Interview - Shayesteh Fürst-Ladani

MBA student testimonial

Video of an interview with Shayesteh Fürst-Ladani at the 2012 Student of the year awards. She was highly commended for the Award of Outstanding Contribution to an Organisation.

(Edited transcript of the interview)

I have been awarded for this, contributing to an organisation, because I have established my own consultancy company two and a half years ago. At first it was just me and now we are 15, a team of 15, with two affiliations in Switzerland and UK, and we have a very international team and provide highly qualified support to Life Science Company. And I think that's why. Two years ago, we also got a second prize for young entrepreneurship in Switzerland, so I think that was well communicated, which makes me very happy.

Why did you decide to study for an MBA with The Open University?

I always wanted to have my own company, to build up a company, and I think with our company one needs to know about a lot of different stuff, and the MBA, I thought that would be the best actual education, really, to learn in order to minimise the risk for failure while increasing the chance for a successful company.

And why did you choose to do it with The Open University Business School?

There were several reasons. One was the reputation, so I did quite a lot of research and the reputation of Open University was very good. I never wanted to just do a fast MBA and buy the three letters there for my business card. That was never my plan. I wanted also to have the university that I could also work and also have family because I had a child at that time, a small child, so Open University gave me a very good opportunity to study, work and be a mum and a wife. So that was a good work balance and study

How do you think your MBA affected your career prospects?

It did quite a lot because it helped me to understand the complexity of our organisation in order to work in a big organisation as well as to run a company, even as one woman company that was three years ago in my company. I had many different roles so it was important to understand what there was at heart to actually manage the challenges.

An Open University qualification is often referred to as distance learning. Is it really distant? What was your experience?

I would rather say flexible learning, and I think maybe the term distance learning was okay 20 years ago, but I think nowadays everything is globalised… internet with all the social media with all the technical advancement, I think distance learning is no more. Actually the appropriate word I would say is really flexible learning.

Would you recommend The Open University?

Oh, definitely. I did quite often, actually. I was quite often asked by my friends what are the advantages and what I would recommend, and I always did, yeah.