Stratford High Graduate (1991), Houston Texas, I

Stratford High graduate (1991), Houston Texas, I gained my first exposure to the importance of applying management principles in High School, when I owned and operated a Yard Service. The experience was invaluable since it taught me the art of customer acquisition and retention and how a customer centric approach was key to success in business. During the same time, I also served as a Lifeguard at some of the neighbourhood pools, which gave me my first insights into inter-personal skills, facing as I did situations where I had to persuade and counsel some of the more dare devil kids.

I was also privileged in that I had the advantage of learning the value of academic studies from my mother who was a Junior High Science and Tech teacher, while being able to reflect on the challenges of experiential situations through my father who worked as a Petroleum Engineer for Shell Oil. As a High School student, I also played a great deal of football and basketball, which helped me develop skills such as: working in a team, planning and executing competitive strategies aimed at outmaneuvering the opposition; and analyzing lost matches in order to learn from mistakes.

Looking back on those years, it almost seems as if I always was a student of 'Management of Business and Markets' albeit through observation and imitation. It was this natural interest that led me into the field of Economics (though I chose the branch of Agricultural Economics), at the Texas a&M University, obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree in August 1997 (refer Appendix 1).

Post my college graduation, I joined Dell Computers as Homes Sales Representative in October 1997 and gradually worked my way up the ranks to my present position as 'Large Opportunity Acquisition Sales Manager.' At Dell Computers, I continued on my learning curve and quickly observed, absorbed and applied the principles underlying Marketing & Sales, Customer Satisfaction and Relationship Management, Human Resource Management, Communication, and Cross-functional co-ordination. The continuous learning and diligent application of such principles, I believe, was the key to my being awarded the 'Significant Achiever of the Year Award for 1999,' and the 'Customer Care Super Star Award for Q2 and Q3, FY'99' at Dell Computers (refer Appendix 1).

Though I have been a practitioner of Business Management Principles since my High School Days, I believe that experiential learning such as mine, while no doubt invaluable, has its own limitations, since the learning curve tends to be much longer with exposure necessarily limited to the immediate environment. To elaborate, while my Dell experience has contributed significantly to my current job knowledge and managerial skills, I quite recognize that there is a world beyond Dell, which follows different business models and varying management styles. Many of those will have their own strengths, the study of which will definitely broaden my horizons. This, then, is the main reason why I wish to pursue an MBA degree.

Another key reason behind my seeking a MBA degree is to gain a more holistic understanding of the various disciplines involved in Management such as Finance and Human Resource Management. By doing so, I hope to gain a wider window into a wide cross-section of industries and the challenges inherent in managing and expanding businesses in a global economy.

While the aforesaid will, no doubt, satisfy my insatiable appetite for watching and studying the movements of Markets and Businesses all over the world, an MBA degree will also help me benchmark my current level of job knowledge and skills against widely recognized norms and thereby act as a motivator in striving to reach a far higher standard of professional excellence. Last, but not least, I believe that a MBA degree is vital if I am to achieve my personal career goal of reaching a top management position in a technical industry and someday starting my own independent business venture.