Hi Stacy,
I'd like to get your opinion on whether my profile is different enough to stand out from the crowd.
I am 29 year old Asian female who grew up in Singapore and moved to NZ alone for varsity and am now working there. I am an NZ citizen and I graduated from the University of Otago with BSc Combined Honours 1st Class in Psychology and Marketing Management (I custom designed my own degree as prior to me, the university had never offered a cross faculty combined honours before). My GPA when converted works out something like 3.8-3.9. I also managed to work in a study exchange to Bocconi in Milan.
I'm bilingual in English and Mandarin, a beginner in Italian (couldn't live in Milan without knowing some) and French (did an intensive summer school paper).
My GMAT score is 740 (Q50, V41, IR 7, AWA 5.5) which is within the average for the schools I'm interested in applying to: INSEAD, Yale, London Business, Wharton, HEC Paris
I am currently a digital marketer at a liquor retail franchise and I have with 7 years marketing experience in NZ SMEs across 3 very different retail industries - fashion (2 years), building & renovation (4 years) and liquor (1 year). The companies are local SMEs though the fashion retailer I worked for retailed internationally in NZ, Australia, Hong Kong and the US, of which I was in charge of marketing the Australian and Hong Kong stores.
My goals in the short term are to switch to management consulting and work on international business projects and projects involving corporate turnarounds. Long term, I want to run a firm that buys small businesses and turns them around hence the need for experience in consulting and an MBA with strong entrepreneurship focus.
In my current role, I have lead the development of a complicated eCommerce site providing real time data for 80+ individual liquor franchised stores. I have also designed and established an eCommerce order fulfilment system including training of regional managers, store managers and retail staff. More recently since I launched the site, I have recently found myself evolving into IT and driving some of their projects as well even though I'm in marketing.
In my previous role I was a sole charge marketing manager in a medium tile distributor and importer and I ran the marketing department and grew sales 10% year on year during a poor economy where other retail businesses were closing stores. I also improved the standards of the organisation's visual merchandising and established guidelines and a system for store managers to follow, which required behavioural change (they were previously doing whatever they wanted).
I started up a part time wedding hire company during the course of planning my wedding because I felt there was better ROI in importing from China and re-hiring out than paying to hire items. Profits paid for the wedding. This part time business is still ongoing though I only run it during the summer wedding season.
I'm a Figure skater and have won several medals, some of which were as a synchronized skating team member (makes for excellent teamwork skills). I also coached adults and children in figure skating and have been a judge at skate school competitions. I'm also a recreational aerial artiste specialising in aerial silks and I've performed in a paid production before.
I was an organising committee member of a festival in 2011 that promoted the Hong Kong culture in NZ and aimed to build business and educational relationships between NZ and Hong Kong. My current community contribution is as a board member of a start up charity for chronic fatigue sufferers in my city.
I used to be an MMORPG gamer 4 years ago and held a leadership position of guild officer in one of the top ranking guilds in the game which had a mature international community 25-60 years old. The way the community worked, the guilds were very much like corporations, with politics, alliances and wars!
I think I have the diversity an MBA program seeks, but I don't know if Adcoms of the schools I'm interested in would think the same. Any insights you can provide on how I should make myself stand out would be much appreciated.
Thanks!
I'd like to get your opinion on whether my profile is different enough to stand out from the crowd.
I am 29 year old Asian female who grew up in Singapore and moved to NZ alone for varsity and am now working there. I am an NZ citizen and I graduated from the University of Otago with BSc Combined Honours 1st Class in Psychology and Marketing Management (I custom designed my own degree as prior to me, the university had never offered a cross faculty combined honours before). My GPA when converted works out something like 3.8-3.9. I also managed to work in a study exchange to Bocconi in Milan.
I'm bilingual in English and Mandarin, a beginner in Italian (couldn't live in Milan without knowing some) and French (did an intensive summer school paper).
My GMAT score is 740 (Q50, V41, IR 7, AWA 5.5) which is within the average for the schools I'm interested in applying to: INSEAD, Yale, London Business, Wharton, HEC Paris
I am currently a digital marketer at a liquor retail franchise and I have with 7 years marketing experience in NZ SMEs across 3 very different retail industries - fashion (2 years), building & renovation (4 years) and liquor (1 year). The companies are local SMEs though the fashion retailer I worked for retailed internationally in NZ, Australia, Hong Kong and the US, of which I was in charge of marketing the Australian and Hong Kong stores.
My goals in the short term are to switch to management consulting and work on international business projects and projects involving corporate turnarounds. Long term, I want to run a firm that buys small businesses and turns them around hence the need for experience in consulting and an MBA with strong entrepreneurship focus.
In my current role, I have lead the development of a complicated eCommerce site providing real time data for 80+ individual liquor franchised stores. I have also designed and established an eCommerce order fulfilment system including training of regional managers, store managers and retail staff. More recently since I launched the site, I have recently found myself evolving into IT and driving some of their projects as well even though I'm in marketing.
In my previous role I was a sole charge marketing manager in a medium tile distributor and importer and I ran the marketing department and grew sales 10% year on year during a poor economy where other retail businesses were closing stores. I also improved the standards of the organisation's visual merchandising and established guidelines and a system for store managers to follow, which required behavioural change (they were previously doing whatever they wanted).
I started up a part time wedding hire company during the course of planning my wedding because I felt there was better ROI in importing from China and re-hiring out than paying to hire items. Profits paid for the wedding. This part time business is still ongoing though I only run it during the summer wedding season.
I'm a Figure skater and have won several medals, some of which were as a synchronized skating team member (makes for excellent teamwork skills). I also coached adults and children in figure skating and have been a judge at skate school competitions. I'm also a recreational aerial artiste specialising in aerial silks and I've performed in a paid production before.
I was an organising committee member of a festival in 2011 that promoted the Hong Kong culture in NZ and aimed to build business and educational relationships between NZ and Hong Kong. My current community contribution is as a board member of a start up charity for chronic fatigue sufferers in my city.
I used to be an MMORPG gamer 4 years ago and held a leadership position of guild officer in one of the top ranking guilds in the game which had a mature international community 25-60 years old. The way the community worked, the guilds were very much like corporations, with politics, alliances and wars!
I think I have the diversity an MBA program seeks, but I don't know if Adcoms of the schools I'm interested in would think the same. Any insights you can provide on how I should make myself stand out would be much appreciated.
Thanks!
