MBAus conference — Day 1
This is Part 1 of a three part series. Check out MBAus Conference — Day 2 or MBAus Conference — Day 3 if that’s more relevant for you.
Founded by Emma Young, Soumya Ranjan, Peter Pelikhov, and Nathan Spence, MBAus (said “MBA Aus”) Conference was a two-day conference (Aug 26–27, 2017) aimed to connect business school students around the country. There are similar events in Europe, Asia, and the US but nothing equivalent here in Australia.
The inaugural MBAus conference provided a forum to connect business school students with established leaders in business and academia and raise awareness of the value of a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) to Australian organisations as well as to the community. The key topics of focus for the 2017 MBAus Conference were diversity in the workplace; innovation and entrepreneurship; fourth industrial revolution; and globalising an Australian business.
Emma, Soumya, Peter and Nathan — well, we call them ESPN — forms a powerful and collaborative leadership team. I have to admit this is the most diverse and reliable leadership team I have ever had the opportunity to work with. I joined the team as project lead for the Administration team and to provide support throughout the concept, planning and execution stages of the event. I was also lucky enough to put together an amazing team of dedicated and hard working volunteers Cassandra Mitchell, Gaurav Vikash, and Shoo Chin Siah — to make this event a great success.
Ernst & Young’s powerhouse Annette Kimmitt (Global Growths Market Leader and APAC Accounts Leader) kicked off the MBAus conference with a compelling keynote on mega trends driving global disruption. Her talk focused on how technology, politics, and people are disrupting the world and how responding to disruption became the most important activity for leaders.
Annette’s talk was followed by a networking session for all the conference attendees to mingle and get to know one another. Our networking bingo game really helped a lot of attendees to kick-off conversations and have some fun with it.
The conference sessions ranged from the tactical to the inspirational, challenged our way of thinking, and much more. If you missed MBAus, check out conference summary here:
