Congratulations to Natalie Jabangwe (Executive MBA 2012) who has been recognised as an 'honoree' in the AACSB's 2020 Class of Influential Leaders.

Natalie was honoured for her contribution to the FinTech industry in Africa. She is one of the youngest CEOs of a FinTech business in Africa, after taking up the helm of EcoCash Zimbabwe in 2014.  Natalie has been recognised as a leader in the field of digital transformation and financial inclusion, working to change the way digital policy and innovation is shaping the economic transformation framework for the continent.  

Natalie has been instrumental in embodying the company’s ethos of improving the lives of local people. She has helped to build the economy from the bottom up, supporting those who were previously financially excluded due to the economic situation that hit Zimbabwe in the 1990s.

I feel both humbled and honoured to be recognised as an alma mater honoree of influencers from top global business schools. Imperial College London is renowned for outstanding research in science, invention and technology in academia and this institutional capability was evident in the MBA programme I studied at the Business School. I have undoubtedly benefited from implementing the learning I took from my time there in my career with great results.

Added to this, Natalie also champions and inspires the leaders of tomorrow in her many other roles: Ambassador in Zimbabwe for the international Women's Entrepreneurship Day appointed by the U.N; a Young Global Leader for the World Economic Forum in 2018 and her appointment to the U.N Secretary General’s first global Digital Financing taskforce.

Natalie is also an entrepreneur. She has co-founded an innovation hub, ibuhub, which ‘identifies and brings together Africa’s youngest entrepreneurs into a supportive ecosystem that grows technology and diverse innovation centric start-up ideas into commercially viable ventures’. The organisation holds talent identification programmes to support the growth of start-ups, and provides admin and business development support, as well as workspace and amenities. It also hosts community events, supports funding and runs a learning and resources centre. Her help is providing an excellent start to young entrepreneurs and the business leaders of the future.

The AACSB is the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International. It is a voluntary, non-governmental accrediting agency that oversees the standardization of collegiate schools of business and accounting nationwide.

Entrepreneurship is an avid interest of mine, so I thought I would share some of the opportunities available at Imperial that I've taken advantage of and are unique to Imperial.

Imperial Enterprise Lab

The Imperial Enterprise Lab is a hub for all things entrepreneurship at Imperial. It plays host to dozens of startups in varying stages of planning, trialling and funding. The Enterprise Lab is unique in that much of its services are offered to anyone, for free.

It doesn't take equity like many university incubators, and any student can come down to the lab to work, receive advice, or network with other founders (plus they have a mini-fridge with beer brewed by past founders!). There's a big emphasis on community and a "hack" mentality, rather than it being an exclusive club only for the most obviously commercially viable ideas.

HackSpace

Imperial also has its own "HackSpace" in which you'll find prototyping, modelling and fabrication spaces with much of the most advanced equipment and software that you can find. There are regular workshops and opportunities to bounce ideas off resident experts.

There's an incredible diversity in the ideas being worked on, but if you are particularly interested in the medical or software spheres, there will be no shortage of co-founders to work with!

Pitch & Mix

There's a multitude of events run for entrepreneurs, many of them by the Enterprise Lab. One of the stand-outs is the monthly Pitch & Mix event, where founders get a couple of minutes to stand up in front of a crowd of 100+ students and lay out their business, take questions, and look for co-founders or required expertise.

Afterwards everyone piles into a room for pizza, drinks and earnest discussion about the ideas presented! In tandem, there are various pitching competitions offering cash prizes to proposals judged best by guests from top venture capital firms and investment banks. Anyone can present, and many of the businesses that are successful actually came out of team projects required for modules.

Teaching entrepreneurship

Linking to the previous point, there's a noticeable emphasis on entrepreneurship even within the core teaching. I can only speak to the MSc Management programme which I am studying, but we had the opportunity to work for five weeks on a fully fledged business pitch as part of our Marketing Decisions module, and create both live and video presentations.

As part of Strategic Management, we presented on market entry and disruptive innovations, with many students continuing to work on ideas outside of the coursework. On top of all of that, there are specific electives offered for many courses as part of the Innovation specialism of the MSc Management electives.

The MBA students take this up a notch, with multiple businesses being set up within the first half of term, and MBA Connect plus the Entrepreneurial Journey offering specific opportunities to trial out ideas.

If you are really set on starting something of your own, there's even a whole programme called MSc Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Management taught by successful professors, entrepreneurs and experts in the field.

Tip four: If needed, seek help from a counsellor

Imperial really cares about students’ mental health. The Student Counselling and Mental Health Advice Service organises regular workshops such as Stress Management and Sleep Well. They also provide drop-in sessions that you can walk in without making appointments. If you have any personal issues like loneliness, depression or academic concerns that may affect your wellbeing, feel free to book an appointment to chat with the counsellor.

I hope these tips find you well and I wish you a happy and fruitful new year!

What is driving investment in marketing personalisation? What are the challenges in implementing this and what is its future? These were just some of the questions that our panel of experts tackled at our Marketing Professional Interest Network event (6 Nov).

Panel members included Sille Opstrup, Head of Digital, Connections and Content, Pernod Ricard UK, Simon Ingram, Global Account Director and E-commerce Lead at MediaCom and Rhodri Williams, Head of Digital at WebBox. The event was attended by Imperial alumni and guests.

What personalisation means to a marketeer

The panel agreed that it was the idea of using data to understand where your audience is on their customer journey, so you can tailor your messaging to them accordingly. By connecting on a more emotional level you can create a better relationship with them and your brand/product. One of the ways you can achieve this is through personalised communications. By targeting your message more effectively you can create a more 1-2-1 understanding of their needs and therefore add value through your communications.

Companies that currently do this well include EBay which manages personalisation on a mass scale. And on the flip side, Bose focus on smaller groups of consumers providing a personalised path to purchase with dynamic content. Another example is Very, who integrate their online advertising with a chatbot helping you choose products quickly and efficiently.

Some companies are also effectively bringing together customer offline and online experience. For example Adidas has recently opened its most digital store, boasting interactive changing room mirrors providing a tech-based personalised approach to shopping.

What is driving investment in personalisation?

Interestingly this push is not coming from consumers. People are more conscious than ever about the type of data they are sharing (post the Cambridge Analytica scandal). This drive is coming directly from brands. In a competitive market, the more relevant your brand can be, the greater the conversion rate. By getting the right messages to the right people at the right time and in the right place, you increase your competitive advantage. The challenge is to make personalised marketing less like advertising and become something that is useful to the consumer and holds greater relevance. Providing a better service and user-experience is what makes people buy. Content and context is king when it comes to marketing, but there is a cost to this.

Brands are driven by budget and KPIs, and there is a risk involved in personalised marketing as there is always some reliance on guess work. For example Netflix and Spotify base suggestions on previous playlists, but when a whole household has different tastes this can lead to some interesting suggestions!

What are the challenges in implementing personalisation?

Personalisation is great in theory, but hard in practice, as it involves a lot of different people from within the organisation, pulling together data, products, tech platforms etc. The key is therefore to know when it isn’t needed!

“It is also essential to keep up with technology and what is possible. Things are changing all the time. You need to remain open-minded, aware of the possibilities, but also be mindful of return on investment”, advised Sillie.  

Simon gave the example of Deliveroo and how as a more recent company it is having to build a bottom up personalised approach. Without a solid base of consumer data behind you, it is much harder to reach out to new audiences for the first time. However even with limited data you can start small, analyse the outcomes and carry out testing.  

What are the biggest threats to today’s personalisation?

The death of the third party cookie and closed platforms, ‘walled gardens’, will make personalisation harder, but ultimately is should make it better. Marketeers will need to go back to more ‘old school’ methods of contextually relevant advertising. There are lessons to be learned from this by viewing user journey from end to end, which will make it more interesting from a marketing point of view.

“It isn’t all about personalising your message, but also about personalising your brand. How you promote your brand overall, your ethics, beliefs, interests, will influence buyers. If they believe in your brand they will come to you – use your brand ‘personality’ to attract the right audience,” commented Rhodri.

The future of personalisation

The future is probably in addressable TV and voice responsive devices. Amazon has made some advances in this area with Alexa and Sky already targets some adverts by postcode, so we are already seeing this influence on a daily basis. The future could see adverts influenced by your Alexa shopping history.

There is also the potential for fitness apps to link to fitness devises and then to household appliances – for example your car will tell you to stop early and walk to get your step count up, or your fridge will order certain food products for you when they have run out.  There is the potential for brands to build a holistic and valuable exchange over multiple touch-points and platforms to really create a ‘relationship’ that brings value to the user/consumer.

In conclusion the panel agreed that brands need to take a broader approach to marketing and think about how their products fit into ‘experiences’. The focus will be on adding value to the consumer and making their shopping experience as easy as possible and personalised content will continue to drive this.

The panel was chaired by Elodie Levasseur Head of International Marketing at Universal Publishing Production Music and Laura Zambon (MSc Strategic Marketing 2016), Account Manager at Blue 449.

The event was organised by the Imperial Marketing Professional Interest Network, an alumni-led committee providing a forum for Imperial alumni and guests working in marketing to network and build professional connections.

How do you establish yourself as a future leader of society in a fast-changing world where technology is disrupting every industry? Can business education and an entrepreneurial mindset provide you with the future-proofing skills to remain relevant?

In this podcast, we get to the crux of the question: do I really need an MBA to progress my career?

We are in conversation with Sarah Ranchev-Hale, Director of Careers, Employer Relations, and Andreia Ferreira, Career Consultant, at Imperial College Business School.

Drawing on their expertise in helping our MBA students gain employment in the workplace today, they shed insight into whether the programme is equipping students with the skills that employers are looking for. They examine the role an MBA plays in your short term and long-term career, and whether this traditional business programme is relevant to entrepreneurs and innovators.

Later in the podcast, we are joined by a special guest, André Kashiwara. André is a Senior Manager of Operations at Amazon UK and alumnus of the Imperial Full-Time MBA. He opens up about his career journey, whether the MBA set him up for career success and gives his recommendations on studying an MBA when rapid changes and technological developments are affecting modern business.

If studying an MBA is on your radar for 2020 or a life-long goal, this podcast is not to be missed.