After months of anticipation we finally welcomed our new Full Time and Executive MBA participants to the Business School. A truly international group once again, we have over 40 students from 17 different countries, ranging from Australia and Canada to the USA, Uganda and Vietnam. With an average of 11 years work experience, the Class of 2016 comprises of promising business professionals with expertise in a range of industry sectors including engineering, IT, marketing, education and law. Throughout the year you will read their stories on this blog as they share their expectations, enthusiasm and challenges as they go through a life changing experience. They’ve joined the One Planet MBA to transform themselves and redirect their careers. Change for good at the heart of the One Planet MBA, and our participants are supported in their personal and professional development through our unique, 10 months long Personal Transformations module.

Supported by IBM Smarter Workforce and Thomson Reuters, Personal Transformations brings together career support, career coaching, professional mentoring and academic tutoring and authentic leadership development. No doubt for some of our participants the outcome of their MBA will involve a reinvention.

Our MBA participants are currently participating in the MBA Foundation programme, specifically designed to help them return to learning, kick-start their personal development and career progression and make the most of their MBA before they start their first module, Preparing for Change, on 22^nd September.

This promises to be a fascinating year, both for our MBA participants but also myself and my colleagues who do their utmost to help them realise their dreams.