China Centre Career Development Series: Career Advice from Alumni for New Intake over Afternoon Tea Networking

21 July, 2018. Mcloud Shanghai

On July 21, Saturday, the University of Manchester China Centre hosted an afternoon tea networking session at Mcloud for new intake to gain career advice from and meet with senior alumni. Two active GMBA alumni were invited to share their career stories.

Ms. Sherry Fu shared with new students the rich offering of club activities at the University of Manchester China Centre Worldwide, Mintroduced cloud as an alumni event venue, explained Shanghai Overseas Returned Scholars Association as an officially-organized alumni community and invited students and alumni to join the upcoming spectacular celebration of China Centre 10th Anniversary & Alumni Gala Dinner 2018 (click here to learn more and purchase tickets). Ms. Fu encouraged student to make use of the resources provided by the Centre and take advantage of the rich global alumni network in the future. Following the Director’s sharing were alumni talks delivered by active GMBA alumni Aileen Wei and Aries Li.

With great passion for marketing, Aileen Wei co-founded UoM China Centre alumni Marketing Club. She has 12 years top executive experience in various multinational companies, and established her own business in digitalization services. Aileen shared her experience in marketing, business development, and brand digital transformation, and different take-aways from leading digitalization projects for various industries including FMCG, Chemicals, Automobiles, Health and Financial Service. After her sharing, students were intrigued by how smooth her career development went and questions were raised such as how to survive office politics especially as a senior management level minority lady in multinational companies.

Aries Li, co-founder of UoM China Centre alumni AI and Big Data Club, shared his extensive knowledge in PR sector reflecting on his own somewhat “bumpy” changes of career path in industry-leading companies such as Microsoft, Carrefour, Decathlon, and now Masterkong. Considering that audience have only attended two workshops and expressed their concerns about course difficulties and language barriers, Aries gave honest suggestions for new intakes regarding how to manage time and balance work and study, how to study more efficiently and effectively by forming study groups, and other practical advice.

The 3-hour afternoon session was information-packed. As one participant commented in the end, “hearing from alumni during the induction period truly calms me down and leads me thinking about various possibilities in future career planning.”