Yoshiro Takaichi
Yoshiro Takaichi

My name is Yoshiro. I joined the full-time HKU MBA program in 2019. Before I joined HKU, I was previously working at a Japanese engineering company after I graduated from college in Tokyo. I have worked in the construction industry for over 10 years. My scope of work was mainly the planning of tax strategies and financial operations related to construction projects.

1)      What was your reason in pursuing an MBA?

After I had worked with my company for a long time, I gradually started to wonder if I could look back on what I had learned and achieved in my career objectively since I did not have sufficient time to do so. Also, I was expecting that I  could have a different perspective when working with classmates from other countries.

2)      What motivated you to choose Hong Kong as a location and HKU MBA?

When I came here for a holiday twenty years ago, I still remember clearly how I was positively overwhelmed by the energy of Hong Kong.  I was fascinated by the fusion of eastern and western cultures in this city. Hong Kong people generally speak English, which made it easy for me to picture myself living there. Also, the economic development of Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Macau, and other cities in the bay area and its proximity in relationship and geography to Hong Kong gave me an additional motivation to study an extensive array of business outlooks.

As for the question of why I chose HKU, I had a chance to talk with one of my friends who is an HKU alumna. After I talked with her about school life in Hong Kong, I decided to apply to HKU.

3)      How is your ongoing experience of HKU MBA?

It was not easy for me to return to full-time student life. I had long been away from it for over ten years. I was used to the life where I had to work in the mornings. However, that life suddenly changed and I now needed to go to school from morning to afternoon and do homework even after that. Anyway, I got used to it in a month and it’s going well.

4)      Are there any insights or work advice you can provide to our students who are looking to do an MBA?

I feel it is important to consider several factors when you choose an MBA program. It is not only at which school and what you study but also where you live and the demographic of the student body, etc. There might be possibilities that things are different from what you expected. However, if many factors you considered before are satisfied, I guess you can still spend your MBA life happily. I would like to recommend considering your quality of life during the MBA as well as the name of the school and its ranking.