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

Dagmar Gaede

Nationality: Anglicised German
Course: EMBA

Number of posts: 1

Edward Meinert

Nationality: USA
Course: EMBA V

About me:
A US Air Force Brat hailing from Panama City, Panama, I am an entrepreneur focusing on strategy consulting in technology: I advise companies on implementation of highly available websites, intranets and portals. I am an avid tennis player, news junkie and a very agreeable fellow. My home is Boston, Massachusetts, USA, home of the 2007 World Series Champions, The Boston Red Sox and the greatest basketball team, ever - The Boston Celtics.

Number of posts: 5

Emeline Tissot

Nationality: French
Course: Marketing Coordinator at the Business School

Kristina Manalo

Nationality: British American
Course: EMBA V

About me:
In addition to earning a Bachelor's of Science degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I also studied English Literature and Biochemistry at Warwick University in Coventry, UK. After several years as a transgenic research scientist at the Neuropathology Department of Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, I made a timely switch to IT in 1995, with my first exposure to data networks at Citicorp. Since then, I've earned numerous IT networking and security certifications, including CCNA, CCDA, MCSA, CCSP, OPST and INFOSEC. I've worked as Project Manager, Technical Sales Engineer and Senior Manager for projects throughout the Nordics, Western Europe, North Africa, North America and Asia-Pacific. A citizen of both Britain and the United States, my heritage is firmly rooted in the Philippines.

Number of posts: 4

Matthew Campbell

Nationality: British
Course: Executive MBA 2007-08

Number of posts: 1

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