COPA designed the MBA Panel to further raise our members’ awareness of business acumen.  Business acumen is one leg of the Three-Leg Table model of career development.  With a certain level of business acumen, technical professionals will be able to more effectively align their work to the company’s priorities and strategy, talk about their contribution in the way that management understands and appreciates, and take the right approach to achieve their managerial aspirations. 

For the first MBA Panel discussion, COPA invited four successful corporate leaders / entrepreneurs, and each of them has both an engineering graduate degree and a MBA degree.  Due to the challenging time that we’re facing in the oil industry, in addition to long-term career development, job security and in-between jobs transition were also included in the discussion scope.  The panel discussion was very productive, and panelists addressed the audience’s questions about MBA studies, entrepreneurship, job security, professional networking, effective communication, difference between technical mindset and managerial mindset, and many others.