MBA 2017 – Year In Review

MBA 2017 – Year In Review

It has been another remarkable year for the DCU Executive MBA programme coordinators and participants. As we reflect on 2017, we share some of the highlights of the year.

January

Our second year MBA class were put through their paces in a customised Leadership Assessment Centre with academic facilitators and a panel of organisational psychologists and HR professionals. 

February

Our second year MBA class attended another component of the Leadership and Career Development programme which is part of the Executive MBA: Psychometrics, CV’s & Interviewing.

On the 9^{th of} February, the DCU Business School MBA team, DCU Careers Service and the Alumni office hosted the inaugural DCU Executive MBA Network Conference. [button link=”http://dcubsblog.dcu.ie/dcu-hosts-inaugural-mba-alumni-conference/” target=”new” color=”blue”]Read blog[/button]

DCU Executive MBA Network Conference

Our first year MBA’s Residency Weekend took place in Kinsale, Co Cork as part of the Domestic Enterprise Engagement Module.

March

Our annual Career & Personal Development Skills Day took place on 9^th March 2017.  The day consisted of 1:1 coaching sessions, mock panel interviews, assessment centre feedback sessions, CV clinics and keynote inspirational speaker, Darragh Richardson, Managing Director at Agile Networks – Ireland’s leading IT Network Integrator. [button link=”http://dcubsblog.dcu.ie/dcu-executive-mba-career-skills-development-day-2017/” target=”new” color=”blue”]Read blog[/button]

Career & Personal Development Skills Day with Darragh Richardson, Managing Director at Agile Networks.

April

As part of our Executive Speaker Series, on 27.04.17, Brian Thornes from X-Bolt Orthopaedics spoke to our MBA classes.

Executive Speaker Series with Brian Thornes from X-Bolt Orthopaedics

May

The MBAAI All-Ireland Strategy Competition took place on 27^th May 2017.  A team of 5 Executive MBA’s took part in this challenging competition.

June

After 2 years on a Personal, Career and Leadership Development programme, the 2^nd year MBA’s reflected on their learning and personal transformation journey in the penultimate workshop.

Professor Finian Buckley

July

Mayo veteran Barry Moran and Down footballer Conor Maginn are the latest inter-county players to be awarded scholarships for the prestigious DCU Business School MBA.

The pair were formally announced at a function in DCU Business School on October 19th and follow in the footsteps of recent DCU Business School/GPA MBA scholarship recipients like Fermanagh’s Chris Breen, Leitrim’s Rob Lowe, Westmeath’s David O’Shaughnessy and Dublin duo Coman Goggins and Barry Cahill.

19 October 2017; GPA Chief Executive Dermot Earley, centre, Dr. Donal O’Brien from DCU Business School, fifth from left, and Deputy President of DCU Daire Keogh, fifth from right, with, from left, Sligo footballer Cian Breheny, Waterford footballer and hurler Donal Breathnach, Dublin footballer Bryan Murphy, Dublin Ladies footballer Leah Caffrey, Mayo footballer Barry Moran, Dublin hurler Cian Boland, and Down footballers Conor Maginn and Luke Howard in attendance at a GPA DCU Business School Masters Scholarship Programme and MBA Programme announcement at DCU Business School in Glasnevin, Dublin. Photo by Matt Browne/Sportsfile

August

Our 2^nd year MBA’s delivered the results of their strategic consulting projects to their industry clients.

September

Our new Executive MBA’s joined us in September ready to take on a challenging 2 year Executive MBA programme and Leadership Development programme.

MBA Induction Day

The second year MBA’s were put through their paces at the Negotiations Workshop facilitated by Joe Wallace.

On Thursday, 28th of September, DCU welcomed MBA programme participants from the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia.  As part of an annual visit to DCU Business School, the University of Ljubliana students joined DCU’s Executive MBA programme participants for an interactive lecture with group activities where the Slovenian and Irish MBAs shared experiences and perspectives. Professor Flood, who teaches Organisational Behaviour and Change to MBA’s delivered a lecture on ‘High-Performance Work Teams’. [button link=”http://dcubsblog.dcu.ie/dcu-welcome-mba-students-university-ljubliana-slovenia/” target=”new” color=”blue”]Read blog[/button]

Professor Flood, who teaches Organisational Behaviour and Change to MBA’s delivers a lecture on ‘High-Performance Work Teams.

October

This year the MBA2 International Study Week took the students to Hong Kong which included a day trip to Shenzhen in China, where they visited PCH International, Omate and China First Capital. While in Hong Kong visits included HSBC, Prophet and the Consulate General of Ireland and Enterprise HK.

The MBA fundraising club started on the MBA trip to Hong Kong when Alan McGovern and Lorcan Carr made a deal to run a marathon after graduation. This rapidly turned into what they saw as a great opportunity to raise money for a few charities. After the event, it was decided that six of the MBA students would come together as trustees and register the charity with an aim of raising €100,000.00 in one year.  The new charity is to be called Luke’s Extra Mile after Lorcan’s son who was born during his time as an MBA student. [button link=”http://dcubsblog.dcu.ie/dcu-executive-mba-student-led-fundraising-club-lukes-extra-mile/” target=”new” color=”blue”]Read blog[/button]

November

The Executive MBA programme WON the gradireland Higher Education Awards in ‘Business, Finance & Management‘. [button link=”http://dcubsblog.dcu.ie/dcu-executive-mba-wins-gradireland-higher-education-award/” target=”new” color=”blue”]Read blog[/button]

MBA Director Claire Gubbins presented with gradireland Higher Education Award.

Congratulations to the Executive MBA Class of 2015-2017 who successfully graduated from the DCU Executive MBA Programme! [button link=”http://dcubsblog.dcu.ie/mba-awards/” target=”new” color=”blue”]Read blog[/button]

David Nulty won the award for DCU Executive MBA Irish Rail Ray Pierce Memorial Award – Student of the Year 2017 sponsored by Irish Rail.

Martina Kenny, HR Executive of Irish Rail, David Nulty Student of the Year

Plunkett Tormay won the award for DCU Executive MBA “MBA-Based Learning” Student of the Year 2017 which was sponsored by the Irish Institute of Training & Development.

(Pictured left to right) Sinead Heneghan, CEO of the IITD, Plunkett Tormay, MBA Based Learning Student of the Year, Dr Claire Gubbins, Executive MBA Programme Director

Liz Fulham, Founder and CEO of SalesOptimize did a presentation to the MBA2 class entitled “Sales Lead Generation SaaS Technology: Helping businesses to hit their sales targets” as part of Prof Colm O’Gorman module, Innovation & Entrepreneurship.

Damon Reid from Kelloggs spoke to our second year MBA class as part of their Strategic Operations Management module with Prof PJ Byrne.  His roles include Global Head of Leadership Centre of Excellence for Kellogg Supply Chain and European Head of Continuous Improvement. He looked at the role of continuous improvement in organisations and talked through examples from a range of industries in which he has been involved.

December

On the 14^{th of} December 2017, our Executive Speaker Series hosted Jason Sherlock.  Jason came into the public eye in 1995 at the age of 19, when he was chosen to play for the Dublin Senior Football team. He represented Dublin for 15 seasons until 2009 where we won 7 Leinster titles.  Jason completed a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) in 2014. In 2015 he was invited by Jim Gavin to be part of the Dublin Senior Football Management team, initially as a coach and then selector. In the last 3 seasons, Dublin have won the All-Ireland title each year.  Jason now appears as a speaker at events and offers high performance consulting, motivating teams to develop resilience, teamwork and determination. Jason has developed DUBS Model©, an approach to improving the performance of individuals and organisations, and he offers assessments, workshops, coaching and mentoring.

Our next speaker in the Executive Speaker Series was Myra O’Neill, CIO of Vodafone.  Myra is a Business and Technology Executive with experience in Telecoms, Management Consultancy, Financial Services and Pharmaceuticals;  Main expertise lies within Business / Technology strategy development and execution of large scale change and transformation programmes. Specialties: Business Change and HR Transformation; Business / Technology Strategy Development & Execution; Technology Leadership & Governance; Project & Programme Management (PMI, ITIL & EFQM); Enterprise Architecture; Strategic outsourcing; IT & Network Infrastructure, Application and Service Delivery (including Operations).

Myra O’Neill, CIO of Vodafone, presentation to the MBA first and second year classes.