Orathai Leaves Her Comfort Zone by Pursuing 2nd MBA

Sharing from Orathai Singhaudomchai, DiMBA Intake 2021 student

Born and raised in Thailand, Orathai Singhaudomchai pursued a unique route to obtain her first MBA in Taiwan. After 14 years of career development in the banking sector, Orathai once again decided to leave her comfort zone by pursuing her second MBA in the heart of Asia – Hong Kong.

1. What are the motivations for you to do an MBA at this stage of your career?

Given my career in the banking industry which is highly impact by the changing in technology or digital disruption, it’s crucial for banking people to be able to speak both business and technology languages, bridging the gap between these two worlds essentially will need either MBA graduates’ skills. Moreover, with my role in business strategy team, it’s also crucial to have broaden business perspectives to formulate business strategy that led the changes, therefore, I believe getting MBA would help me on this.

2. Tell us more about your learning experience so far in our virtual class, how do you feel about the interactions?

Basically, I have to say HKUST virtual classroom has provided seamless learning experience , the engagement between 
Professor and students are really great. Since the class size is kept optimal around 30-40 students, you can raise your hand anytime if you want to share anything in the class, you can also put your questions in the live platform chat box, it also can facilitate the breakout group discussion during the class too. So far, the learning experience is effective and it really worked out perfectly likes we are in the actual classroom.

3. From where or from whom do you hear about HKUST Digital MBA in the first place, are there any unforgettable learning moments you can share in the past months, classes that you find most interesting and useful?

At first, I browsed for the MBA course online in google, but my search scope was only limited to either SG or HK as both of these destinations are financial hubs in Asia. However, with the advantages of proximity of China and availability of digital MBA course in HK, my choice went to HKUST. For the interesting classes, I like all the classes I have learnt so far, but the unforgettable one might be the C-Suites Life and Digital and Social Media course. For C-Suites Life, we had very intense real simulation running a company as the executives. The decisions were needed to be done very quick, financial planning was also needed to be properly addressed to deliver bottom line. For Digital & Social Media course, we were given 10K budget to pitch for real business cases digital media plan which was quite tough, and every group’s pitching was very cool & interesting. I really enjoy learning from these kind of real business cases and challenged simulation.

4. Any example you can give us on the knowledge and skill learnt and have applied at work some biggest takeaways?

Time management Is really important, because the most effective learning is to be prepared by doing pre-read before class and learning experience will be maximized because you can catch up well as well as able to exchange idea/ enjoy discussion. The rest of takeaways, I think it will be various, depends on each people.

5. You are halfway through DiMBA journey now, how effective is it helping you to meet your career goal to be a change leader in banking industry?

Actually, I feel a bit frightening when saying that I’m already halfway being through this program journey. I found the curriculums offering by DiMBA program and learning from all top-notch professors have enable me to have strong fundamental and broaden my perspectives of current business world. I can adapt what I’ve learnt so far to inspire and guide my team in the future.

6. Advice and tips for our future students on anything that you find particularly valuable.

For future students, I believe if you are looking for balancing between your current job and quality MBA program, you have made the right choice to join HKUST DiMBA program. Moreover, the country has been already re-opened, you will find the DiMBA program’s experience will be more fruitful, because you can also enjoy occasionally mixer events with good networking with alumni from top tier organizations and industries.