Meet Oxford Saïd’s MBA Class Of 2018

Itua Iyoha

Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

Describe yourself in 15 words or less: A modern hippie who believes in the magic of logic and love.

Hometown: Edo, Nigeria

Fun Fact About Yourself: I enjoy re-reading and re-watching my favourite books and movies; I’ve read every book in the Harry Potter series at least 6 times and watched Les Miserables five times!

Undergraduate School and Major: American University of Nigeria, BSc (hons) Communications and Multimedia Design

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation:

(In reverse chronological order)

McKinsey and Company – Business Analyst

Eatrightnaija.com – Founder

PricewaterhouseCoopers – Associate Consultant

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Setting up a performance management system that helped a federal agency in Nigeria drive accountability from over 100 stations across the country, and training agency staff to administer the system.

Looking back on your experience, what one piece of advice would you give to future business school applicants? The essays are the most important part of your application, so be sure to invest sufficient time on them. This is where you have the chance to reflect and really understand who you are, what is important to you, and why you want to go to business school. You also have the chance to show the admissions team who you are behind the generic data – most other applicants will have good GMAT scores, glowing recommendations, and an impressive resume. Your essays will make your application stand out and help the admissions picture you as a member of the incoming class.

Answer the questions honestly. Tempting as it may be, resist the urge to present the persona that you think the admissions team will want to see. Of course, that does not mean that you should not be putting your best foot forward, but you need to do this while remaining your authentic self. There are two reasons why this is so important. First, the admissions team is experienced enough that they can see through pretense quite easily. Second, even if you were able to get admitted using this fake persona, chances are the school would not be a good fit for you anyway. The real you may have been happier at a different school that would have gladly welcomed your true personality. So don’t sell yourself short by giving insincere responses.

What was the key factor that led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA and why was it so important to you?  One of the many factors that led me to choose Said Business School was its emphasis on addressing world-scale problems. Given the power that corporations wield in the modern economy, I believe that business leaders should be at the forefront of thinking through and implementing solutions to these issues, whether or not they are self-described social enterprises. I’m proud to be attending a business school that seeks to cultivate a new generation of responsible business leaders who have the confidence to take on such complex issues as water scarcity and migration. One of the ways that SBS does this is through the Global Opportunities and Threats (GOTO) project, which provides the opportunity to explore a global issue in-depth from a business perspective. I’m very excited about this year’s topic: the Future of Healthcare.

What would success look like to you after your first year of business school? At the end of the programme, I want to be able to say that I have done the following:

* Experienced tremendous personal and professional growth.

* Learned a great deal from my peers and in return, made a meaningful contribution to their MBA experience.

* More clearly defined my career goals and articulated my path to achieving them.

* Made the most of this amazing opportunity while having a lot of fun!