Student Stories

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

Tell me about yourself and your career highlight.

I’m Fu Xiang Xun, an MBA graduate from The University of Nottingham, and I’m very grateful to receive the award for Best Management Project. I work in procurement in a global relocations management company, and been in procurement-related roles in the last 12+ years. Some of my personal career highlights include:

• Taking over department manager responsibilities at my 1^st job after about 1 year in the role
• Conducting sourcing training for 50+ colleagues in 4 countries
• Visiting 22 supplier warehouses in 8 countries in 4 weeks
• Representing both my employer and my supplier partners as an advocate to develop win-win resolutions and long-term relationships.

What has been your greatest achievement or most significant project to date?

My MBA Management Project! I never realised that I could put together a coherent 20,000-word research paper which benefits the company I work for. Of course I didn’t do it alone – I had a lot of support and encouragement from my family, company senior management, my bosses and colleagues; as well as my academic supervisors from the university.

Tell us about a challenge you had to overcome in your workplace.

I felt that I was starting to stagnate in my work role, with limited options for growth in the local office. I really liked the company culture and colleagues, so did not prefer looking for external opportunities. I did recognise a capability gap which I could fill based on previous work experience in other companies and set about to speak and prove to the head of department on the gap and that I could fill it.

In order to get buy-in from the department head and higher management levels, I needed to wear two hats – fulfilling my regular day-to-day responsibilities as well as working on presenting the capability gap and my 3-year proposed plans to bridge the gap, and providing real-life data to prove the viability of the bridge. Thanks in part to the exposure and thinking skills I gained from the MBA programme, I was successful and got promoted into a brand-new role as a result.

What were some of the most valuable take-aways in PSB Academy?

My critical thinking abilities truly benefitted from the Nottingham MBA programme with the challenging assignments, and I obtained a holistic view of the firm from the informative academic content; I also gained many friends from the teachers and classmates I met. Specifically towards PSB Academy, I’m grateful for the facilitation of the course in Singapore at a convenient location – no major administrative issues and the progression of the entire course was smooth.