughout AL projects within multiple host companies, Dare had to learn business frameworks and apply them quickly.

As a result, he honed ‘sharp’ technical skills in managerial analytics and various data analysis tools, which he now uses in his strategy-driven role when interpreting the story behind the data. It wasn’t all about the technical skills, though. By working alongside people from all walks of life across many projects, Dare acquired ‘smart’ intelligent skills like cultural awareness and emotional intelligence, which he’s found to be of “greater importance in the workplace.”

“Working on AL projects in different companies in different countries, in different teams, made me very culturally aware. Now, I feel I can work with anyone, from anywhere, no matter their background,” he states.

Starting a new career in Thailand

For many grads, launching a career in a brand new region can be a great challenge. Before you’ve even started your job, resettling can be complicated. Despite the onerous visa paperwork Dare had to fill out before arriving in Thailand, he reports that he found the visa process relatively straightforward. “There was a great supporting team in Thailand who helped with accommodation and arrival paperwork, which was very important since I do not speak Thai,” he says.

And while he didn’t have an existing network in Thailand, he found it easy to quickly meet new people in the vibrant city of Bangkok. “Thai people are generally friendly and respectful. I’ve found I can easily strike random conversations with strangers. Some have even become very good friends,” he notes. What’s more, his experience on ASB’s AL projects has helped him to make valuable connections in a new country.

It’s helped improve his cultural awareness, transforming him into an ethical and global business leader. For students craving a similar career adventure, Dare believes there’s no better place to start.m“After an MBA, the sky is your limit; you can fly or ‘triple jump’ anywhere you want to.”