MBA Student profile: Nkechi Juwah, Manchester Business School

Nkechi Juwah has aspirations of growing into a top class manager, so what better way to begin than with an MBA. She speaks with TopMBA.com about study, stress and strategy.

In the summer of 2009, Juwah will graduate with an MBA from Manchester Business School. For the last 10 years, she’s been working at Cadbury Nigeria Plc in Lagos, Nigeria, in a variety of roles, most recently as HR Manager for Resourcing and Talent. Juwah had no plans to leave the company, but she needed to acquire a sound grasp of executing business strategy, so she embarked on her MBA via distance learning.

Balancing study and work is a challenge for anyone and Juwah says she’s had to become an extremely organised person.
“Maximising weekends and bank holidays has also helped a lot,” she says.

Many MBA candidates enrol in the qualification to gain managerial and leadership expertise, business strategy or a change in career - Juwah is no exception. “I had already made a career change from Information Systems to Human Resources. The MBA has given me an edge in my new role as my ability to grasp and execute business challenges from a human capital point of view is clearly above that of my HR peers,” she says.

“The best things about business school are the new knowledge, networking and the analytical approach. But, it’s also stressful, expensive and unpredictable. I wish I’d known the art of speed-reading books and documents before I started,” she says.

Juwah is one of the fortunate MBA candidates who has been able to pay her way through business school from her earnings, as well as the full support of her spouse, who has often paid for her workshop trips.

In 10 years time, she hopes her MBA, combined with her work experience, will see her become an HR director of a multinational enterprise. And, with the best piece of business advice she’s received being, “Never say never, every problem has a solution,” Juwah is well on her way to achieving her goal.

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NB: After publication of this profile Nkechi announced that her MBA has worked. She starts her new job with MTN Nigeria, the leading telecoms firm in Nigeria in July. “My MBA skills were put to good use in the interview assessment presentation,” she said.