Thomas Fjeldbonde

There’ve been many very good experiences in the classroom. But one thing that’s always come back to me was how you bonded closely. And one of the things was how we got fit together. We started a running club to prepare ourselves for a marathon; there were evenings when we would run together or in smaller groups. We would meet up in the morning before class and run as well. I remember one evening, we went out to East Coast Park in Singapore and did a half marathon together. We inspired each other, and I lost more than 20 kilograms during my EMBA programme, so that’s one of the things that stick with me.

The main driver for me was that I started working at Maersk straight out of high school. But I decided to leave the company because I wanted to try other things, and I specifically wanted to build education on top of my career. So I was sitting there with a lot of experience and at a fairly senior level, but I didn’t have any official qualifications because I went straight from high school to work.

I thought I needed to do a regular MBA, so I thought, okay, I would take two years out of the calendar and get myself an MBA before I start working again. And I was excited to take a break from work and return to school.

Singapore is probably the best place in Asia to study, and NUS has an excellent reputation. So I applied to the MBA programme, but the Programme Office team recommended the EMBA course due to my extensive experience.

What I liked about The NUS EMBA programme is that it is uniquely tailored to the Asian business environment, which was a big plus. Another plus point was that every module had a few days in an Asian city. So we went to Jakarta for a few days, to Shanghai, Hanoi and so on, where we met with local businesses and got an insight into how they operated.

During the EMBA programme, I linked up with a couple of entrepreneurs from Manila. Eventually, I spent five years working closely with them to establish two start-ups in the Philippines.

The NUS EMBA opened my eyes to different ways of doing business. There were many different types of people in the EMBA programme with varied backgrounds, personalities, and business approaches. So I had this class of 45 people where I could seek inspiration and ideas and discuss how I would do this and that.

The biggest takeaway was that you get a completely different perspective on money. When you come from a big corporation, money is something you see in an Excel sheet when you present a business case. But when you’re in a start-up, money is everything. Cash flow is everything. You battle in the beginning to have enough money to pay your staff, to pay your rent, to pay for the services that you need. So you have a completely different view of what money is in business terms when you set up your shop.

A few participants in the programme had businesses or had been entrepreneurs previously; you could sit down and talk to them and share stories. And I think they brought me back into perspective when I was freaking out that we didn’t have any money to pay rent. The advice was not to worry and ask for a postponement. Without my fellow participants, I would have left my start-ups early. My six years as an entrepreneur were really sparked by the change that happened in those couple of years with my EMBA.

I’ve since stepped away from the partnership as an active partner in 2015 and returned to corporate life. I’m on the board today and don’t engage in operations. I’m very happy with that because I realised that though it was an exciting journey, I am more comfortable in the corporate world.

The overriding piece of advice for me is to set aside enough time for your studies. With an EMBA, you learn a lot from fellow students and professors, establish good networks and have fun; there’s no doubt about it.

But I saw too many who didn’t have the time to study. If you don’t learn enough in that journey, it’s simply not worth it. So don’t do it if you’re not ready to commit time to studying, researching and doing your assignments properly. I saw people scrambling at the weekend to read everything, do their assignments, and so on. That doesn’t give you all the value you’re paying for.

Consider if it’s the right time to do your EMBA; maybe you’re better off waiting a year or two until your kids are older. On the other hand, you could take the EMBA when you’re in between careers like I did, when I could dedicate myself to my studies.

Or you could talk to your employer and say, “Can we agree that I work only 40 hours per week while I study? Or even a day off every week while I study?” Create an environment where you have time to do justice to the academic side of the EMBA.

I would recommend that you wait until you have the time to take it seriously. That would be my biggest piece of advice to those considering an EMBA.