Emerald Yip

INSEAD

“Passionate about exploring the world, driving changes, and spending time with my golden retriever Andy.”

Hometown: Hong Kong

Fun Fact About Yourself: Inspired by National Geographic from a young age, I am passionate about travelling off the beaten path and immersing myself fully into the local culture along the way. So far, I have been to 65 countries, mostly solo. As I am typing this, I am about to board a flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia!

Undergraduate School and Major: University of Hong Kong, BBA (International Business and Global Management), second major in International Relations

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: I am part of the Fast-Track Leadership Programme of Swire Group, one of the largest conglomerates in Hong Kong with operations in over 60 countries. For the past 7 years, I have been placed at the Swire-owned Cathay Pacific Airways, the main airline of Hong Kong, and have so far been through 5 rotations across different business functions. My latest role is Digital Manager – Omnichannel Marketing, leading a team of 13 to look after Cathay’s digital marketing strategy and operations.

INSEAD is one of the most culturally and professionally diverse MBA programs in the world. How do you see these global perspectives enhancing the value of your business education over the next year? Back when I was considering various MBA programmes, what stood out about INSEAD was the idea that everyone is a minority – no nationality shall exceed 12% of the total class to facilitate equal discussions across different cultural backgrounds. I look forward to learning about business practices around the globe and building a global network through my INSEAD experience. I believe that these global perspectives will help me achieve my long-term career goal of leading an international business.

Why did you choose a one-year program over a two-year program? How do you see an INSEAD MBA giving you an advantage in the marketplace? The duration was another key consideration of mine when choosing INSEAD over other MBA programmes. At my current life stage, I prefer not to stay away from the job market for too long, so the one-year programme allows me to drastically reduce my time and financial costs while still receiving a world-class business education.

Aside from your classmates, what was the key part of INSEAD’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? The flexibility to spend time in INSEAD’s 3 campuses in Fontainebleau, Singapore and Abu Dhabi in one year was another key reason. I am excited to build a global network spanning across Europe, Asia and the Middle East through these experiences.

What course, club or activity excites you the most at INSEAD? The Startup Bootcamp. It is a 48-hour challenge where participants have to build a startup proposal from scratch and present it to the VCs by the end of the second day. Entrepreneurship is an area I am keen to explore during the MBA, so I am excited to learn what it takes to build a successful startup through hands-on experience while meeting fellow classmates who are equally interested in venture building.

What has been your first impression of the INSEAD MBA students and alumni you’ve met so far. Tell us your best INSEAD story so far. Everyone I have talked to has been extremely friendly and helpful. They are all truly living up to INSEAD’s proposition as the “business school for the world” – almost everyone has lived and worked in at least two countries (some even way more than that)!

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Leading a cross-functional team of 28 to transform the credit management process at Cathay, resulting in US$50M worth of savings. I am particularly proud of this accomplishment as the credit management process was extremely complicated – there have been many attempts to fix the process over the years, but none was able to succeed given the complexity. However, through learning from past mistakes, collaborating with suppliers to standardize the credit formats and persisting through numerous operational challenges, we were eventually able to put in place a new automatic credit management and settlement system, bringing US$50M savings to the company. I was also awarded the Best Employee of the Year for leading the project.

What do you hope to do after graduation (at this point)? At this stage, I am interested in a few different career directions, and would like to make use of my time in INSEAD to delve deeper into them.

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into INSEAD’s MBA program? I would suggest reaching out to INSEAD students and alumni to learn about the school and what makes it special, then highlighting in your application how the special characteristics of INSEAD can help you achieve your goals. Another thing is to demonstrate your international outlook – it does not necessarily mean that you have to be a globetrotter to get in, but it is more about the way you view the world and how you portray that in your essays.

DON’T MISS: MEET INSEAD’S MBA CLASS OF 2025