Great Grads, Ting Hu, MBA/21

Ting Hu obtained her MBA in 2021 from the Sprott School of Business in collaboration with the Glorious Sun School of Business and Management at Donghua University in Shanghai, China.

Ting is the recipient of the Senate Medal for Outstanding Graduate Work. She is the first Senate Medal recipient from the Sprott MBA China program in its history since 2004 when the program welcomed its first cohort.

Prior to joining the MBA program, she worked as the Deputy Director in the President’s Office, Shanghai Institute of Technology. Before that, she was the Associate Dean (student & international) at the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Shanghai Institute of Technology. Ting attained an M.Sc. in Engineering at East China University of Science and Technology and an M.A. in English Literature at Shanghai International Studies University. Currently, she is planning to become an entrepreneur in lifelong education.

If you could choose one word to sum up your time at Sprott, what is it and why?

Empowered.

The Sprott MBA program fuels my entrepreneurial passion. The rich case-based curriculum equips me with deep general management and leadership skills; the highly professional and dedicated instructors provide me a vast ecosystem of methods and resources that supports my unique needs; the global perspectives and constant flow of dynamic ideas brought by classmates’ diverse backgrounds create an environment where I learned as much from classmates as I did from faculty members. The increased knowledge and the grounding and practice in how to make difficult decisions to assume management and leadership in an ever-changing environment lead to true change and lasting impact on my pursuit of entrepreneurship.

What were your goals when you started at Sprott? Did you achieve them?

I had two goals then: continuing to learn myself and creating a venture to help more people keep learning.

If food nourishes our bodies, then information and continued learning nourish our minds. I believe that lifelong learning is essential to existence and indispensable for each individual and organization. I wanted to start my own business in adult learning/lifelong learning to help individuals develop their resilience, which in turn boosts their confidence in taking on challenges, as “the only thing that is constant, is change.” That’s very rewarding to me.

I believe I have completed these two goals. The Sprott MBA program gives me a firm grasp of broad-based theories. It establishes a shared understanding of a business’s fundamental practices, including finance, marketing, leadership, negotiation, operations, strategy, and more. The case-method learning with hands-on team projects, personal reflection, and immersions deepen what we’ve learned. The specific analytical and quantitative skills uncover what is underlying the data and consolidate the concepts. The final courses pull everything we’ve learned into focus, integrating theory, practice, experience, and talent into one whole business management process. Taking the program enables me to understand how to start a new business systematically.

What is your favourite Sprott memory?

Enjoying the learning process is my favourite Sprott memory. Taking MBA courses while working can be very challenging. Sometimes I have to study around the clock to do the assignments, but I enjoyed the learning process of active testing, concrete experiences, reflective observation, and abstract hypotheses.

The completion of the learning cycle is the progress of minds and competence. Racking my brain to understand some concepts sometimes makes me reach deep into my mind and genuinely look at what is there. It’s like I got hit in the face when I learned how wrong I was in the organizational behaviour course; I knew myself better after learning the leadership styles. When submitting the final report of the last course, I really felt a little sad because it meant the program was about to end. I will miss all the classes and the process, and the program’s legacy will accompany me throughout life.

What was the most important lesson you learned during your Sprott MBA?

I think it is one of the concepts I learned in class; it was a concept in business strategy suggested by Michael Porter. But I think this concept can be applied to every aspect of life. That is – you don’t need to be the best, be unique.

This is new to me. I used to believe that “the best” wins a competitive advantage. However, after taking the strategy course, I realized that the best strategy is to understand the market, determine an appropriate position, and achieve uniqueness. Uniqueness is the key to competitive advantage.

What’s next for you?

Creating a venture for lifelong learning with a focus on a data-driven economy is my priority. The transformation of data into an independent and strategic asset poses challenges for companies, regulators, and policymakers. Preparing individuals to reflect on the challenges and opportunities of competition, business models, and data governance also means continuous improvement in living standards for all.

Also, as I’ve mentioned previously, I will continue to learn with interests and concentration on neuroscience and artificial intelligence, as I did in my M.Sc of Engineering and their applications in business. I see enormous potentials in applying neuroscience, like eye-tracking technology, to marketing, new product development, and personalized services. The commercialization of neuroscience in business practice is the other perspective that I will focus on.

Any advice you would give future Sprott MBA students?

Setting the goal, a step further and ready to improve, and connecting the dots are what I want to share with prospective students. That means, taking the MBA program as an opportunity to bring out the best in you depending on your career goals and aspirations, challenge where you think is the routine or where the old playbooks no longer apply, propel yourself a step further when the program makes you uncomfortable and form your system of thinking that will endure the dynamic changing. In doing so, you will advance both your own perspectives and those of fellow students and professors alike.

Due to COVID pandemic, the majority of courses for Cohort 13 of the MBA Shanghai Program, were completed online. Cohort 13 met more challenges, professional and personal, compared to previous cohorts. This cohort is a close-knit community and has excelled. All 28 students of Cohort 13, MBA Shanghai Program, will graduate this November.