Slam dunking a new career through MBA studies
Having helped to establish the National Basketball Association (NBA) corporate social responsibility programme “NBA Cares” in Greater China, which involved field trips to rural areas to select suitable sites for libraries, computer centres, basketball courts and Learn and Play spaces...
Having helped to establish the National Basketball Association (NBA) corporate social responsibility programme “NBA Cares” in Greater China, which involved field trips to rural areas to select suitable sites for libraries, computer centres, basketball courts and Learn and Play spaces, Phebe Loo decided her career journey needed a boost, which required studying for an MBA.
“Between 2006 and 2010 in my NBA Cares communication role, all year round I was able to meet NBA players, many of whom were legends. It was the best job anyone in their early 20s could ask for,” says Loo, who led multiple teams in communications and community outreach initiatives, including US basketball pre-Olympic and NBA pre-season games.
At the first NBA China Games, Loo serviced the Disney account, leading a project team that comprised staff from multiple NBA regional offices to host community outreach events in Shanghai and Beijing. But something was missing. “As a liberal arts major, I didn't think that I had enough business skills to take my career to the next level,” Loo says, adding that she felt she wanted to do more. “I wanted to scale up, leverage and have an impact,” she adds.
Having enrolled on the full-time MBA programme offered by Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), during her first year Loo says she was constantly challenged to push harder to break boundaries. “The MBA was a new world for me where interests were shared and opportunities were abundant,” she recalls. Keen to pursue a new opportunity, on completion of her MBA, Loo joined IBM’s Global Business Services programme as a lead strategy and transformation consultant. “I wanted to continue learning after my MBA, which helped me transition from sports marketing to the tech space, which is something that I had not previously thought of doing,” says Loo, who quickly discovered that the tech sector, like the sports industry, is fast-moving. Sports activities, especially playing badminton, are an important part of Loo’s work-harmony balance strategies.
As a lead consultant on a variety of projects Loo’s responsibilities ere focused on operating processes, customer-centricity, systems improvement and re-engineering. The industry project areas she covered included food and beverage, real estate development, and public utilities. She also supported multiple bid projects in the airline industry, real estate and university systems development.
“My MBA taught me how frame business issues and understand the different perspectives of executives and senior stakeholders,” explains Loo, adding that the experience allowed her to put her communication and negotiating skills to good use.
Looking for a new challenge and the opportunity to utilise her MBA skills in a different way, Loo moved to business-orientated networking site LinkedIn, where she was given the mandate to build up Customer Success teams in mainland China and Hong Kong.
“My role at LinkedIn brought together two of my favourite things – China topics and human capital consulting,” says Loo, who from the outset of her career wanted the China business and growth story to be part of her career journey. “I was fortunate enough to partner with a multitude of clients who wanted to adopt a social media recruitment strategy by integrating LinkedIn into their talent acquisition and branding efforts,” she says.
“My vision was to influence a generation of young talent management professionals to understand the value of powering their companies with the best talent available,” Loo says. However, after two-and-a-half years and faced with a hectic monthly travel schedule that took her to Australia, the mainland, Taiwan and Singapore, Loo decided that she wanted a challenging job that didn’t involve as much travel.
Four years after graduating from the HKUST MBA programme, and recently married, three months ago Loo returned to the university campus as the business school’s MBA programme assistant director of marketing and admissions. “This is the perfect culmination of my journey over the past 10 years,” stresses Loo, reflecting on her career journey so far. “Over the past decade I have had had the good fortune to work with great business leaders and learn from selfless teachers who taught me lessons in leadership, humility and hard work,” Loo says. “My hope is the students I will now find in the future create an impact that will benefit businesses and communities where they live and work,” she says.