Rodney Attrill

Why did you decide to study an MBA?

I wanted to study an MBA and I decided to study for an MBA because I knew that I wanted to get out of the banking. I’d been in banking for 20 years, as I said. It was a long journey in banking and I wanted to look for something else that was different and I needed to make sure I had enough tools that when I started looking for another position, that I had some other things up my sleeve rather than just that 20 years in the banking industry.

Can you tell us a little any challenges or setbacks that you may have encountered on your MBA journey?

Challenges and setbacks, I’ve probably had a few. I thought I might finish my MBA before I looked for another job, but it didn’t quite work that way. I ended up finishing up at the bank and then moving positions whilst I was still studying. Having that change in role right towards the end of the MBA was a bit tricky but we got through that. Also, move from one side of the country to the other halfway through, so there was a bit of disruption there. Challenges and setbacks were there, but got through them in the end.

What did you get out of the MBA?

A lot of diversity I got out of my MBA. It was one of those ones that wasn’t a hundred percent sure about what I wanted so I picked a range of subjects. The diversity I got from the MBA was probably the biggest thing that I noticed. Some of the subjects that I wasn’t too keen on at the start, like marketing and those sort of things, because I hadn’t done a lot into it, I learned so much out of those type of subjects, where I went into them without a lot of experience but came out of it with some really good knowledge.

Would you attribute any of your career success having done the MBA?

I really do contribute some of my success to having an MBA. I think the reason why, when I decided to start to look for a new role after being in the banking industry for that long, the prospective employer knowing that I was studying an MBA and I was going to complete it very soon after I started with them, was definitely a reason why they looked at me as a candidate for the role.

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