Chartered Engineer Dere Ogbe, Shell Corporate Strategy and Portfolio, who gained an SMF-sponsored MBA at LBS, tells us about his career progression.

How has the MBA galvanised your career?
The greatest benefit I derived from my MBA was acquiring the skills to tackle problems holistically; through case studies and class lessons, I learnt how to use different concepts and analytical tools to solve wide-ranging problems. This training has given me the foundation to switch from a technical to a broader management career.

With this foundation, I joined Shell as a senior strategy and portfolio consultant with the ability to lead both technical and commercial strategy projects. For example, I am leading a project stream that is helping shape Shell’s view of energy transition and future energy demand. This involves working with large numbers of industry experts to analyse multiple trends in consumer behaviours, demographics, government policies, and technology. With such complex issues, there is always a danger of information overload.

However, my MBA training on world economics and data analytics gave me the grounding and tools to lead the team though several workshops in analysing possible scenarios for energy demand transition, that won the team a Strategy Excellence Award.

Previously, I led a mergers and acquisitions (M&A) team in the evaluation of midstream opportunities across North America. This required building financial models to analyse competitive situations across the value chain. The resulting output was key to making the case for the project’s recommendations. This would have been difficult without the financial knowledge gained while earning my MBA.  Possessing an MBA has definitely galvanised my career by enabling me to broaden from a technical leader to a business leader.

In addition to professional advancement, the scholarship and resultant MBA has given me the tools and inspiration to give back through taking part in voluntarily social impact projects such as www.africacart.com, which aims to connect artisans in Africa to the international market; and www.africafa.com, which is developing grassroots football leagues for African youths and providing coaching support for African academics.

After 12 years in industry, what spurred you on to pursue an MBA?
Before my MBA, I was a senior operations excellence engineer at BP Exploration. This was a broad technical role that involved implementing best practices to drive continuous improvement across multiple joint ventures in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

The role required cascading business decisions into technical requirements and gave me an awareness of how commercial choices drive project design and operational requirements.  This awareness coupled with the knowledge from courses such as Managing Engineering Projects (that I undertook as part of my ImechE Continuing Professional Development) sparked my interest in business management.

In addition, given that I was already a chartered engineer with significant operational leadership experience, the timing felt right to explore a broader career route. An MBA offered the best route for me to make this switch. It also appealed to me on a personal level as an opportunity to learn about other industries, expand my professional network, and gain new perspectives.

What were your expectations before you started to earn an MBA?
I had two key expectations in advance of undertaking my MBA:

My first expectation was that an MBA would broaden my world. The MBA exceeded this expectation, as it not only exposed me to a broader set of commercial and social viewpoints but also gave me the chance to interact with CEOs, corporate founders, political leaders, and accomplished alumni. These interactions broadened my horizons and made me more willing to step out of my comfort zone and strive for ambitious goals.

My second expectation was that an MBA would provide me with a new set of skills and areas of expertise. Again, I feel this expectation was met, as the London Business School MBA Program not only provided me with a solid grounding in finance, also enhanced my data analytical and leadership skills.

What difference did the SMF scholarship make?
Finances were a serious consideration for me as I had to defer my first MBA offer because I had insufficient saving. The SMF scholarship not only made the MBA attainable but was key to reducing my family’s anxiety about financing my continued education. Without the SMF scholarship, I would not have been unable to take full advantage of the MBA opportunity.

How did you learn about the SMF scholarship?
I first learned about SMF during my preparation to become a chartered engineer. However, it was while doing my research into business schools that I found out more about the scholarship, which is available at the only top business schools.

What was the scholarship application process like?
I enjoyed the process. There is a strong vision behind the scholarship that is evident in the application process, which requires applicants to reflect on what they hope to accomplish by having an MBA. For example, I had to get references from two senior leaders at my employer, which meant discussing my plans with them and getting their honest assessment of my achievements and post-MBA plans. These discussions made me better prepared to make use of the MBA and to pursue the right opportunities.

The interview stage of the application process was very friendly and encouraging. I was interviewed by a chartered engineer and a Fellow who both gave encouraging comments. The best part, of course, was receiving the positive news of having been awarded the scholarship.

How much did the MBA contribute to you getting the type of job you wanted?
One hundred percent! It is very unlikely I would have attained my post-MBA position without having earned the degree, as I would not have had the experience or training for the role.

How is your MBA experience helping you in your new role?
It has made me more comfortable leading a wider range of people with different technical and commercial expertise. It has also given me the necessary financial, strategic, and commercial skills to quickly analyse problems and propose possible solutions. With these refined skills, I can jump into projects and get up to speed quickly.

In addition, the intense case studies approach during the MBA practices makes leading strategy projects feel like second nature and it has increased my ability to seek and incorporate diverse viewpoints in building a strategic response.

What especially do you love about your job at Shell?
As a senior strategy and portfolio consultant, the part of my job I especially love is the challenge of thinking on my feet, rapidly uncovering the critical factors and creating with the team a roadmap for solving the problem. There is always a buzz at the start of every project and a key part of my role is keeping the team motivated by retaining that excitement and creativity throughout the project.

Are you active among SMF alumni?
Immediately after earning my MBA, I was not as active in alumni affairs because it was a period of tremendous change for me. More recently I have become much more involved: networking with other Fellows, attending the SMF annual dinners, and joining in the fundraising campaigns. I’m deeply inspired by the achievements of the SMF alumni, and the chance to networking and building relationships with senior alumni is one of the key benefits of being an SMF alumni.

Would you recommend the scholarship?
I’m biased, but yes! I highly recommend both the SMF scholarship and what it represents—the advancement of engineering talent to managerial and board positions in technical industries. With the help of SMF scholarship, skilled engineers can grow from their technical base of knowledge into broader commercial skills. The scholarship brand itself is highly prestigious as it signals a commitment to excellence in both the technical and managerial fields.

What tips would you give to a potential scholarship applicant?
The scholarship is a means to an end—the first focus of any applicant must be on the end goal, what they hope to achieve in their professional life with an MBA. if they are clear on this it will make the scholarship application easier. Secondly, I would recommend making the best use of the great networking opportunities that both the MBA and SMF provide.

Visit the scholarship page to learn about making an application.

Busola Banjo BEng (Hons) CEng MIET
Busola is currently pursuing her MBA at INSEAD Business School. Prior to this, she worked as an engineering consultant in London where she spent a year as a Principal Engineer with Ramboll and six years with Arup. She graduated from the University of Nottingham in 2008. During her career as an electrical engineer, Busola managed teams to deliver technical designs on a variety of projects worldwide ranging from schools to office buildings and data centres. She also had the privilege of working on iconic projects such as a stadium for the Qatar World Cup, the Shard and the British Museum extension. Busola is passionate about making an impact on the built environment through social regeneration and, after her MBA, she wishes to pursue a career as a real estate developer/ investor in the UK and in Nigeria, where she was born.

John Collins MEng MPhil MCIHT
John began studying his MBA at INSEAD in January 2016.
Previously, John was a Senior Consultant at Steer Davies Gleave (SDG). He has worked on a wide range of transport projects including High Speed 2, Crossrail, Smart Motorways and the London 2012 Olympics. Prior to joining SDG John was a “Fast Stream” graduate at UK Department for Transport. John studied Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College, where he served as the student union president. He also completed a masters in Engineering for Sustainable Development at Cambridge. He hopes to find a role in the transport industry when he graduates from INSEAD in December 2016.

Evi Giamouzi MEng MSc
Evi started her MBA at London Business School in August 2015. She is currently the Vice President of the Energy Club organising the sponsorship for the Global Energy Summit in London. Prior to this, she worked as a project planner at Balfour Beatty for its construction projects in the UK, including the tender for the ElecLink at the Channel tunnel. Evi graduated with an MSc in Structural Engineering from the University of Sheffield and also holds a MEng in Civil Engineering with a specialisation in Geotechnics and Earthquake analysis. Following her passion for engineering and education, she championed the STEM ambassador programme by partnering with schools in the Midlands to motivate students to take up engineering careers.

Christopher Hughes MEng (Hons) CEng
Christopher Hughes started his MBA at INSEAD in August 2015. After graduating from Imperial College London as a Mechanical Engineer in 2008, he ultimately advanced to Project Engineer working for Hitachi, a Japanese High-Speed Rolling Stock manufacturer. During his time there, he became the first ever foreign Design Engineer to be based in the heart of Hitachi’s train manufacturing site near Hiroshima, pioneering the way for future UK engineers at Hitachi to learn and develop their engineering skills in Japan. At INSEAD, Chris has developed a strong interest in entrepreneurship, winning the Identifying New Business Models Competition and leading a team of four to the semi-finals of the INSEAD Venture Competition. Chris is an avid traveller, having lived in the UK, France, Argentina, Japan and now in Singapore.

William Jones MEng
William moved to France at the start of 2016 to begin his INSEAD journey. After graduating from Warwick University in 2008, he moved to Beijing to study Chinese. He then began work as Product Designer in Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong. While there, he worked on the design of numerous consumer products and contributed to three patents. After another stint in Beijing to improve his Chinese, William returned to the UK to become a consultant with PA Consulting. At PA Consulting, William worked with both private and public sector clients on product industrialisation and organisational transformation. William has played several sports including rugby as a junior for Hong Kong and club rugby to a high standard. This has fed his passion for creating strong and high-performing teams.

Eirini Koukaki MEng MSc, MIET
Eirini joined London Business School to pursue a full-time MBA in August 2015. Prior to her MBA, she worked for three years as a product manager in Vodafone Group where she was responsible for the global expansion and delivery of a B2B Unified Communications product which improves internal productivity. In 2010, Eirini was accepted on a two-year rotational graduate engineering scheme in Cable & Wireless Worldwide where she held four roles: Optical Fibre Network Engineer, Procurement Manager, Pre-sales Engineer and Product Manager. Eirini studied Electrical & Computer Engineering (MEng) in Aristotle University in Greece while she also graduated from Imperial College London with an MSc in Optics & Photonics. Eirini is a Greek citizen who has been living in London for more than seven years.

Sinead O’Sullivan BEng, MS Aero
Sinead O’Sullivan started Harvard Business School’s two-year MBA program in Autumn 2015. Prior to this, she was an Aerospace Researcher at the Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory at Georgia Tech, USA, where she worked on advanced concept designs and robotics for NASA and the US Navy. Sinead’s specialisation is in space systems, having completed both her Bachelor and Masters of Aerospace Engineering at Queen’s University of Belfast and Georgia Tech respectively, as well as a certificate from the International Space University. Combining her engineering and business knowledge, Sinead has started a US-based company specialising in the integration of drones and satellite data.

Pierre-Nicolas Queyroux MEng
Pierre-Nicolas started his MBA at INSEAD in Fontainebleau in September 2015. Prior to INSEAD, he worked for 5 years for MBDA in the development of radio frequency systems for a range of weapon programmes. Starting out as a simulation engineer, he then became Project Leader for a Franco–British technology development project. In 2014, as Principal Engineer, he was seconded to MBDA UK in Bristol to take part in the development of the Franco-British Sea Venom/ANL system. Pierre-Nicolas graduated in 2009 from ENSAM and Supélec, two French Grandes Ecoles engineering schools. He is committed to fostering scientific education and has been supporting an educational charity in Paris as a volunteer. At INSEAD Pierre-Nicolas is the President of the Industry Club and the Co-President of the Football Club.

Mohammad Saquib MEng (Hons), CEng
Mohammad started his MBA at London Business School in August 2014. Prior to commencing his MBA, Mohammad founded Castrum Energy Partners, a specialist provider of well engineering and project management services to the global oil and gas industry, and served as the Managing Partner of the firm until September 2014. Mohammad exited Castrum during an acquisition deal. Prior to founding Castrum Energy, Saquib worked for Shell UK based in Aberdeen and was part of running offshore drilling operations in the North Sea. Mohammad also chaired the Multiple Sclerosis Society Aberdeen branch, where he re-structured the struggling branch and made it sustainable over the long run. Mohammad holds a MEng (Hons.) in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Southampton with specialisation in aerodynamics and propulsion. He is a British Citizen and was born in India where he completed his primary and secondary education.

Visit our blog to see Q&A interviews with our 2016 scholarship winners.

Chris Martin is Chief Executive of Sciona, a company at the cutting edge of business innovation and the revolution in genetics.

Chris Martin is a highly qualified chemical engineer. His MBA demystified the workings of corporate finance and enabled him to pursue his ambitions for commercialising technology. Chris, who started his career as a chemical engineer, has harnessed the knowledge he gained from an MBA at leading Swiss business school IMD (formerly IMI) to combine his natural commercial flair with his scientific know-how.

His sector is one of the freshest business areas to have opened up in the last decade – taking technology developed in academic institutions to mainstream markets.

Sciona, the latest in a string of spin-out ventures Chris has presided over, is leading the push to bring the benefits of major breakthroughs in mapping the human genome, to consumers.

His company offers a service to customers that reveals if they are genetically predisposed to illnesses affected by lifestyle factors like stress, diet and exercise. It offers consumers the opportunity to tailor their lifestyles to ensure prolonged health and well-being. Customers simply take a swab from inside their mouth that is then analysed by the company’s expert team of leading scientists to produce each individual’s unique genetic make-up. Combined with a brief lifestyle questionnaire, Sciona can advise its customers how best to make lifestyle changes to enhance their well-being.

Chris’ career started with a degree in Chemical Engineering at Aston University. He followed it with a DPhil in Engineering Science at Oxford University. It was during 18 months of post-doctoral work at the University and the Atomic Energy Research Establishment that he first started to develop his commercial instincts, starting a computer software company with his flatmates. Chris recalls, “I got a real taste for the commercial world and realised I enjoyed that side of the industry as much as the technical elements.”

He joined a small consultancy working in the offshore oil industry that then diversified into the pharmaceutical sector and other process engineering industries. “I took a diploma in management studies to try to understand more about business. From my work I thought I could see situations where large companies were making poor technology investment decisions.”

His interest in this subject grew and in 1988 he applied to Sainsbury Management Fellows for a place on the International MBA programme, opting for a one-year course at the leading Swiss business school IMI, now IMD.

Chris says, “Mine was a classic MBA, very strong on international finance and organisational development. The key thing was that the course demystified a lot of aspects of business. One of the biggest advantages my MBA gave me was a thorough understanding of corporate finance.”

After completing the course Chris used his new skills to tackle the trend of poor technology decision-making he had spotted over the previous years. He and a partner set up the consultancy as part of Marex in late 1989.

Early success, including a series of contracts from Courtaulds, was followed by Chris leading a management buy-out of the consultancy to form Paras Ltd. Growth over the ensuing years created a team of 40 professionals at offices in the UK, Holland and South Africa.

In the early 1990s Chris’ attention turned to the growing trend of companies formed around technologies from leading universities and industrial research. He joined a fellow engineer to set up an early stage feed capital company after recognising that embryonic companies founded on campus research required expert outside help.

Chris and a growing number of expert colleagues created a string of successful technology companies including Solcom, which develops web-enabled systems monitoring and management systems, Despatch Box, a data encryption and security company, and SpiroGen, a biotech spin-out developing the technology to stop cancer cells replicating by binding specific DNA strands.

But it was Sciona and its potential for putting a truly groundbreaking health product in the hands of ordinary people that really fired Chris’ imagination. “It’s a really fascinating area to be working in, with some tremendously talented people.

“I’ve never been a traditional chemical engineer but the scientific foundation combined with the skills and knowledge I gained through my MBA have enabled me to take my career forward in challenging and, I hope, innovative ways.”

He concludes, “Every day I see that there is a significant change in the UK climate for entrepreneurial innovation. There are now a lot of well-educated, ambitious young people using their technical education to launch themselves into business. When the SMF scheme started, this was almost unheard of.”

Case studies correct at the time of publication.  SMFs may have moved to new posts since publication.  For the latest career information on our Fellows visit our SMF Profile Page.

Serge Taborin, MD, Archant Digital Ventures

Engineering qualifications and skills have led Serge Taborin in directions he couldn’t have imagined, including winning a Sainsbury Management Fellows (SMF) MBA bursary which is available to professional engineers who want to pursue a career in senior management. “I can honestly say that without the MBA I would not have been able to pitch myself for certain roles and develop such a diverse and challenging career,” said Serge.

Today Serge is managing director of Archant Digital Ventures, part of the 165 year old Archant Group, one of the UK’s largest independent regional media businesses with £142m turnover per annum.  Archant publishes regional newspapers, magazines, and websites and offers a wide range of services including digital publishing, specialist publishing and contract printing.

Serge ‘caught’ the engineering bug in his early teens, captivated by the notion of creativity and practicality embodied in a single discipline.  His interest stemmed from his parents being engineers.  “I didn’t stand a chance,” said Serge.  “What with dad fixing radios and mum designing bridges, which she would excitedly point out on journeys, their passion for engineering rubbed off on me.  While they didn’t push me towards engineering, they instilled in me the value of education and the importance of subjects such physics and maths.  Engineering teaches you how to solve problems, how to take a step back from the challenge in front of you; evaluate all the ingredients at your disposal and to develop a solution that is both creative and practical.  Engineering opens up many career opportunities.”

After gaining his Engineering Science degree at Oxford University, Serge worked in leading edge technology companies.  First, he joined the IT services specialist, SEMA Group (now part of Schlumberger) as a graduate trainee and worked his way up to project manager in eight months. By that stage, he was handling client-facing teams working on the implementation of customised telecom network systems globally.

Next stop was INTEC Telecom Systems where, as a senior business consultant, he travelled the world implementing billing systems and developed strong relationships with global telecom operators.  After three years with INTEC, he took a year out of industry to undertake an MBA programme at INSEAD in Singapore and France, having been awarded a £30,000 SMF scholarship.

Serge picks up the story: “My career had progressed rapidly into the strategic side of business and I wanted to move upwards into senior management, but I didn’t have enough knowledge of some areas of business.  I had to decide on the fastest route to plug my knowledge gaps; learning on the job at INTEC was, of course, possible but it would have taken longer and I was eager to get on. The MBA route won hands down and was definitely the right choice for me.

“Having an MBA from a leading business school opens up a host of career opportunities that might otherwise be more difficult to access.  It has enabled me to build a more diverse and exciting professional life. INSEAD has, and continues, to open doors to me. As well as gaining the academic knowledge and business tools I needed to progress, I also have the INSEAD brand behind me and fantastic contacts I made during my MBA course.”

On graduating from INSEAD, Serge was appointed business development manager of new media at the BBC, where he helped the broadcaster identify areas where its technology and content management skills could add value to clients’ digital strategy.

A year later, Serge landed the head of group strategy role at Perform Group, a global leader in the provision of broadband and mobile digital video services and the commercialisation of digital rights for sports and entertainment brands.  Serge was responsible for developing the growth strategy and negotiated commercial deals with many organisations including the Premier League, Chelsea FC, Liverpool FC, Tottenham Hotspur, Major League Soccer, Warner Brothers, Virgin Media, ITV and Channel 4. Perform Group grew rapidly, from 20 people with a turnover of £3m to £650m valuation when it floated five years later. Today it is a £1bn+ business with 900 staff worldwide.

Fast forward to today and we find Serge heading up Archant Digital Ventures, the investment and incubator arm of Archant. Serge is responsible for identifying new opportunities in the online and mobile space for the whole group, developing or acquiring the technology needed and then turning this portfolio of products into profitable businesses.

Serge continued, “I have an exciting and equally challenging job in a sector that has undergone huge changes. After 100 years of having virtually a free reign, regional newspapers in general are facing their biggest threat, not just to their revenues, but to their very existence. The internet has transformed how we consume content and the advertising model has also changed dramatically.  And the rate of change is accelerating, with mobile being the next battleground. There are no easy solutions for traditional publishers, but those that succeed will be the ones that supplement pure news/content distribution with new services that are relevant to increasingly segmented customer bases. Finding, developing and commercialising those solutions are top priority for my team.

“Achieving our goals means recruiting the best talent, but attracting smart digitally-born young people to a traditional publishing business is not easy. We’ve approached this creatively, hiring people with great potential and enthusiasm, regardless of whether they are graduates, and we develop and mentor them on the job. This approach fits very well with my own belief in coaching and passing on business skills. I mentor seven staff who report to me, plus other team members in group sessions where we look at business development strategies.

“Our Digital Ventures team is ambitious to grow business within Archant and through external ventures so I’m involved in mentoring online and mobile start-up businesses, advising on strategy, funding and marketing so the inventors can develop their novel ideas into great businesses. For example, a contact I met at INSEAD is an investor and director of Streetlife.com, a social networking site that connects people living in the same geographic area who have shared community interests, but may not necessarily know each other. Archant has acquired an equity stake in Streetlife and I have become a director of the business, providing advice and direction.

“By combining my engineering experience with first-class business education and becoming part of the SMF network, I am enjoying a very rich career.  Apart from enabling me to attend INSEAD, which financially would have been difficult without the bursary, SMF has a network of highly ambitious and successful individuals who provide support and advice to its members, other business people, professional and educational institutions; as well as mentoring young engineers.

“The SMF network carries a certain gravitas when talking about one’s profile and achievements, which is helpful in career terms and in promoting professional engineers.  For 25 years SMF has done an excellent job helping engineers like me move into leadership roles. I hope it continues to support the most talented individuals to gain the skills needed to get into leading edge companies and to start their own ventures,” summed up Serge.

Case studies correct at the time of publication.  SMFs may have moved to new posts since publication.  For the latest career information on our Fellows visit our SMF Profile Page.

David Falzani, President of Sainsbury Management Fellows
CEO, Polaris Associates
Visiting Professor at the Nottingham University Business School

“One could say that my career as an engineer was destined – as a youngster I was fascinated by technology and the complexity of how things work. I was drawn to engineering because it had both a reputation for being difficult but also, because I would be able to apply the knowledge and skills I learned to solve problems in the real world,” said David.

Now a chartered engineer, David did an MBA at Wharton/SDA Bocconi and started several businesses, including one of the first internet companies, before setting up a consultancy, Polaris Associates. He has formulated and launched FMCG brands as well as helped better market and communicate professional qualifications standards for various organisations. As an entrepreneur and visiting professor David specialises in the customer decision-making process, modern manufacturing and the economic value of hi-tech industries.

David continued, “Like many engineers, I am inspired by the achievements of giants like Brunel. But what interests me most, was Brunel’s considerable entrepreneurial and commercial skill in raising funds for ground-breaking ideas. Similarly, world-changing projects like the completion of America’s Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 and the Panama Canal built between 1881 and 1914, were at least as challenging to organise and finance as they were to execute technically.”

This admiration for combing engineering, entrepreneurial and commercial skills traveled with David and is evident in his career today. After seven years in engineering roles, one of which saw him project manage the design and implementation of a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility for a high growth Silicon Valley company, he reached a crossroads. That role had increasingly exposed him to ever-widening business and commercial issues and he was being asked to interact with wider business problems. He had to decide how best to gain the additional knowledge and understanding needed to tackle bigger business challenges.

“I could either acquire my next level of skills organically through the workplace or through an intensive MBA. My personal learning style strongly favours a crucible high-intensity environment, so it was an easy decision to study for a full-time MBA at a top school.

“With the aid of a Sainsbury Management Fellows scholarship, I studied for my MBA at SDA Bocconi in Milan and The Wharton School in Pennsylvania. It was as testing as I imagined, but the rewards more than made up for the 60 hours per week schedules! Imagine studying in an environment filled with über bright people from all over the world, being surrounded by world-class faculty, being set continually stretching tasks; having a learning machine wrapped all around you to whet your appetite and then satisfy it, and an addictive growing sense that anything is possible. I flourished in this environment and came away from my MBA with a toolbox of functional business skills, an enduring network of friends and contacts, and the school’s renowned brand name to augment my own.

“A more surprising by-product of the MBA was a rewiring of my brain, to think differently about my career. My first job post-MBA was with a leading strategy consulting firm where I consolidated my skills. After that, I plunged into an exciting new tech venture with some former MBA classmates, having gained the confidence to raise venture capital funds during the MBA. After that, I was involved in a tech turnaround. I used my engineering, commercial and entrepreneurial skills in both businesses.

“Sainsbury Management Fellows played a big role in my career transition. The financial support is, of course, very helpful, but for me becoming part of the network of Fellows upon graduation holds the greatest value. Fellows have given me advice, inspiration and have been a useful reference point throughout my career, and I have secured at least one job through the network.

“SMFs’ raison d’être is to equip ambitious engineers with business skills that will enable them to secure senior and board positions in blue-chip companies that would otherwise be unattainable. They are then in a position to use their combined engineering and business skills to enhance commercial performance. SMF also supports engineers with entrepreneurial ambitions, as entrepreneurs innovate and commercialise products and services that create jobs and wealth for our economy.

“Innovation and productivity growth are essential if we are to retain our quality of life in the global economy. Although we are good at inventing new ideas we, in Britain, have a notoriously poor record of translating these into commercial value. Also, productivity is a key success factor for mature economies like ours to compete and continue to grow in value.

“A key causal factor in both of these areas of growth is the development, integration and commercialisation of technology. Engineering sits on the interface of technology and commerce, and in this way, engineers are uniquely placed to understand ‘the tech’ and also bring a business brain to deliver more successful enterprises. I hope that we can bring this issue forward in the country’s agenda and better use our considerable resources to inspire people to prioritise activities that assist in developing promising technologies and then better commercialise these.”

Case studies correct at the time of publication.  SMFs may have moved to new posts since publication.  For the latest career information on our Fellows visit our SMF Profile Page.

SMF Karim El Hamel, General Manager of Ficosa International in Turkey, a leading automotive parts supplier and Co-founder of PocketCultures

Who inspires you?
I’m inspired by people who are motivated by innovation rather than money and influence; by those who invest in motivated people and contribute positively to the world.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I was fascinated by flight and dreamt of being a pilot. Even as a child, I was amazed that only 70 years after having discovered flight, man was able to go to the moon. It was my first awareness of the impact of technology and engineering. Those childhood dreams of being a pilot did have some bearing on my career- I went on to study aeronautical engineering, which enabled me to play a part in the process of converting ideas into real-world products and solutions.

How has your engineering background helped your career?
Engineering has armed me with a logical, investigative approach to tackling complex problems. I soon learned that one plus one doesn’t always equal two! Sometimes the best decisions for shaping the future come about from ‘back of the envelope calculations’ – it’s easy to drown creativity in too much detail. Other times, particularly where small factors have a big influence, decisions need to follow a detailed technical study. An engineering background helps identify the best approach to take in the decision-making process and has been of real benefit to me at Ficosa and PocketCultures, my entrepreneurial venture. Reverse engineering is also important when analysing your own and other companies in order to make improvements.

What has been the greatest influence on your business life?
Recognising that, despite cultural differences, people are essentially the same the world over and that we need to try harder to understand the differences and similarities if we want successful relationships and businesses.

I’m Libyan/Italian and have worked internationally, including in Turkey, where I am Country General Manager for automotive parts supplier, Ficosa (engineering is relatively standard across different territories which facilitates geographical moves). This international experience and my multi-cultural background have shown me that many of the problems in the world stem from misunderstandings caused by a lack of intercultural awareness.
I’m passionate about demystifying cultural differences and highlight areas of common ground. By inspiring a culture of learning, and providing a platform to facilitate learning, I believe it’s possible to address this issue.

That’s why I and my co-founders set up PocketCultures in 2006, a non-political, non-profit online resource where people can learn what life is really like in different countries from contributors across the globe. PocketCultures’ content covers science, language, food, music, personal stories and interviews with people living across cultures or in cross-cultural relationships.

This online project provides a platform for learning, connects people across the globe, improving cultural awareness and understanding between members. We aim to do our bit to make the world a fairer, more tolerant place. The media has a powerful influence on how cultures are presented, and there is a responsibility that goes with that. PocketCultures is committed to providing an accurate picture of the cultural side of people’s lives by featuring those with first-hand experience of life in the country in question.

Cultural differences influence our approach to engineering. In Europe, for example, we tend to plan everything out and ‘do all the maths’ first because we want the engineering to be perfect before production takes place. But in places like China and America, engineers tend to produce physical products for trial and adapt and perfect. If it works then they scale up. In my opinion, this more adventurous approach can result in these countries gaining an economic advantage and perhaps Europe needs to take a lesson from other countries.

What’s Next for PocketCultures?
Since PocketCultures was launched, the number of visitors has grown exponentially – we now have 25,000 unique visitors each month, 30 regional contributors and the list is growing; so much so we’ve employed three professional editors to support contributors.
The site has been reported in the Lonely Planet, has started topping Google free searches and is becoming a familiar sight on Flickr, Facebook and Twitter.

We recently released a free, downloadable eBook for children, Games for Kids of the World, produced with contributions from supporters around the world. We’ve also just launched, PocketButiks, the e-commerce element of the site which allows craftspeople from around the world to sell goods. The revenue will help to offset the cost of running PocketCultures.

What’s your greatest achievement?
During my time at Rolls-Royce and while studying for my SMF-sponsored MBA, I embraced the idea of a ‘learning organisation’ being the ultimate sustainable advantage for a business.

 

The process, illustrated here, needs to be supported by having a psychologically safe and interactive environment. It is an integral part of the development of PocketCultures too. As Country General Manager at Ficosa, I’m responsible for delivering sustainable employment and development of young colleagues through fresh challenges, training and dreaming.

My greatest professional achievement has been working with my team at Ficosa, to develop and implement ‘learning organisation’ activities. I believe this has helped Ficosa grow and thrive even in this tough economy. Click here to enlarge image Achieving a ‘learning organisation culture has been enhanced by working in partnership with one of our major clients, Toyota, which lives and breathes this philosophy.

Why add business education to your engineering degree and experience?
Engineering can help you design and build things, but to take an invention forward as a business requires a whole new skills set. I saw an MBA as the route to gaining a fuller appreciation of business processes. I saw it as the path to make more of a positive impact on society.

The business degree has given me a keener understanding of how to target customers and has taught me how to read between the lines when it comes to interacting with and understanding the needs of stakeholders. What’s more, the combination of professional engineering and business skills affords unlimited success across both business and geographical borders. The natural route would have been to become an engineering manager, but the experience of the MBA – and a supportive wife – allowed me to shift into general management and also to set up PocketCultures.The MBA has also enabled me to adopt a learning approach within business.

Has the MBA made you more of an entrepreneur?
Definitely. In addition to learning entrepreneurial techniques, and gaining insight from the experience of others, I met people – who like me – were motivated by social responsibility and philanthropy. It gave me the confidence to set-up a not-for-profit business. The MBA helped me develop a sound business plan for PocketCultures, and has now proven invaluable in developing and bringing PocketButiks to market using purely theoretical projections and mutual trust.

The entrepreneurship route is not for the faint-hearted. It’s a risky one, especially for work/family life balance so I’m fortunate that PocketCultures’ managing editor, Lucy Chatburn, is my wife! We work long hours on the site during weekends, but we’re doing it together, so family life doesn’t suffer and the rewards are great.

Lucy and Karim – co-founders of PocketCultures

Learning entrepreneurial techniques is proving valuable in my role at Ficosa, as it helps to create a supportive environment for intrapreneurship. It also helps to define the system to control new project evolution and maintain them aligned with the company vision and business practices.

What benefits have you gained from being part of the SMF community?
SMF gave me the financial support to study for the MBA, allowing me to concentrate on my studies rather than worry about how I was going to pay off a bank loan! This has helped me follow a path towards a job that I feel passionate about.

Being a leader can be a lonely business, with few counterparts to use as a sounding board. SMF provides a network of professionals to benchmark myself against. Like many Sainsbury Management Fellows, I was initially attracted by the financial support to do the MBA, but I soon realised that the benefit extends way beyond money. One of the greatest benefits is the network of SMF colleagues from many industries with whom I can discuss challenges and get objective feedback. The advice and feedback offered by our network is a key ingredient in releasing entrepreneurial talent and has played a big part in my career.

Do engineers make good board directors?
I’m bound to say Yes. Seriously, research conducted by EngineeringUK for SMF revealed that almost 60% of FTSE100 companies have a professional engineer on the board. By combining their risk analysis skills with their ability to identify and focus on critical success factors, they can help reduce the potential for failure. A strong grounding in project management also helps business to apply technology more rapidly.

I believe it is the mix that brings the sustainable advantage, so a board would benefit from including women and men from different backgrounds, including engineering. The company would link vision and delivery more rapidly to the benefit of all stakeholders including society.

Case studies correct at the time of publication.  SMFs may have moved to new posts since publication.  For the latest career information on our Fellows visit our SMF Profile Page.

Philippa Dickenson, from MBA to Psychotherapy

Philippa became one of the early Sainsbury Management Fellows after gaining her MBA at INSEAD in 1988.  Here Philippa   shares her thoughts the MBA and her career.

 

What career aspirations did you have as a youngster?
I’m not sure that I had career aspirations as such in the mid to late 1970s.  I was much more interested in feminist politics, social science and going to parties than I was in thinking about a career track. I enjoyed creative writing and travelling whenever I had the chance and could afford it. I suppose the continuing theme is an interest in ideas and how they apply in the real world.

Why did you choose to study engineering?
I really liked physics and maths at school and wanted first of all to study physics.  With two older brothers and a father who’d studied engineering or were qualified engineers, the influence was very strong to do something more vocational that would lead to a job after university.  Although, my father wasn’t keen for me to study engineering – not quite the thing he thought suited a girl which was a red rag to a bull to me!  I think studying engineering was a form of teenage rebellion if I’m honest.

What roles and responsibilities did you have before your MBA?
After university, I joined Mars – of Mars Bars fame – as an engineering graduate trainee. I remember looking across the vast open plan office at Justin King (a fellow graduate trainee), little thinking that he would one day be CEO of Sainsbury’s.

After my training, I became a Zone VI Project Engineer. My area of responsibility was the engineering elements of producing chocolate – lots of it.  I managed a range of projects, from small production improvements to a major upgrade and factory rebuild for the chocolate production facility. Huge fun and huge responsibility for a 25-year old to be responsible for what would now be about $30m of capital spend, a team of 5 and a vast range of contractors. And all to be done within a working production environment. It taught me such a lot about getting things done with and through people, about listening to others as part of making decisions, about organisational politics and about the vagaries of real life and contractors.  ‘So my cheque is in the post then, is it?’

Mars gave me great experience as I had to produce the business case for any engineering spend I wanted to make and see projects all the way through from concept to commissioning and then handover to production and regular maintenance crews. I left after 4.5 years to take up my SMF at INSEAD.

What was your motivation for doing an MBA?
The final part of my engineering degree was in Manufacturing Systems which covered a wide range of business topics as well as technical subjects: economics, industrial relations, employment law, finance and statistics as well as design for manufacture. The course director suggested doing a full-time MBA after getting a few years’ experience. Although I wasn’t consciously seeking to do an MBA, I guess the idea stuck in the back of my mind so when I heard of the SMF scheme to support an MBA, it struck a chord.

What was the greatest benefit of your MBA?
Starting to think like a business person rather than an engineer. Broadening my horizons in terms of international exposure and to exposure to different types of thinking.

How has the SMF network helped you?
There’s a strong entrepreneurial group within the SMF and that has inspired me to think more entrepreneurially. Whether the product is about psychological assessment and talent development or much more technical, any entrepreneur needs the same disciplines and thought processes about product development, market feedback and testing, marketing and sales etc.

What’s been the greatest benefit of being an SMF?
The opening up of new avenues to me through going to INSEAD.

What are your hopes for SMF for the next 25 years?
That it can help raise the profile of engineers, particularly entrepreneurial engineers. They might not need an MBA to do their job, strictly speaking, but it does attract a ‘can do’ group of people interested in doing different things.

What is the biggest challenge in your business sector today? 
How to develop a strong presence quickly in a crowded marketplace without having your intellectual property stolen before you’ve had the chance to grow your product.

How can engineers help to grow the UK’s modern manufacturing industry?
The kinds of skills I learnt in managing technology projects stand me in as good a stead as any business training. Having more broad-minded and business-savvy engineers at a senior level in business can only help to strengthen manufacturing industry. And engineers tend to be passionate about what they do. We’re fantastic at high-level, sophisticated engineering work – we need to reinforce this and draw on our engineering intelligence to see how we expand that knowledge and skills base in industry.  And engineering skills apply in wildly different contexts too – who would think of putting engineering and psychology together to develop a product for managers to develop their talent? Yet it’s happening.

How has technology transformed the way business is done in your sector?
IT and cloud-based computing are changing the world of psychological insight and development. Reviewing the talent of your team used to involve highly trained experts, with at least 200 hours of training under their belt, and could cost you up to £750K.  Using SaaS-based technology, managers can learn to assess teams for themselves at a tenth of the cost. And it helps each manager learn how they think about their own as well as other people’s potential, rather than leaving it to the outside experts.

What skills do engineers bring to business?
An engineering mindset is useful in all sorts of settings, including in the psychotherapist’s consulting room. Handling ambiguity, working with a wide range of different kinds of information, thinking systemically and dealing in the art of the possible are all things I learnt in my first job as an engineer. These are as much life and leadership skills as they are engineering skills.  More engineers at senior levels in business who can bring a broad as well as a practical perspective can only help industry to succeed.

Which engineering pioneer do you admire and why?
Dyson – for his persistence, his enthusiasm for technology and ideas and for his commitment to educating others about what engineering and education can do.

Which engineering endeavour do you most admire? Getting the Olympics working so successfully – a huge engineering challenge of many different kinds and on different levels.  How about inspiring a generation of engineers as well as athletes? We could make so much more of what went on behind the scenes to make the sport tick.

Case studies correct at the time of publication.  SMFs may have moved to new posts since publication.  For the latest career information on our Fellows visit our SMF Profile Page.

Patrick Macdonald, Partner, School for CEOs

There has never been a greater need to prepare businessmen and women to become CEOs. The biggest recession in 80 years, intense media scrutiny and investor nervousness all combine to make the top job tougher than ever.

When I was CEO of John Menzies – a £1.5 billion quoted plc with a substantial family shareholding – it struck me that, as in any position, CEOs get better as they learn. I certainly did. But the old dictum “leaders are born and not made” still holds sway in many quarters. We still expect CEOs to take on the toughest job in business without any specific preparation.

This seems a little strange!

We have in the past teamed up with David Sole, the well known international rugby captain and business coach, to launch the School for CEOs. David has coached main Board directors and senior executives from a wide variety of functions including finance, human resources, sales and marketing, IT, property, legal and company secretariat.

Experienced businessmen and women teach the next generation of business leaders using a carefully structured curriculum. A highly accomplished Advisory Board works with us, including Sir David Reid (Chairman of Intertek plc and ex-Chairman of Tesco plc), Jonathan Warburton (Chairman of Warburtons) and Alex Wilson (ex-Group HR Director at BT plc).

The two-day Vital Few residential programme covers the complexities of:

• managing up – forming a relationship with the Chairman and Board
• managing down – leading the team
• managing out – handling investors and the media and
• managing in – staying centred and grounded

Future leaders explore what really happens in the boardroom, rather than academic theories and frameworks. There is follow on coaching to help embed the learnings, insight and wisdom gained on the programme. And delegates join a fantastic network which will grow as the School grows.

The Vital Few is a standalone programme. It also forms the first module of the comprehensive Alchemy of Leadership programme which lasts eight days spread over several months.

The course is aimed at anyone three years or less from becoming a CEO, as well as those already in the job. For future programme dates, visit www.schoolforceos.com.

Case studies correct at the time of publication.  SMFs may have moved to new posts since publication.  For the latest career information on our Fellows visit our SMF Profile Page.