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Monash student one of top four MBA students worldwide

21 November 2007

Monash MBA student Benjamin Haan was the only Australian and one of just four finalists worldwide at the prestigious International MBA Student of the Year Award.

He is the first Australian ever to make it to the finals in this competition.

Now in its 10th year the competition, run jointly by The Independent newspaper and London-based Association of MBAs (AMBA), is designed to highlight the value of the MBA, both to businesses and to individuals. It highlights the all-round contribution required of a MBA student.

Jeanette Purcell, chief executive of AMBA, said finalists were nominated from students at AMBA's accredited business schools.

"The judges found it difficult enough to pick the shortlist of ten. Picking the four finalists and a winner was almost impossible. The standard was incredibly high," she said.

Before undertaking the MBA, Mr Haan spent seven years as a consultant at Accenture, specialising in business transformation consulting, working on projects as geographically separated as Sweden and India and including clients as diverse as Unilever and the Australian Tax Office.

"But I wanted to move into private equity, a step that recruitment companies were telling me was impossible given my background," Mr Haan said.

After completing a two-year full-time MBA from Monash University, Mr Haan recently joined Partners Group, a Swiss-based Alternative Investments company.

"Quite simply I wouldn't have been able to get the job I have just commenced without my MBA and awards like this are valuable to highlight that the MBA is so much more than just an academic exercise," Mr Haan said.

Mr Haan also played a major role in leading a Monash MBA team that won the premier Australian new business planning competition, the John Heine Entrepreneurial Challenge, and then went on to represent Australia in the global Moot Corp entrepreneurial competition in Texas, for which they were given an award for "Outstanding Product."

Monash MBA Director, Professor Peter Reed, said that "one of the strengths of the Monash MBA is its ability to allow students to tailor-make their MBA program to suit their individual personal and career aspirations.

Other candidates on the short list were from Open University Business School, UK; Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Netherlands; and Instituto de Empresa, Spain.