Bloggers biogs
Brad Chen
Nationality: American
Course: Executive MBA 2007-08
About me:
I'm originally from Los Angeles, California but have lived and worked in the UK since 2003 as operations director for simplehuman. I did my undergraduate degree in economics at UCLA, and always planned to do an MBA one day but never expected that it would be at Oxford University. Having lived locally in Oxford for a few years prior to becoming a student, I got a sense for what it means to be a student of this University, and very much wanted to be a part of it. Now that the applications process is behind me and the first few modules are done, I have no regrets. Admittedly, balancing work, school and personal life is difficult, but the experience that we're getting is well worth the sacrifice.
Number of posts: 1
Clive Rudd Fernandez
Nationality: Cuban
Course: Executive MBA
About me:
Born in Cuba, studied medicine, microbiology and computer programming with 15 years of IT experience, 8 of those as business transformation and IT Strategy director. Worked for Avanade, IBM and currently functioning as Enterprise Transformation Director for the Capgemini Outsourcing Service Innovation team in UK. Started the Oxford EMBA in January 2009.
Number of posts: 2
Dagmar Gaede
Nationality: Anglicised German
Course: EMBA
Number of posts: 1
Dave Floyd
About me:
Dave Floyd is an analyst and professional trader, specializing in technical analysis and global fundamentals. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Northeastern University in Boston and will begin his MBA at Oxford University (Said Business School) in January 2010.
Dave has nearly two decades of experience in the financial markets. He landed his first trading position in 1993 when he joined the fixed income & FX desk of Standard Chartered Bank. The following year his focus shifted to equities, and he would spend the next eight years trading on a proprietary equities desk.
In 2002 Dave started his own niche FX firm, Aspen Trading Group. Since then, Aspen Trading Group has grown from a pure prop trading firm to one that provides FX research and analytics to institutional and retail clients worldwide. Dave's market commentary and analysis has been published in Active Trader Magazine, Futures & SFO as well as several appearances on Bloomberg television and CNBC.
In 2009 Aspen Trading Group was nominated for Best Institutional FX Research & Strategy by The Technical Analyst Magazine in London and in 2010 has been nominated for Technical Analyst of The Year.
Emeline Tissot
Nationality: French
Course: Marketing Coordinator at the Business School
Faisal Aftab
Course: Executive MBA 2009-2010
About me:
Currently living in New York, I was born in Pakistan and spent my formative years in Berkeley, California. My family moved back to Pakistan, where I completed the remainder of my high school education. I returned to the United States for college earning a Bachelor’s of Business Administration in Accounting and Economics, and a Master’s of Science in Accounting and Business Information Systems from the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University. After college I joined Deloitte in New York as a management consultant providing risk consulting services to clients in the financial services industry. Most recently I held the position of a Risk Consulting Manager. After several years of consulting I opted for a change of pace and moved to a financial services firm for a few years before eventually realizing that my passion lay elsewhere. I’m now pursuing my passion as an entrepreneur in broadcast television having launched the Pakistan franchise of MTV Networks.
Kristina Maria Manalo
Nationality: British American
Course: EMBA V
About me:
Kristina earned her Bachelor's of Science degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and read Biochemistry and English literature during her junior year abroad at Warwick University. She completed the Oxford Executive MBA in 2009 with the EMBA V cohort.
She has more than 14 years experience in the Internet infrastructure, software and services sector, and is now working as Advisor to the Free Business School, an Internet social enterprise founded at the School.
A citizen of both Britain and the United States, her heritage is firmly rooted in the Philippines.
Number of posts: 11
Matthew Campbell
Nationality: British
Course: Executive MBA 2007-08
Number of posts: 1
Orin Gordon
Nationality: Guyanese and British
Course: Executive MBA
About me:
Born and raised in Guyana, I switch from being South American to Caribbean depending on whether cricket or football is being played. A journalist and broadcaster for more than 20 years, the last 13 have been with the BBC in London. My country's a slice of Britain in the tropics: we drive on the left, play cricket, take O and A'Levels and sing Frosty the Snowman in front of fake Christmas trees in 30 degree heat. I went to a school called (The) Queens College. It was only a matter of time before I swapped Guyana for the real thing.
Studied Mining Engineering in Guyana, but radio and journalism has claimed me since. Took an MA in Journalism at Cardiff University in Britain. A media trainer and consultant. I blog at http://gyaff.blogspot.com. A complete techy, I have more gadgets than I know what to do with.
Most interesting quote? "You sound taller", from a Caribbean reporter meeting me for the first time.
Number of posts: 3
Vivek Agrawal
Nationality: British/Overseas Indian citizen
Course: EMBA 2008-2009
About me:
I was born and brought up in a beautiful and quiet valley surrounded by green and tall mountains in the northern part of India. Grew up in times when every family's passion was to raise their child as an engineer or doctor. I was quite fortunate to get admission at a premier institute NIT, Warangal to study Computer Science and Engineering.
The IT industry in India was starting to boom when I graduated due to high demands of software professionals to tackle Y2K problem and offshoring. In the midst of that I joined TCS (Tata Consultancy Services), biggest software house in India. After working in Delhi & Mumbai, I was seconded to a consulting assignment at Nokia(Telecommunications) in beautiful and peaceful Helsinki. After completing the assignment I changed job and joined Ericsson (Telecommunications) in Sweden. Marriage was to follow next, which changed my life and made me a lot more focused.
From thereon I moved to Ericsson in UK where I got a chance to work on different kinds of roles ranging from design, development, support, solution integration, technical pre-sales and team management. In parallel, I also pursued a part-time MSc in Communications, Network & Software to broaden my technical horizon. My wife also gave birth to a lovely boy and a girl, and time flew. Currently I am a Technical Delivery Manager in the organisation leading technical project teams.
MBA at SBS,Oxford is the biggest undertaking in my life and I look forward to broaden my horizons with better understanding of business and management and also brushing up my leadership skills.
I have a very challenging daily schedule balancing all the different acts, but hope it will be rewarding at the end.
Number of posts: 1
