Graduate Studies Blog

NANYANG EXECUTIVE MBA

A Tech Leader’s Bold Journey Towards Regional Transformation

Within executive circles, the advantages of an Executive MBA (EMBA) are widely acknowledged: refined business acumen, expedited career progression, and elevated leadership credentials. However, Yogesh Gaikwad harboured a distinct ambition – to hone his entrepreneurial skills.

“NTU’s course helped me do just that,” says the Interim Chief Information Technology Officer spearheading the insurer’s digital transformation initiatives across the region, particularly focusing on the Indonesia business in recent times.

Yogesh is a 2022 graduate of the Nanyang EMBA programme, offered by the Nanyang Business School at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU).

Drawing from his experience spearheading digital incubations resembling startups within established businesses, Yogesh recognised the imperative of taking an intrapreneurial approach, and honing the leadership skills required, to successfully pursue ambitious endeavours within his diverse global corporation.

This propelled him to explore business schools globally, seeking a course that could answer his curiosity in better and more effective approaches to drive large-scale initiatives, and provide insights around how industries and multinational organisations have successfully navigated technological revolutions.

The Nanyang EMBA’s primary focus on digital transformation, innovation, and intercultural leadership aligned with these aspirations, making it the perfect fit.

Big bold vision and ideas

With EMBA in hand, the initiatives Yogesh now leads at work boast higher success rates than others, thanks to learnings he says are “baked into all I’m strategizing for the future.”

The Nanyang Executive MBA programme offers business leaders a holistic curriculum designed to strengthen knowledge and skills in general management, leadership, and technology and innovation. Course modules include digital transformation, knowledge, and technology management, and developing strategic capabilities.

In addition, Yogesh studied technology-based innovation and disruption on an overseas immersion to the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. The Berkeley community boasts close ties to Silicon Valley.

“We were taught how to get an idea into execution mode, and do better for people and communities,” he says. Inspired by the Berkeley Venture Capital, a VC fund run by Berkeley students, Yogesh is now mulling the creation of a VC fund for NTU.

Other EMBA learnings found their way into his work. Analysis of how Google and Facebook leverage market network effects to scale their products provided Yogesh the insights to bake the learnings into Prudential’s regionwide offerings.

Meanwhile, case studies of how Air Liquide kept a merged entity lean, agile and profitable, and how Alibaba used data from platform transactions to run an innovative new enterprise offering loans to small businesses, proffered inspiration on how to enhance the success of digital transformation initiatives driven by a core focus on keeping customer needs at the forefront of all endeavours.

These takeaways enabled Yogesh to unleash his natural entrepreneurial bent and deliver results. “I’ve developed a structured perspective to consider all angles of an opportunity, challenge or an issue and work out strategies – such that when I start looking at a problem now, these learnings automatically come up,” he says. “I am more bold, more aggressive, and more structured, in terms of whatever I want to drive.”

Honing cultural intelligence

Beyond sharper strategies, Yogesh also credits the increased success rate of his projects to an improved cultural quotient, built up through Nanyang EMBA learnings.

This has resulted in heightened sensitivity toward cultural nuances when leading people, serving customers, and designing products and services. “It’s helped me have a positive impact across the organisation for the last few years,” he says.

The Nanyang EMBA emphasises intercultural leadership by offering senior executives a trifecta of cutting-edge management, innovation, and leadership perspectives across Singapore, the US and China.

This is exposure the India-born leader particularly values. “I had the opportunity to do my MBA at Harvard or the London School of Economics, but NTU’s course came with an East-West flavour,” he explains.

“I thought if I combined my understanding of the Indian landscape with knowledge of Asia, China and Silicon Valley, that’s the best combination a leader could have to build and lead global teams and organisations, because I would be exposed to almost all parts of the world that are growing rapidly.”

Apart from the learnings at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, Yogesh also attended courses on technology and innovation, and doing business in China, at the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, Beijing.

Enhanced knowledge of the workings of Chinese corporations, and their cultural and business norms, has enabled him to effectively engage and lead China-based employees and change engine projects. The diverse cohort of over 15 nationalities within the Nanyang EMBA also provided rich opportunities to expand his cultural perspectives.

Becoming a businessman

Having been approached by aspiring participants to share his EMBA experiences since graduating, Yogesh readily points out concerns that senior leaders’ tight schedules mean carving out time for classes and immersions can be challenging.

“NTU’s support and flexibility around schedule management and assignment completion was a key plus,” he says. To accommodate participants’ needs, the part-time Nanyang EMBA course is designed to run in six segments of two weeks each across 13 months, with each course segment spaced three months apart.

His studies concluded, the computer engineering expert now looks forward to applying his freshly honed entrepreneurial and intercultural skills to not only the workplace, but also personal aspirations to build an agritech platform that will benefit farmers across Asia.

“The course has given me the learnings, insight and platform to be more confident, aggressive, and polished in my approach to handling leadership assignments and running my business in time to come,” he says.

And when that day arrives, he can also expect the support of a diverse cohort of professional connections spanning 20 industries. “I’ve established solid friendships during the course. We hang out,” he says. “We call if someone is in need of something, and come together to use our contacts and offer help.”

About the Nanyang Executive MBA

In this rapidly changing world driven by technology, digitalisation, and sustainability, lifelong learning is key to staying ahead of the competition. The Nanyang EMBA equips business leaders with the tools and strategies to lead purposefully in the hyperconnected economy.

This part-time programme offers a career-compatible schedule allowing you to your undivided attention to work and study. The programme’s duration is 13-months with the flexibility to stretch to 2 years to accommodate work demands.

Visit our website at https://bit.ly/NanyangExecMBA or download the brochure to learn more about the programme and available funding options.