17 years of business experience, and still learning with an MBA

17 years of business experience, and still learning with an MBA

After 17 years in diverse industries, Chi Doan Fernandez returned to university to pursue an MBA at RMIT. Discover how her journey of lifelong learning and practical application in the classroom is enhancing her career.

It is a highly common practice to go out into the workforce and gain some experience before returning to higher education. However, for Chi Doan Fernandez, that ‘experience’ ended up lasting 17 years, while working across a diverse range of industries, including FMCG, Health and Beauty, Mother and Babies, Electronics, Food and Beverage and Home and Appliances as well as for top-tier companies such as FrieslandCampina, Unilever and Onpoint Ecommerce. Mrs. Chi also co-founded her own company and even worked as a Digital Ecommerce consultant.

But why return to university after so much success in her career? Mrs. Chi delineates four major reasons affecting her decision. “First and foremost,” she states, “is that I chose to do this for myself. It was on my bucket list. The subsequent consequence is that when you do things for yourself that you enjoy, those around you – your friends, family, colleagues, partners - they get inspired.”  

Secondly, Mrs. Chi wished to find a way to ‘structure’ new knowledge. Outlining a way to take in new knowledge and align it with previously learned subjects and insights is, as she notes, “is highly important when you follow a life-long learning journey.” 

Thirdly, and something that a set structure of obtained knowledge can be built upon, is mastering foundational marketing principles that can be transferred across different industries. Mrs. Chi elaborates saying “Whether you sell online or offline, you still require commercial knowledge. This is where an MBA program comes in. People still need to understand shopper insights, category knowledge, channel landscape and what are shopper pain points. There is the truth (convincing customers to buy) and there are the trends (the channel and the technology). If you know the truth, you’ve already won 50% of the game.” 

Chi Doan Fernandez, MBA student Chi Doan Fernandez, MBA student

Lastly, Mrs. Chi wants to incorporate her first three points and bring this inspiration, structure and foundational knowledge back to her organisation. Through training her team and colleagues, she thus empowers future generations on how to be successful and carry expertise to a wider audience. 

So far, Mrs. Chi feels that the MBA program is highly engaging, efficient in communication, and utilises technology well to seamlessly connect students and lecturers together.  She has also been highly impressed with the library, stating that “it is amazing” and that “all the databases are incredible, and come in handy for my work.” Mrs. Chi has also brought in issues from her work to class to use as case studies, something she has found to be deeply practical. 

Both the Design Thinking for Business and Business Data Analytics courses have made an impression on Mrs. Chi. She was impressed by Dr. Santiago Velasquez’s passion for Design Thinking, the energy he brought to class, and the ability to work directly with industry partners, such as UNICEF, on real briefs. 

For Business Data Analytics taught by Dr Duc Vo, a course she admits to being quite nervous to take, she liked how the course integrated case studies and explained complex concepts in a simple way. “Before, I had a team to find me insights from big data, but after finishing the course, I now feel quite comfortable with something that I was originally scared of,” Mrs. Chi admits.

You too can join a program that will allow you to learn from industry experts and enhance your knowledge, while showing you a way to structure this new information, guiding you on your journey of lifelong learning. Check out RMIT’s MBA program by clicking the button below.

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