Anirudh Singhania got a job in the US after his MBA from the University of Hong Kong. He says the one-year MBA program has changed his mindset and his career
Salary increase, enhanced career opportunities, leadership skills—these are just a few reasons why countless professionals seek out an MBA every year. For Anirudh Singhania, a one-year MBA proved to be the missing piece to his otherwise thriving career.
Anirudh had been flying high as a certified public accountant with Axis Risk Consulting for nearly four years in India. He started out as a consultant and then rose to the role of assistant manager—leading teams and partnering with senior management—with the global multinational firm. Yet he wasn’t completely satisfied.
He wanted to develop his overall profile and looked to business schools to help him achieve this aim. Anirudh researched schools in Singapore, India and Europe before finally settling on . The diverse MBA class profile, global focus, and case-based learning stoid out to Anirudh.
Fast forward four years and Anirudh is now an enterprise and risk compliance (ERC) director based in Chicago, the largest city in the American Midwest, and happier than ever in his career.
Shaping your post-MBA career
Anirudh’s worldview opened up considerably during the one-year HKU MBA.
Preparing a business plan, winning competitions, and developing language skills were prospects that had previously never crossed his mind until business school.
The Business Lab elective particularly stood out as a memorable experience for Anirudh during the course.
On this elective, students engage in active business-related discussions with one another based on case studies, while developing problem-solving capabilities and networking with industry experts who lead these sessions. Students then present a final project to judges in teams.
Anirudh says that despite his team of four’s lack of similarities, they went on to win the ‘Best Pitch Award’ on the business lab elective-competition by combining their strengths and working as one.
He also completed two internships during his MBA, one leading a team of consultants based outside of Hong Kong for three months with The Eureka Consulting Group, and the other working on global strategy with Infiniti Motor Company.
Both roles helped to shape his international outlook, as well as highlight what he didn’t want to do career-wise.
“An MBA program not only teaches the finance and strategy tricks, but also teaches you to be humble and self-aware, making you understand how exactly you want to shape up your post-MBA career,” Anirudh says.
Being open minded to new opportunities
After graduating in 2016, the role Anirudh landed with global consulting firm, Genpact, was completely new territory for him in more ways than one.
Not only was he faced with adapting to a completely new country and culture yet again, but also a new career track.
Anirudh says that the finer skills he picked up during the MBA program, which included not shying away from new opportunities, being open to change, and going outside of his comfort zone, helped him to pursue an international career.
“In the last three years, I can see myself transforming both professionally and personally, when it comes to being open to new ideas, learning new things or working in a completely new territory,” Anirudh adds, an attitude that has served him well as a director.
Currently, his day-to-day responsibilities involve designing customized risk and compliance solutions for organizations, leading marketing initiatives, and communicating with senior stakeholders both in and outside of Genpact.
He admits that it took him some time to completely embrace his new role as all of his responsibilities were completely new to him, but several factors helped.
“The things that I believe helped in this process were the lack of reluctance to try new things, always being keen to continuously learn and evolve, and not being afraid of failing,” he says.
“Those are the biggest takeaways from my MBA program.”
Student Reviews
The University of Hong Kong (HKU) - MBA Programmes HKU Business School
Academic
Very good academic, caes course amazing, ccs are all amazing, professors are excellent, the architecture and infrastructure is splendid, people here are awesome, made some really nice friends, and teachers support us
Diversified culture
I highly recommend The University of Hong Kong to students all around the world because of their diversified culture, teaching standards, and the people which make the learning experience better every day.
A place where you best understand local and international cultures
With plenty of experiences available, HKU provides a plenty of experience for me to explore our own and other countries culture. She has excellent teaching and research staffs in the Department of Ecology and Biodiversity. Time allocate to students are considered sufficient and staffs are ready to reach anytime.
Besides academic, she has various subsidised programmes that allow students to explore. This credit should be given to GenEd (general education) Office to provide different interesting programmes. These ranged from guest speaker giving talks on China-Hong Kong relationship; Contemporary art in Asia; or holding mini forum on geopolitics. Most, if not all, of which are free of charge!
Life at HKU
Pursued the SHS degree at HKU, academic and clinical staff members were very devoted and passionate. The academic program is under constant reviews, staff members are open minded and willing to modify the program with regards to students' opinions. Career prospect is good. Uni life is fruitful, many different activities for students to choose. Great facilities supporting learning.
Student Life in HKU
As an Accounting and Finance year3 undergrad student in HKU, the university provides lots of opportunities for me to learn and explore my interests.
You could join a wide variety of activities, like being an committee member of societies and joining hall activities. As for me, I chose to join the winter exchange programme, be a committee member, and did volunteering servic and had latrine construction and volunteer teaching in Ghana, Africa. I also organized lots of activities for societies and had lots of meetings with company representatives. As for school work, it is okay normally but definitely u got a lot busier during November and April. You got a lot more free time compared to CUHK and HKUST. And of course, this is considered as the most ‘international’ uni in HK in a way that I could make friends coming from different countries.
Just wanna add, HKU has a good location for foodie as its near Central, Causeway Bay and Tsim Sha Tsui. For those who love night lifes dont miss this. I didnt speak of anything i dislike coz there isnt anything i dislike much, but if I do have to say, it is the hall life of many local students, such as having cheers at night and never sleeps that may disturb others.
Academics
I think it’s a great university that gives you a lot of opportunities in terms of academics as well as extracurricular activities. The education system is fairly westernized and the professors are good for the most part.
International, stratified and political
Adequate resources and very convenient campus with sufficient channels to expand your social and professional circle. Also politically active, and perhaps too biasedly so. Its law school is firmly established, with the longest history in Hong Kong. Practical and professional training, with a constant atmosphere of anxiety and competition that encourages a relatively focused and narrow vision of career outlook. Good range of extra curricular activities available.
Life in HKU
HKU provides students with lots of opportunities in multidisciplinary researches and experiences. This encourages students to widen their horizons and prepare for the future. The programme I attended organised both local and oversea field trips that allowed me to have the first hand experiences of relative aspects. It was very useful for my later career.
BSocSc
I am a graduate of the BSocSc programme several years ago. I appreciate that the programme provided a flexible choice of majors and minors. Even I was admitted into social sciences programme, I could explore various streams of studies in and out of the social sciences faculty, including global studies, human resources, politics, science and music. I did a double major in psychology and sociology. Among all learning experiences in lectures, tutorials, field trips…, I would say the internship experience was one of the most memorable part of my university life. The faculty offers a credit-bearing internship programme in which students can go to various NGOs to work on social issues, ranging from poverty, education to adjustment of ethnic minorities. Students can be placed locally or overseas, depending on placement quota, their personal preference and past experience. I went to a social service agency that serves adults who are intellectually challenged and have autism spectrum disorder. It was an eye-opening experience in observing how different professionals work together to provide training for those people and reflecting on how psychological knowledge could come into play. I was also able to gain some hands-on experience in leading an activity.
There are more and more internship opportunities for university students. It is just another way to gain practical experience apart from applying for interns in government agencies or business companies, especially in organisations that would not openly recruit interns but only work with tertiary institutions.
It should be noted that for some majors/courses, there are really a lot of people studying. When I was an undergraduate back then, we often expected a lecture with 100+ students and a tutorial with nearly 20 students. If you favour close student-teacher interaction in small classes, you may look into the enrolment of particular courses.
Great curriculum arrangement for my program
Teachers in HKU are dedicated to education students, for both undergrad and postgrad. The school is over 100 years old and it is one of the most pretty school I have ever seen through my life. But there is one thing that I do not like is that for some program, including mine, we could not receive our diploma right after we finished out program. We have to wait for another couple of months to receive that.
