As Agribusiness Advisor on a US government funded Private Sector Development programme, Alex connected the East-Timorese primary producers with supermarkets.
Having studied at the University of Queensland as an undergraduate, Alex decided to take his MBA at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, where he won the AMBA Student of the Year award in 2011.
Alex now works as a Senior Auditor at Ahold, a global food retailer with more than 3000 stores and €30 billion annual sales, focusing on food production, sourcing and marketing. We catch up with Alex as he prepares to jet off to Brazil, to share his experiences with prospective MBAs.
Why did you decide to study for an MBA?
I had been managing people for four years already, but I felt I wasn’t doing it as well as I could do. For me, more structure, and more of a formal education, was needed.
One of my mentors told me that a lot of people only get round to doing some management training towards the end of their careers, having been offered it as a thank you by their company. I think that’s a bit of a shame, and it limits the amount of time over which companies can benefit from the results.
In my opinion, you really can learn management as a formal skill in a classroom environment.
How do you think your MBA has helped you in your career?
Definitely. For a start, it’s given me the option of working in Europe, and my access to the corporate network at the Rotterdam School of Management has been invaluable. The Dutch companies that we were exposed to at the school are all incredibly strong globally.
A business education allows you to realise a lot of new things about yourself. With an MBA, you get a whole year to reflect, and think about what makes you tick.
Right now, I’m particularly excited as I’m sat here looking at my visa for Brazil! I’m travelling to South America next week to go and interview prospective business school students. My MBA has allowed me to build a really strong connection with the business community, and I’m really proud to be part of it.
In 2011, you won AMBA’s Student of the Year Award. What did that mean to you?
It was very much a recognition of the fact that business students are going in more interesting directions than they have done in the past. The traditional path of studying an MBA, and then returning to your job in consulting or investment banking, is still there, but a business education is also about finding your own niche.
It’s great that public-minded companies are becoming more interested in what MBA courses can do for their employees, and that the incentive isn’t only about profit. I think this is definitely a positive direction for the business community.
Why did you decide to go into agribusiness?
My parents are farmers, but they were also working in the government in the Ministry of Agriculture, and had been working for the Ministry of Agriculture in East Timor.
The most important thing that the farmers wanted from us was access to cash, and they were keen to learn new farming techniques to earn more money.
The power of agribusiness is that it genuinely improves peoples’ livelihoods. We can help farmers make a change through teaching them marketing strategies, production techniques, and providing them with new crops.
How do you see agribusiness developing over the next few years?
The supermarket I was working with in East Timor has just opened a third site, and have expanded the number of greenhouses they support.
As East Timor buys a lot of products from Singapore and China, we hope that eventually East Timor will be able to export back. It makes sense not to be sending empty containers!
What was it like to work in East Timor?
It’s an amazing country. The people are incredibly resilient after thirty years of Indonesian occupation. They’re all desperate to learn – they have a great deal of respect for ideas that come from outside of their country, and for foreign knowledge, especially as it’s been rare for so long.
Working there is great, particularly if you take the time to learn how to speak the local language, as I have! East Timor has had a difficult relationship with Australia historically. As a nation, we feel guilty about how our government has treated the country, and that means that Australians really have respect for those who have got to understand East Timor.
Now that I work in a big corporation, I get a lot of strength from the fact that the people in my various networks admire what I’ve done before.
Why is sourcing sustainable food so important?
If you source food sustainably, you can continue to do so for the next 500 years or more. In the past, sustainability has been seen as a niche, peripheral activity, but that’s changing now.
In our culture, you no longer just see sustainability in retail, and in fair-trade products. The ideas are starting to spread into new sectors. Sourcing products sustainably is definitely not a fad. It’s a pro-active way of dealing with global shortages, and the countries who aren’t doing it will be brought down by it.
Do you think big businesses are beginning to understand the importance of sustainability?
Yes, they are. The responsible retailing practices my own company, Ahold, is working on are a good example! Businesses are seeking to become leaders in sustainability, and are setting their own minimum standards rather than just following the industry average.
What advice would you give to MBAs about to embark on new careers?
I tell most prospective MBA students the same thing: make sure you have a really clear idea of what you want to get out of your MBA before you start. Then, your MBA can be used to test through a few different options you’ve already come up with, and to work out what kind of value you could add to a company.
You need to think about what you want to do next in tandem with your MBA. I see a lot of students who want to study now, and leave thinking about the future for later, which isn’t the best way to go about it. Make time to meet people, to hear about what they do and to work out whether you would enjoy doing the same yourself, alongside attending your lectures!
Read more about students doing an MBA in Europe here
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