HKUST Business School Magazine

4 Master’s Programs / UG Depth and Breadth in Career Services HKUST MBA students have pulled off a hat trick by clinching three championships at international competitions, beating teams from the world’s top business schools. Calling their team Solaris, full-time MBA students Clément Dieudonné, Nicky Loh and Simon Zhu The latest trends in public relations — one of the fastest growing service sectors in Hong Kong and the region — was the keynote address topic at the Global Leadership Forum 2013 organized by the BBA in Global Business program. Mr Albert Shu, Managing Director of Weber Shandwick, gave the address on April 17 and discussed the implications of PR trends for businesses, governments and NGOs. He highlighted the importance of reputation management and how won two of the competitions with their plan to commercialize HKUST Engineering Professor Zhiyong Fan’s patented solar panel technology. Solaris’s business plan won top prize at the INNOVATEChina 2013 Entrepreneurship Challenge in March in Shanghai, and a month later won first prizes for Best Trade Show and Lightning Round at the University of Oregon’s New Venture Championship. The team’s success paid tribute to HKUST’s focus since its inception on technology transfer and entrepreneurship. The other winning HKUST MBA team, comprising Lex J. Arayanimitskul, Christian Maentele and Karan Singh, won the 4th NUS Asian MBA Stock Pitch Competition, held in Singapore in March. Closer to home, Solaris also took grand prize and critical it was to one’s success. Dean Leonard Cheng opened the biannual forum and pointed out that PR and stakeholder engagement were important in meeting the public’s high expectations for corporate transparency. The talk was particularly timely for the School, which has a just unveiled a new branding position as “World Class in Asia”. the Elevator Pitch Award at the HKUST 2013 One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition at the end of May, which was open to teams with at least one HKUST member. MBA Students Score Hat Trick Global Leadership Forum Spotlights Public Relations The new Head of Career Services, Joseph Palumbo, has arrived, keen to broaden and deepen the already substantial career support for MBA and MSc students so they start off with clear goals from the first day of classes. Mr Palumbo comes from Schulich School of Business at York University in Canada, where he helped to strengthen career services there. “The goal is to offer students more complete services, even before their classes start, so they state their career goals upfront early in their studies and use that awareness when selecting such things as specialization courses and clubs to join. This will help them to get grounded sooner and have a sense of direction sooner,” he said. Mr Palumbo is working with others in the School to develop this provision, as well as with current and potential corporate partners. He is also supporting student initiatives on career development and recently joined a trip organized by the Japan Club, together with more than 30 MBA students to meet with alumni and newly-admitted candidates in Japan. They visited five major cities and five leading companies, such as Nissan, over seven days to make business connections and learn more about culture, business and life in Japan. Joseph Palumbo