Laura George

After 8 years as a qualified registered intensive care nurse both in Australia and in the UK, Laura realised whilst she loved what she did, she had an underlying passion she wanted to pursue.

One day whilst an external provider was running training sessions on how to use new equipment in the intensive care unit she recognised that this is something she could do and as a bonus, it may even offer better work-life balance.

Ready for a career change, she secured a role with Becton Dickinson, a major medical equipment manufacturer, but not an educator role as she expected, but in a sales position. Whilst this wasn’t the role she was going for, it was an opportunity to learn the commercial side of the business. And she sure did. When she started, right away, she was exposed to marketing, HR, supply chain, and the strategic decisions that go into the day-to-day business execution, and it satisfied her ongoing drive to learn.

She worked her way up to an Account Manager for NSW/ACT and wanted to consume knowledge at a higher level, and this is when her hunt for further education began. Whilst she thought she would just do a couple of subjects, she found herself coming back every semester for more.

Laura very successfully completed her MBA in 2021 making it into the Dean’s Merit List, graduating within the top 10% of her class. We recently caught up with Laura to find out more about her experience.

What was the motivation behind starting your MBA? Just my want for learning and to understand why people make the decisions they did in the business setting.

What were you doing at the time?

Early into my studies I took on a new role as a Project Officer, at the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation working within the team responsible for system change in the emergency care across NSW, addressing their department’s challenges and innovation.

Within this role, I led a project, which was also a part of a multi-million-dollar research grant, that aimed to standardise nurse-initiated emergency care through the implementation of a policy and education framework across 15 NSW Local Health Districts and Speciality Health Networks.

Did you specialise or generalise?

I did the general MBA, I wanted a bit of everything – change management, consulting, digital business startup. Business consulting was my favourite subject, as it requires application of all of the core MBA subjects.

What fears do you have before starting?

The time commitment. I wasn’t afraid of my ability to achieve. Time was a challenge the whole way through. Life gets in the way and I don’t want to do anything half-baked. One of the reasons I chose AIB was because of that flexibility. Being able to pause and continue as needed was a real selling point for me.

What would you say to anyone feeling the same?

Take it one unit at a time, one step at a time and know it definitely gets easier. You get used to the format of assignment writing, studying more efficiently, and your knowledge broadenss. It definitely gets easier.

Do you attribute any successes to your MBA?

Having an MBA in health isn’t very common, most of my colleagues pursue a Master of Health Services Management – which is all about understanding the complexities of health and social care system with a focus on safety and quality improvement but recognising that healthcare is a business in itself, I wanted to understand the strategic business elements such as marketing, leadership, supply chain, human resources andfinance, in order to enhance the organisational success and efficiency of the healthcare system, which I certainly do now.

I have confidence now with the MBA. For example, I found a lot of value in the Business Consulting subject. It doesn’t matter what industry I next gain employment, I will feel confident to apply my knowledge, to be able to facilitate improvement and management within any organisation. I think employers value the experience alternative industries can bring.

Tell us about the support at AIB?

The tutors were happy to give you one-on-one advice. The webinars were vital to attend and AIB made it easy as there were flexibilities in the time you could join a webinar.

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