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MBA: promotion, career boost, personal triumph
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Chris Ngo, chief operating officer at
Café RuNam
Nguyen Ngoc Thanh Phuong,
Associate Market Manager for
Expedia and Pham Ngoc Thach
software developer at TRG
International
RReellaatteedd ssttoorriieess
Handing over the keys to
global success
MIB scholarship winner
dreams big
First students graduate
from Bachelor of Fashion
RMIT Vietnam graduates
ready for new global
market trends
Thursday, December 3, 2015 - 14:31
Can a Masters in Business Administration give you a promotion boost or open doors to a better
career? Three management employees who just graduated from RMIT Vietnam give their opinions.
Chris Ngo is living proof that an MBA can bring promotion and a great future career outlook.
Chief operating officer at Café RuNam, she has recently been promoted within RuNam Corporation –
coinciding with the week of her MBA graduation.
“I will be taking care of reforming the whole root corporation, comprising established brand names including
the Ciao Cafe chain of restaurants, the Terrace chain of restaurants, the Fly Cupcake chain, Maxim Club, Nam
Vien and Thanh Nien restaurants,” she said.
“With the knowledge and connections I have gained from the MBA program as well as my work experience, I
am confident in accepting this new role and its responsibilities.”
Having completed formal qualifications in hospitality management in Singapore where she worked her way
through the management of KFC over five years, Chris worked on the redevelopment of seven Coffee Bean
and Tea Leaf stores in Vietnam.
She has led the establishment of four additional RuNam Café stores, taking the chain to six stores nationally,
and took an MBA so she could understand the theory behind her daily decisions at work.
“Now I look at things with a different perspective,” she said.
“I wasn’t sure why and how what I was doing worked; the MBA gave me that understanding and forced me out
of my comfort zone. It challenged what I knew and exposed me to the latest global issues, management
techniques and business practices.
“I now use these to help grow the company I run.”
Chris says that as an MBA graduate, her opinions and advice to her board of directors, associates and
colleagues have been taken much more seriously.
“I communicate and analyse problems more professionally because I can consider the deeper dimensions of
issues. And I’m able to relate our current business direction to global opportunities or risks limitation and
devise strategy accordingly,” she said.
From her MBA Chris also now accesses a much larger network of RMIT alumni, a pool of talent to find
potential clients, suppliers and partners for her business.
But she points out that completing an MBA has not been simply a career move. It’s a personal triumph as well
because of the perseverance she needed to complete it.
“It’s not just a course – it’s a dream,” she said.
“I’ve wanted to do it all my life and I’ve reached it on my own. I feel so proud of myself.”
Nguyen Ngoc Thanh Phuong, Associate Market Manager for American online travel booking company
Expedia believes an MBA qualification definitely gives you an advantage over other candidates in applying
for jobs.
“I took it because I wanted to enhance my knowledge to prepare myself for the next level of my job, especially
in the area of strategic thinking,” she said.
“The Strategy course helped me to comprehensively understand different business strategies that my company is taking and understand how I
can contribute to the company's success.”
Phuong, whose undergraduate degree is a Bachelor of Hotel and Resort Management from Northwood University in Montreux, Switzerland, says
the MBA also extended her thinking in areas other than hospitality: finance, entrepreneurism and data research.
Pham Ngoc Thach, who works in software development at TRG International, believes the MBA qualification is valuable applied to his
current work and will help his future career and career goals.
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“One reason I took the MBA is that I wanted to challenge myself while working and studying at the same time,” Thach said.
“I believed if I can overcome that pressure I can deal with future problems more easily.
“I have also applied people management and leadership principles in my current job and it has helped me a lot.”
Thach’s longer-term goal is to establish his own business; this focussed his takings from the MBA course.
“I learned a lot in almost all aspects of management like financial management, marketing, leadership and people management. I believe the
MBA will help me make the right decisions in my future career.”
Like Chris Ngo, formal learning was not the only value of the MBA for Thach.
“The knowledge that I learnt from my classmates will also help me a lot in my future career. The MBA experience has enhanced my networking
and my knowledge, improved my critical thinking and my understanding of people.”
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