At my small private school in Essex, where I was a scholarship student, my favourite subject was maths. Then when I was in year 9, I studied my first Shakespeare play, Macbeth, fell in love and never looked back. I ended up studying English language and literature at Oxford, where I had the most fantastic experience.
When I graduated, I didn’t want a traditional career on a graduate scheme, because they tend to be quite prescriptive. So I applied for a personal assistant job with a motorsport company, working for the global promoter and commercial rights holder of the World Rally Championship.
When I went for the interview, however, the managing director said to me: “You wouldn’t really be a great PA, but my communications officer is going on maternity leave – what do you say to six months in the press room? You will be travelling all around the world and working in international motorsport with competitors from over 40 different countries.” I thought: “Game on!”
In the male-dominated world of motorsport, I found that, as a woman and an English literature graduate, there was a lot of scepticism about whether I’d be tough enough to stick it out and make a difference. I decided it was important to prepare myself in every way I could, so while working every hour under the sun, at the age of 22, I enrolled on an MBA course. It wasn’t difficult to decide on a university – it had to be The Open University (OU). I was particularly impressed when I found out that The Open University Business School (OUBS) is triple accredited – a status only 1% of business schools in the world hold. My mother, who is phenomenally intelligent, had left formal education at 17, but when she was 44, she seized the opportunity to study with the OU and channel her previously untapped academic potential. She graduated with first-class honours and then went on to become a teacher, a head of department and an examiner for an examination board. I understood the value that an OU degree could bring.
I learned so much on the MBA. Obviously much of that was from the content – finance, strategy, marketing and operations. But I also learned a lot because of the way the OU MBA course is structured. My study partner was in his 40s and a major in the British army, and we stayed paired up throughout our degree. The course is quite practical – you write about how the theories you’re learning relate to specific instances that you’re encountering in your day-to-day working life and then you look at what your partner’s doing as well. The fact that I had the opportunity to work with someone slightly older and further on in their career created a great framework for me. We’re still in touch now, so I like to think that something went right. There were also people from the UN, from the emergency services, from the corporate world and from the other armed forces.
At 22, to have your eyes opened to all of their worlds gives you a fantastic perspective on the world of work.
Completing the course in three years was hard work, especially as I was travelling extensively for my job. At the residential schools, I would get up early, work on my day job from my bedroom, take part in the 12-hour study day before going back to my room to work some more on my job.
The course was incredibly beneficial for my career. After taking the marketing module, I wrote a thesis setting out a proposal to rebrand a number of the top-tier global motorsport series belonging to the Federation Internationale de L’Automobile (FIA), the governing body for motorsport. It’s still in place today. My studies with the OU catapulted me ahead in my knowledge, understanding and application of management in a professional context.
From my first job in motorsport, I moved on to other positions, including roles at BP and then in the arts at the British Council. Now 32, I’m a PR and marketing director at a creative agency in London and have found that the ways of thinking and reflecting that I learned through my MBA are great for helping, supporting and developing my team.
As you become more senior, you have to become more strategic, and strategy is one of the first things you do on your OU MBA. It’s amazing at framing strategic thought and enabling you to look at the bigger picture: “What is the real challenge here? How do you respond to this? How do you reflect on your performance? Look at the results. Go back, start again. Add more value to the bottom line, make any investment work as hard as possible for you.” It’s about practising those business skills. You still need to have your specialist capabilities, such as the PR skills I’ve learned through my career, but I certainly would not have reached the leadership position I have so quickly if I didn’t have all the financing, strategy, operations, human resources and problem-solving skills that I learned through the OU MBA.
