Frantz Moudoute

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Alumni Experience

In terms of the MBA itself, the course is taught by a fantastic faculty, all of whom have solid credentials, and the diverse electives offered allow students to specialise in their chosen field.
Batch Year
2016
Nationality
Hong Kong

Student Story

I chose HKU Business School for a number of reasons. Firstly, HKU is one of the oldest universities in Asia, having been around for almost 110 years. When put into perspective with regards to achievement, knowledge, operational resources, and maybe most importantly, the alumni network, it is probably the best platform for knowledge. Another reason for choosing HKU was that there are a large number of companies in Hong Kong, as well as other regional players, that employ HKU graduates and undergraduates. In terms of the MBA itself, the course is taught by a fantastic faculty, all of whom have solid credentials, and the diverse electives offered allow students to specialise in their chosen field. In my case I selected courses related to corporate finance and investment management, among others, as this is where I saw my career leading to post-MBA.

Going into the programme I did not expect to learn much with regards to soft skills, however, I was pleasantly surprised by my experience. I enjoyed working with people of different backgrounds, both culturally and professionally, and believe I benefited greatly from the monthly rotation. I saw the MBA experience as a playground to learn about management, success, and more importantly, failure of companies. I saw it as an opportunity to ask my insightful classmates and professors any and all business-related questions. It revived my interest in learning new skills and tamed my fear of taking over new challenges. I like to think of students as having been trained not only from an academic standpoint, but more importantly, intensively trained to undertake a task in a new field with a team of people from extremely diverse backgrounds on a monthly basis.

I found the networking to be one of the most useful parts of the programme. There’s a team of over 120 people just from the class of 2016, and we met many more people when you take into account our interaction with other batches. The networking events were always successful, not just due to HKU, but because of Hong Kong and its unique spirit. It made each of these moments memorable. From a strictly academic – or professional – angle, one can say that the programme allows you to touch upon a wide selection of subjects, and gain a deep insight very quickly. Being given six weeks to comfortably discuss a new problem and handle questions from teachers and classmates is not much time, and your results will depend on how well you apply yourself and how much effort you put into your work. The programme reinforced my interest in combining investment management and data sciences from both an operational and managerial aspect.

With regards to the workload, there’s no denying that it was challenging at the start. It took me a few weeks to get used to handling a full-time job, attending classes in the evening – and sometimes weekends -, and preparing assignments with my teams. You learn to evaluate time differently in order to discover a new subject, research, draft reports, and prepare presentations. You learn to plan for the unexpected, and most importantly, set up time for discussions – the essence of our team’s success.

For prospective and upcoming students I would recommend making sure your purpose for studying for an MBA is clear, as it will only make the programme more exciting and beneficial. If an MBA is part of your career plan, one should pay attention to every piece of information and seize each opportunity to learn and grow during these two fantastic years.

After completing my MBA, I joined a Hong Kong based hedge fund, then launched a corporate access platform. I am now completing a Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence post-graduate degree.

 

Industry: Financial Services
Company: Hedge Fund
Job Title: Portfolio Construction (Data-driven Strategies) & R Expert