Meet Oxford Saïd’s MBA Class Of 2021

Saïd Business School interior

A FOCUS ON THE BIG…AND THE GLOBAL

That’s 311 MBA candidates who deserve to be part of the Class of 2021. The Saïd Business School certainly undermines the myth that Oxford is a distinctively British experience. After all, 92% of the class hails from outside the United Kingdom. In fact, the class features 67 nationalities from across the world. More than that, the class isn’t dominated by students from any region or country. The largest segment of the class, 25%, comes from North America. The remainder boasts students from Western Europe (15%), East Asia (12%), South Asia (12%), and Africa (12%) – not counting nearly even segments from Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Oceania, and the Middle East. This diversity carries into gender, where women make up 47% of the class.

You could call Saïd a program in transition, with Dean Peter Tufano moving on after a wildly successful decade at the helm. During his term, Tufano has doubled the percentage of women in the MBA program. He opened the school’s entrepreneurship centre, the Oxford Foundry, and rolled out a popular 1+1 admissions program and a Creative Destruction Lab. In addition, Tufano accelerated the school’s move to using business for social good by launching its signature Global Opportunities and Threats (GOTO) course. Here, student teams work together to solve a world-scale issue like water management. However, Saïd’s commitment to big picture problem-solving doesn’t end with GOTO.

“It’s not just one course at SBS,” writes Amandine Roche, a 2020 grad. “Not only do the professors in our core management courses integrate examples with an environmental, social, and governance focus, but the programme has specialised courses in which the whole cohort is involved. This includes courses such as Global Rules of the Game, Responsible Business, and Global Opportunities & Threats: Oxford (GOTO). This aspect of the Oxford MBA was important to me when I was comparing programmes. That’s because it is aligned to my belief that, as global citizens and leaders, we cannot ignore the impact of our individual/collective actions and decisions on the environment, society, and governance structures right now and in the future. I strongly believe in actively taking a long-term view and considering the perspectives of all stakeholders who could be affected by my decisions.”

That has happened all by design adds Dean Tufano in a 2020 interview with P&Q. “I’ve always believed that core values are reflected in core curricula. Therefore, we put first and foremost deciding that our students need to understand how big, complex systems worked, and how to intervene in those complex systems and to understand something about the underlying science or whatever. That’s the Global Opportunities and Threats course. We’ve oriented our scholarships to entice students who have that kind of learning in terms of not only people who want to do traditional things, but also students who have a real desire to make change.”

Saïd MBA students partnering on a project

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE MBA PROGRAMME DIRECTOR

Those aren’t the only changes around Oxford. Earlier this year, P&Q reached out to Matthew Conisbee, the MBA Programme Director at the Saïd Business School. Here are his thoughts on where the school is going and what separates it from the rest.

P&Q: What are the most exciting new developments at your program?

Conisbee: “We can look at this from a couple of different perspectives. Firstly, there is new content which is being taught, which includes the new focus of the Global Opportunities and Threats (GOTO) course on Systems Reset (From Crisis to Transformation). There is also a new core element to the programme, Capitalism in Debate. This new course continues to build on one of the programme’s core themes – being a responsible leader. It brings together a number of topics, from the role of business to sustainability and impact, and leans on disciplines from across the University to provoke our students to consider how they can use business as a positive vehicle for societal change.”

P&Q: What is the two most unique or differentiating features of your full-time program? How do they enrich the MBA experience?

Matthew Conisbee

Conisbee: “The single most unique feature of the Oxford MBA is its interdisciplinary lens, and the way in which it brings in research and teaching from across such a broad academic institution to deliver a far more holistic view on the role of a business leader in society. This shows up throughout the programme, from the core courses as well as the electives. This is illustrated by teaching from faculty and contributors from numerous other Oxford departments such as the Oxford Smith School of Enterprise & Environment, The Oxford Internet Institute, The Department of Computer Science or the Oxford Martin School to name a few. Not only is this reflected in the teaching, but as members of one of Oxford’s 39 colleges, each of our MBA students has direct access to the whole of Oxford University. This enables not only a rich network, but also a diversity of thought which helps support the education of our future leaders.”

P&Q: How has COVID-19 impacted your business school?

Conisbee: “COVID-19 has had a significant impact on Oxford Said as it has everywhere. The pressures placed upon Schoolcommunity have been considerable, and vary for each student, faculty and staff member. But a huge amount of innovation, flexibility and dedication have led to some very positive outcomes for the community as a whole. For example, on our full-time MBA, the development of online content has enabled students to complete part of their studies at their own pace, and then use the classroom time to dive into deeper discussions with the faculty. In addition, live online sessions have also opened up the ability to bring in top guest speakers for short times.”

P&Q: Oxford Saïd, like the larger university, is known for tackling larger societal problems. Talk to us about what is involved with Global Opportunities and Threats (GOTO) course and the importance of the topic you’ve chosen this year?

Conisbee: “This year we have chosen the topic “Systems Reset: From Crisis to Transformation”. It has been chosen out of recognition that society at large is at a tipping point, and business and business leaders must act now to tackle some of the greatest challenges that the world is facing.

Students are asked to come up with initiatives and enterprises which tackle and help to reset the agenda at a systems level, with four broad “tracks” to guide them – Economic Reset, Climate Reset, Social Reset,and Health Reset. Every year, some students go on to turn their projects into reality. But even for those who do not take their projects forward, the course is crucial for them to understand the importance of their roles as future leaders, but also to understand how to lead organisations to deal with complex, thorny issues which have no easy answers.”

Saïd MBA students at lunch

P&Q: Peter Tufano will be stepping down as dean in Jun. What have been the biggest legacies that he has left behind during his 10 years at dean of the Saïd Business School?

Conisbee: “From the creation of the Oxford Foundry, Oxford University’s hub for entrepreneurship, to online programmes, the 1+1 MBA, faculty recruitment and our unique GOTO programme, Dean Tufano’s leadership of Saïd Business School has been transformative. He has made tackling world-scale challenges a core focus of the School while strengthening its bonds within the wider University.

He also led a revolution in European MBA programme diversity. At the start of his tenure in 2011 the percentage of female candidates stood at 24%. For the 2020-21 cohort it is 47%, making ours the most gender balanced MBA programme outside of the United States. At the 2014 World Economic Forum on Africa Dean Tufano pledged to have at least 10% of our MBA students from the African continent. We are proud to have had over 11% of each MBA cohort hailing from the continent since 2016, with 13% in the class of 2021.

Towards the end of his tenure Tufano set in motion another major expansion for Saïd Business School – the Global Leadership Centre, which will see a grand Victorian power station transformed into a state of the art executive teaching facility.”

Saïd MBA Student

5 REASONS TO CONSIDER OXFORD SAÏD

1) Creative Destruction Lab: “[This} is an objective-based program for technology-based seed-stage companies which are mentored by exceptional people, such as the former CFO of Google and Chairman of Twitter Patrick Pichette. Students are allocated to these start-ups to provide them strategic advice and help them implement the objectives set by the mentors. The academic aspect of the lab is coordinated by Professor Hellmann, whose book Fundamentals in Entrepreneurial Finance has been lauded and recommended, amongst others, by the 2016 Nobel laureate in Economics.”
Fernando Piekenbrock (‘21)

2) Global Opportunities and Threats: “Oxford. GOTO is an action-oriented, problem-solving module which aims to address some of the most complex challenges the world faces today.  The module is entirely team-based, and throughout Hilary term we explore complex 21st century challenges to drive towards creating new businesses, policies, or interventions that go some way to tackling the issue. As much as our core modules teach us the fundamentals of business, GOTO gives us the opportunity to face up to real problems in the world today.”
Jo Goodall (’21)

“I loved the idea of GOTO: stepping up to world-scale problems and trying to solve them. This year on GOTO, my team is exploring Climate Reset in the context of Building Back Better post-COVID. It’s the sort of thing you fantasize about doing without really knowing how and the MBA at Oxford Saïd gives me the tools, the systems-thinking frameworks, and the confidence to try. I knew that I needed this toolkit to grow as a business leader in the energy industry which is at the crux of crucial issues like the energy transition and climate action.”
Osemhen Okenyi (’21)

Saïd MBA student

3) Finance Lab: “The Oxford MBA offers a general business education, but also the option of specializing and gaining strong and deep knowledge in a specific field. In my case, for example, I wanted to focus on finance and the private equity space. I am able to choose from a large list of finance-focused courses, ranging from financial markets to private equity or venture capital. In addition to these more technical courses, the business school has several co-curricular programmes such as the Oxford Finance Lab. The lab is a highly competitive programme of valuation and modelling taught through case studies of real transactions and is practitioner-led.”
Rami Karaki (’21)

“The Finance Lab is a 160-hour extra-curricular valuation and modelling programme taught via cases by practitioners, with guest speakers including names such as Goldman Sachs, KKR and several hedge funds, VC firms, advisory firms, asset managers and private equity firms. It has been absolutely phenomenal.”
Fernando Piekenbrock (‘21)

4) 1+1: “Oxford and Saïd Business School allowed me to do a “1+1 MBA”, which includes a one-year Master of Science combined with a one-year MBA. This let me work on substantive climate research which I could then link with the practical skills of strategy, management, and business. I also was drawn to Saïd Business School’s focus on social and environmental impact, which manifests in a more thoughtful curriculum and a cohort full of engaging and impressive peers.

I highly recommend the 1+1 MBA program, which allows you to more deeply explore an area (in my case climate change) in an intensive one-year MSc degree before diving into your MBA. This also gives you a full two-year experience, since most European MBAs are just one year. Regardless of which degree you pursue, just be genuine in your interview and try to come to a preview weekend to see if Oxford is right for you.
Eli Mitchell Larson (’20)

5) Social Impact: “I applied to Saïd Business School because of its leadership in the social impact space, which I first learned about through the Skoll Foundation. I was looking for a program that recognized the importance of storytelling and wanted to learn more about how businesses of the future might create their own content. I also wanted to build on the work I had started in the Fledgling Engagement Lab, a year-long program that supports the social impact campaigns of documentaries focused on issues affecting vulnerable populations.”
Reilly Dowd (’20)

The first was the School’s commitment to social impact, which stretches beyond repeating the ‘doing well while doing good’ mantra. The Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship plays an active role within the programme, and the curriculum requires students to think about business in a broader sense.
Johannes Olschner-Wood (’21)

Click on the links below to learn more about the member of this year’s Class of 2021.

MBA Student Hometown Undergrad Alma Mater Last Employer
Jo Goodall South Yorkshire, United Kingdom University of Exeter Entrepreneur
Rami Karaki Beirut, Lebanon American University of Beirut Advention Business Partners
Dániel Léderer Budapest, Hungary University of St Andrews Milestone Institute
Ian Loh Singapore Tsinghua University UBS Investment Bank
Osemhen Okenyi Lagos, Nigeria University of Lagos Royal Dutch Shell
Johannes Olschner-Wood Ithaca, New York University College London ManoCap
Fernando Piekenbrock Madrid, Spain Maastricht University UniCredit
Sanya Rajpal Bath, United Kingdom University of Bristol United Nations
Maria Rotilu Lagos, Nigeria Covenant University Branch.co
Haruka Udagawa Tokyo, Japan University of Tokyo Embassy of Japan in the UK
Bianca Vermooten Cape Town, South Africa University of Cape Town Optical Films

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