I joined the British Army in 2009 after completing my undergraduate degree in Arabic. After an intensive year of leadership training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, I commissioned into the Royal Artillery where I managed to squeeze in a couple of operational tours, training overseas, and some excellent lessons in applied leadership through trial and error! I left the Army in 2016 to work for a social enterprise who implement international development projects in the Global South and am now the Chief Operations Officer there supporting project teams to deliver some amazing, impactful projects in places like Yemen, Haiti and Lebanon.

What motivated you to pursue an MBA? I was noticing gaps in my knowledge as I was becoming exposed to having to make more commercial, strategic business decisions and I was also developing a growing interest in how private sector investment can have positive social and environmental impact and wanted to explore that more. I’d been considering various MBAs for a few years and had never quite taken the plunge due to various work and personal commitments, and the small matter of a global pandemic, which I felt would limit the opportunity to grow my network. When I read about the Heropreneurs WBS scholarship last year and looked at the programmes available at WBS, I decided to go for it and I’m really glad I did.

Why did you choose the Accelerator MBA format? To be honest it chose me, or rather when I applied for the Heropreneurs WBS scholarship the course hadn’t yet been announced. After I found out that I’d been accepted by WBS they suggested that I take a look at the Accelerator MBA, which blends the flexibility of the top ranked Global Online MBA with the in person Executive MBA in a roughly 20:80 split. This format is perfect for me and blends the best of both worlds and fits around my work life, which often involves travel.

How did you find the first module? I’ve just completed the first module on Organisational Behaviour and am starting the Operations Management module this week. My first impressions are hugely positive. Everyone at WBS have been brilliant, enthusiastic and helpful from the get-go and they really foster an amazing culture that is both motivating and nurturing. The course material itself is really interesting and I found myself immersed in the topic for the first assessment and finding that I was immediately able to apply my new knowledge into my professional life.

What are your first impressions of your cohort? I think the group are brilliant. Everyone comes from such different backgrounds and bring rich experiences from their own careers. Everyone is hugely motivated with a number of our cohort travelling to London from around the word for the face-to-face sessions and getting online late in the night for their time zones. Everyone is so committed, and you can see why WBS MBA graduates are Change Makers.

Looking ahead, what are you most excited about as you continue your MBA journey? I’m conscious that the MBA will fly by very quickly and so I want to be quite strategic in how I use it to achieve my goals. For me this means, making some tough choices about which modules I want to take as electives as they all sound so interesting. I also want to engage with the WBS CareersPlus team and the Executive Coaching that is available to make sure I maximise the opportunity, whilst at WBS.