Banking and Finance Networking Session

Submitted by Johnny Kwon, Co-Chair of the Banking and Finance Club

 

On 5 December 2014, the Nanyang MBA Banking and Finance club organized a networking session with industry professionals at Three Bistro, located near Suntec City. Three Bistro is managed by a Nanyang MBA alumni and we were fortunate to have our event accommodated by her. The event had a successful turnout and the invited guests came from a wide range of banking and finance fields namely: Treasury sales, equity sales, equity research, remisier, private banking etc.

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It was an excellent opportunity for the MBA Banking and Finance Club members to network with industry professionals to better understand the various positions available in the banking and finance industry, understand the job scope of these positions and develop contacts within the industry.

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The ambience was cozy with nice music in the background. We had good conversations with attendees over our favorite beverages, be it beer, wine or cocktails. Following the event, the Nanyang MBA participants had a sumptuous Vietnamese meal at Millenia walk and, subsequently, headed to boat quay for further bonding. Work hard, Party hard!

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For more information about Nanyang Business School click here.

 

 

Exciting Corporate Talk and Networking Session with ASEAN Private Equity & Venture Capital Association, and Mercer Consulting

Submitted by I Putu Mahendra Wijaya, Co-Chair of the Management Consulting Club

 

The Nanyang Business School has been fortunate once again to host a talk and networking session with two  industry leaders in Singapore. Last Monday, 15 December 2014, the Management Consulting Club (MCC) and the Women in Business Club (WBC) welcomed two great speakers to share with the students about the many different aspects in the world of business.

Our first speaker, Ms. Anu Sahai, was from ASEAN Private Equity & Venture Capital Association, and she was a former CEO & Director of Aditya Birla Sun Life Asset Management Pte Ltd. Her session was about her career journey and decisions. She spoke about the road blocks she faced as a woman as she went up the career ladder, the dos and don’ts of the corporate world, the road blocks and struggles that all of us will face and how to deal with them. She gave numerous practical real life examples to make the session more personable and relatable for everyone. Indeed, one of the most interesting insight she shared during the corporate talk was the oft-neglected link between work-life balance, workplace success, and personal happiness.  To this end, The Economist magazines recently has run several articles which show practically that longer working hours do not mean better productivity (it may even harm productivity, thanks to overburden). Hence, Ms Sahai’s insight on work-life balance was indeed one of the most important takeaways from the talk.

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Next, we were also very fortunate to host Mr Dion Groeneweg, a Partner in Mercer Consulting. During his session, he instilled passion and curiosity among the participants about how the practice of human resource consulting is about to be revolutionized thanks to the development of technology. Particularly, he shared with us the interesting evolution that has happened in the sphere of human resource consulting: how some aspects of the human resource are now on the convergence path with IT consulting, and paradoxically, how human resource will result in more specialization in the future – a trend which will bring more transparency and efficiency to the world of human resource management. Indeed, these dynamics in the industry are exactly examples that you would not find in textbooks.

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Some day in the future, perhaps, we will find these topics in textbooks. But for now, at least, the students at the Nanyang MBA program have the privilege to have a sneak peek at all these exciting development before everyone else, right from the leaders themselves. It was indeed an exciting experience to go through.

 

For more information about Nanyang Business School click here.

Nanyang Business School Participation in CEIBS 2014 MBA Career Trek

Submitted by Noopur Singhal, Co-Chair of Management Consulting Club

 

Date: 6-7 November 2014

Organizer: CEIBS

Participants: 3 students from NBS, and students from SMU and CEIBS

 

The 2014 CEIBS MBA Career Treks is an annual program organized by CEIBS MBA students with the help of their MBA Career development center. The 2014 program was launched simultaneously in three different locations, Singapore, Hong Kong and Beijing. The program aims to help students deepen their understanding of their target industries and functions, and explore potential career opportunities through company visits and meetings with senior executives.

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For their Singapore visit, CEIBS invited MBA students from the top three business schools in Singapore (NTU, NUS and SMU) to participate in the Trek, and three students – Noopur Singhal, Richard KW Lee and Chen Chi volunteered to participate and represented Nanyang Business School in the CEIBS trek.

We visited five companies in two days: DHL In-house Consulting, Credit Suisse, TradeHero, Abbott Labs and OCBC, which gave us an insight into several industries, including pharmaceuticals, logistics, mobile gaming and finance. The company visit on the first day was followed by a networking dinner and Mathew Stenger, Aswathi Suresh and Jeffery Zou joined us for the dinner.

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Overall, this two-day event not only gave us a good platform to build contacts in the industry but also helped us in knowing all the participating students at a personal level.

 

For more information about Nanyang Business School click here.

 

Japan MBA Case Competition

Submitted by Reina Wong, Student Exco VP Communications

 

The Nanyang MBA joined the Japan MBA Case Competition for the first time this year. After three rounds of selection process within our class, the team representing the Nanyang MBA in this competition consists of Teo Angie, Wong LinLing Reina, Diyora Karabaeva and Noopur Singhal (left to right).

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The Japan MBA Case Competition is organized by McGill University Japan, Aoyama Gakuin University and Hitotsubashi ICS. The 12 participating teams were given the case at the beginning of November and had about one month to work on the case analysis and recommendations. Although marketing was mainly done in Japan, this year’s competition attracted two schools from outside of Japan, namely Nanyang Business School and Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, in addition to the 10 participating schools from Japan.

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The competition took place on 30 November 2014 at the beautiful campus of Aoyama Gakuin University. We were divided into 3 divisions in the preliminary round by drawing lots, and each division were assigned 3 judges to choose the best performer in each division to enter the final round that would take place later in the afternoon. Our team gave our best during the presentation to showcase our effort put into the competition in the past month.

The preliminary round result was announced shortly after all 12 teams had finished their presentation within their divisions. Unfortunately, our team did not come in first in our division. The 3 teams that entered the finals were McGill Japan, Waseda Business School and Hitotsubashi ICS. All other teams were allowed to stay and watch the finalists’ presentations. We learnt much from the 3 teams’ presentation.

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After the finals, all participants were invited to proceed to an after-event party held at Icon Lounge in Shibuya where the results would be announced. Invitation was also open to the public and students from the participating schools. It was a great opportunity to interact with other participants, the judges, the event organizers and sponsors.

Teams were also given the chance to sit down with judges to understand how we had performed during the preliminary rounds, such as our strengths and areas for improvement. We were glad to hear from our judges that we came in second in our division. We also received valuable feedback on how we could have improved our analysis and presentation.

McGill Japan, the defending champion, came in as the champion again this year. Waseda Business School and Hitotsubashi ICS came in as runners-up.

 

Our team would like to sincerely thank the school for providing us the opportunity to compete in this case competition. We have learnt much and the trip is an unforgettable experience.

 

For more information about Nanyang Business School click here.

Paintball – An event whose name was later changed to "Painball"!

Submitted by Vivek Negi, Co-Chair of the Sports Club

 

Date: 16th November 2014

Activity Organizers: Nanyang MBA Sports Club (Vivek and Aditya)

Participants: Total 24 — 17 MBA Full-time, 2 MBA Part-timer, 3 Exchange Students, 2 Partners

 

We gathered at the bus stand near the Graduate Halls to wait for the bus at 9:30am. After a late night outing the previous night, some people found it hard to get up early (it was early for a Sunday). Mr Exco President turned up looking like a zombie.

The venue was at the School of Paintball which is near NTU and it took us around 10 minutes to reach there. The paintball arena was about size of a football field and there were bags filled with air kept at different positions to create hiding places in the battleground.

The organizer gave us safety instructions and told us the rules of the game. Then the organizers made a statement that those who were not feeling manly could wear a protective vest. This statement forced guys to go without the vest and take shots on the body.

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The 24 participants were divided into 4 teams and each team was distinguished by a different coloured face mask. There were 3 plastic pods near the centre of the field and teams had to compete to get the pods in their possession.

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The teams made strategies giving different roles to different team members. Some people went all out shooting wildly while others were very calculative and played safe. In the first round, Teams 1 and 2 played against each other, and Teams 3 and 4 played in the next game.

The respective winning teams played against each other to declare supremacy and the two losing teams also played against each other. Lot of paintballs did not burst and just ricocheted off players’ bodies leaving painful marks. Those body marks changed the girls’ fashion for the next 2 weeks. Now the event has become known as “Painball”!

Overall, it was great fun and left us with loads of memories (and bruises).

Teams 1&2:

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Teams 3&4:

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For more information about Nanyang Business School click here.

Sports Activities Day

Submitted by Vivek Negi, Co-Chair of the Sports Club

 

Date: 8th November 2014

Activity Organizers: – Nanyang MBA Sports Club (Vivek and Aditya)

Participants: 13 MBA (Full-time and Part-time), 3 Exchange Students, 1 MBA (Part-time previous batch)

Venue: Sport & Recreation Centre

Games: Tennis, Futsal, Slackline

 

After finishing our poster presentations for one of our elective courses during recess week, the Nanyang MBA cohort was full of energy and went to play sports at the school’s S&RC.

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We started the sports afternoon with tennis. Boon Huei was providing expert help to novices like Anand who soon found that the tennis ball was too small to play with.

 

While some were enjoying tennis under the sun, a group shifted to the futsal court. It was great fun to play in a small court but soon people started feeling drained as the energy and intensity of the game was immense. Even though there was shade, the heat and humidity was high. We took frequent breaks to rehydrate ourselves.

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Finally the heat and humidity took its toll and we packed up. Some left to cool down in the swimming pool while the adventurous ones stayed behind to experience slacklining thanks to Herve. It was fun to watch someone on slackline trying to maintain balance. It looked as if the person was swimming, dancing, making tai chi poses in air.

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For more information about Nanyang Business School click here.