Royal Navy MBA Graduate Continues To Enjoy Management Success

He is currently working in strategic risk management and performance management as part of a team that orchestrates the management processes at the Royal Navy’s Fleet HQ. It’s a position for which an MBA is a prerequisite and one in which the skills and knowledge he developed during his MBA studies have become increasingly important.

A chartered submarine engineer, he will move later this month to a position developing and writing the strategic and corporate plan at Fleet HQ. He said: “There’s no doubt that I would not have been able to secure either my present position or my new one had I not completed the MBA. Before I started studying, I knew that I wanted to change direction, but it was only during my MBA studies that I realised that there were better opportunities in senior management that could be open to me.”

Fourteen months after he completed his studies he remains certain that the skills he honed during his OUBS MBA programme play a key role in his effective day-to-day work. He added: “You don’t actually always realise how your work methods and attitudes have changed as a result of your MBA study; instead, it’s often other people who tend to recognise those changes in you.

“Of course, following the MBA, the approach to work is different – as you find yourself talking about concepts and approaches that are, by and large, common sense with some business research and a good level of provenance backing them up.

“I consider myself privileged to be working in a groundbreaking section of the MOD, where we are continually reviewing and improving management processes. My studies continue to be helpful in a range of ways – including the fact that I’ve been able to draw on the expertise of other students in other sectors to influence my own skills and knowledge.”

Lt Cdr Parvin was among guests presented to HRH The Princess Royal during her visit to the Open University’s headquarters campus at Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, on Tuesday, February 10. She met staff, students, graduates and guests and toured some of the university’s science facilities. Lt Cdr Parvin received his MBA Student of the Year Award in November 2002 after completing his MBA programme in exceptional circumstances. Tours of duty precluded him from attending exams on shore, so he took them while at sea; when he was forced to miss a residential school, he replicated the school on board a Navy yacht, gathering together six willing colleagues to take part.

EDITOR’S NOTES
Journalists who would like to arrange an interview with Lt Cdr Parvin are asked to contact Neil Coaten in the media relations team at the Open University on 01908 652580 or at n.d.coaten@open.ac.uk

The Open University Business School (OUBS) is Europe’s leading business school and the major provider of management development programmes delivered by supported distance learning. It is one of an elite group of UK and European business schools to hold both the prestigious EQUIS quality kitemark, awarded by the European Foundation for Management Development (efmd), and AMBA (the Association of MBAs) accreditation for its MBA. The School is ranked fourth in the world for distance learning MBA programmes, according to rankings published by the Financial Times (March 2003).

MEDIA CONTACTS
Neil Coaten
Open University
Media Relations
01908 652580
07901 515891
n.d.coaten@open.ac.uk