MX (Masters Extra) programme

The Masters Extra (MX) programme is designed specifically for taught masters students in the School of Management and focuses on careers, and personal and professional development. This series of talks, networking opportunities and activities includes guest lectures from leading academics and experienced managers.

Through regular attendance, participants can enhance their career opportunities and earn a Certificate in Career Development. To qualify for a certificate, students must attend a minimum of four MX sessions in each semester. There are 12 sessions in all, following the introduction session that is held in Orientation Week.

MX is an integrated programme between the School of Management, CEED (Centre for Educational Enhancement and Development) and the University Careers Centre.

MX sessions after Orientation Week are presented on Wednesdays and include 30 minutes for Q and A. Sessions are held either in person, in Gateway LR 3/4 unless otherwise specified, or online via Teams, according to the speaker's preference.

Outline schedule 2023-2024 Semester 2

Wednesday 17 January 2024 4pm In person

Jim Campbell, Assistant Director, Careers Centre

What are the different types of interview questioning? What is the STAR technique and how can I use it when answering questions? And what does good interview preparation look like? This session is designed for those who may be new or unfamiliar with how interviews are conducted in the UK and will enable participants to feel more confident when preparing for future interviews.

With over 20 years of experience as a university careers and employability professional, Jim Campbell has honed his expertise in providing tailored careers guidance and education to support students in finding fulfilling careers that align with their skills and aspirations. As lead careers adviser for the Department of Management, he has developed extensive knowledge of job sectors that are popular amongst its students, e.g., finance, consultancy. He also keeps up to date with the trends and advancements in graduate job markets across the globe to ensure that his advice remains relevant and valuable to our cosmopolitan student body.
Wednesday 24 January 2024 4pm In person

Jim Campbell, Assistant Director, Careers Centre

Building your professional network is an important part of your career planning. This session will introduce you to LinkedIn by providing advice on developing your profile as well as discussing how you can make the most of the resources LinkedIn offers.

With over 20 years of experience as a university careers and employability professional, Jim Campbell has honed his expertise in providing tailored careers guidance and education to support students in finding fulfilling careers that align with their skills and aspirations. As lead careers adviser for the Department of Management, he has developed extensive knowledge of job sectors that are popular amongst its students, e.g., finance, consultancy. He also keeps up to date with the trends and advancements in graduate job markets across the globe to ensure that his advice remains relevant and valuable to our cosmopolitan student body.
Wednesday 31 January 2024 4pm In person

Paul Boyd, MBE

Paul is the Director of Morningside School of Music and is a distinguished figure in both the educational and business realms. He holds a property portfolio in Scotland and Latvia where he has various investment interests. He has been an Honorary Professor of Entrepreneurship at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh since 2005. His expertise extends to serving as a business advisor at several universities including the University of Glasgow's Smart Things Accelerator Centre (STAC). Paul is a Non-Executive Director for two animal welfare charities. In 2023, Paul was awarded an MBE by the King, recognised for his contributions to the music industry and entrepreneurship.

This talk will blend personal insights with practical advice, aimed at guiding students in their entrepreneurial journey. It focuses on real-world business scenarios, emphasising adaptability and strategic planning. The session will explore the nuances of starting and growing a business, turning challenges into opportunities. Students will gain valuable insights into innovative and sustainable entrepreneurship.
Wednesday 7 February 2024 4pm In person

Dr Ahmed Mirza

Ahmed graduated from the School of Management with a Masters in International Business (MLitt, 2017) and decided to pursue a PhD after working for 1.5 years. As a research student, Ahmed discovered programming using RStudio to conduct supervised machine learning for his PhD thesis. Ahmed also completed a PhD placement working on data analysis and research for the Scottish government, further cementing his interest in data centric roles.

This MX session covers the journey of the presenter, detailing what a data architect's roles and responsibilities are alongside practical tips and advice on how to enter a more data-oriented role from a non-technical background, which will be relevant to many students.

The talk then will cover io.finnet, a fintech focusing on the rapidly evolving 'digital asset' space looking at various products and how they interact with a more traditional financial landscape. The talk will highlight benefits of adopting this technology and end with an interactive quiz.
Wednesday 14 February 2024 4pm In person

Keira Hodge is a University of St Andrews alumna in Management and a growth marketing consultant with over 20 years of experience. Her recent focus has been on helping to scale small businesses through getting the right skills, strategies, plans and team members in place. Her background is in digital and performance marketing with a strong data-led background in B2B and B2C tech-based SaaS businesses. Alongside her tech-based commercial experience of growing small businesses, she has kept her hand in consumer and enterprise marketing in financial services, education, hospitality, energy, and tech for mid to large-scale businesses.

Keira will lead this MX session on the topic, 'How to upscale a business'.

Why should SMEs looking to scale be more obsessed with having the right growth and go-to-market strategies in place, rather than adopting a traditional marketing mindset? For the simple reason that 'a startup is not a small version of a large company'. (Steve Blank, Father of Modern Entrepreneurship).

Scaling businesses need a different approach to be successful. Startups or scaleups should be operating in a discovery and experimentation mode. This requires the whole organisation to work together in a cross-functional way, often driven and led by the growth team. Growth, unlike marketing, is obsessed with the entire business funnel, product- and message-market-fit, customer feedback and revenue metrics. The whole business is looking for its 'growth levers' – and will function under a shared set of objectives and key results (OKRs). Growth as a discipline helps remove organisational silos and helps align the leadership team. Often marketing-led businesses will feel the weight of the whole organisation's ambitions, whereas growth seeks to spread the load and run growth sprints with joint levels of responsibility.
Wednesday 21 February 2024 4pm In person

Fiona Oxley, Mental Health and Exercise Coach (MHEC), One Life Fitness.

Self awareness, self regulation and self reflection are the three key principles of behaviour change. This session focuses on self development through transitional life times – an interactive input on motivation and realignment.

Fiona is passionate about empowering individuals and groups to achieve positive behaviour change for improved performance in all aspects of health: emotional, physical, spiritual, intellectual, social, occupational and environmental. Her role as a mental health and exercise coach brings together her early education in sports science and psychology and her 20+ years' professional expertise as a qualified social worker.

With a focus on human growth and behaviour, Fiona will share tools, tips and strategies with you from her lived experience alongside her professional knowledge and skills. Come with an open mind to learn about the links between exercise and mental health. The mindset exercises can be implemented immediately for you to improve upon your life.
Wednesday 6 March 2024 4pm In person

Alex Rowe, Co-Founder and Partner of ISOBEL Ventures

St Andrews alumnus Alex Rowe has almost a decade of experience operating at the heart of the UK’s early stage investment ecosystem, initially as an early employee in various high growth tech startups and latterly as part of an investment advisory firm where he worked with 200+ startups, raising £65m in the process. Today, he is the Co-Founder and Partner of ISOBEL Ventures, a brand new pre-seed and seed stage venture capital fund based in Glasgow.

Alex will talk about:
•    deciding to go down the startup route vs the corporate route
•    early learnings from being the 1st external hire of a high growth tech startup
•    differences between working in a 3 person startup vs a 150 person scalp
•    experience of working with over 200+ Founders and entrepreneurs
•    working as a permanent employee vs an independent contractor
•    potential routes into working in venture capital.

Outline schedule 2023-2024 Semester 1

Thursday 7 September 2023 3pm In person

Introduction to MX Programme, Careers Centre and CEED

Professor Ross Brown, MX Programme Coordinator, Department of Management

Jim Campbell, Careers Centre

Dr Guilia Giunti, Department of Management

Cat Wilson, Centre for Educational Enhancement & Development (CEED)

This introductory session, held in the Buchanan Lecture Theatre, will provide a brief introduction to the MX Programme and the career related support services available to students during their Masters Programmes.
Wednesday 13 September 2023 4pm In person

Jim Campbell, Assistant Director, Careers Centre

Attend this session to find out more about the graduate job market in the UK. It will cover common recruitment timelines, effective job search strategies, and provide tips on how to perform well in typical recruitment process. It will also draw upon the experiences of other international graduates who have previously sought employment in the UK via the Graduate route visa or the Skilled Worker visa.

Jim Campbell has over 20 years of experience as a university careers and employability professional. During this time, Jim has honed his expertise in providing tailored careers guidance and education to support students in finding fulfilling careers that align with their skills and aspirations. As lead careers adviser for the School of Management, he has developed extensive knowledge of job sectors that are popular amongst its students, e.g., finance, consultancy. He also keeps up to date with the trends and advancements in graduate job markets across the globe to ensure that his advice remains relevant and valuable to a cosmopolitan student body.
Wednesday 20 September 2023 4pm In person

Jim Campbell, Assistant Director, Careers Centre

This session will help you apply for jobs and give you the confidence to create CVs and cover letters with clarity and purpose. It will also look at job applications more generally, advising you on how to answer specific application questions and demonstrate your abilities to an employer.

Jim Campbell has over 20 years of experience as a university careers and employability professional. During this time, Jim has honed his expertise in providing tailored careers guidance and education to support students in finding fulfilling careers that align with their skills and aspirations. As lead careers adviser for the School of Management, he has developed extensive knowledge of job sectors that are popular amongst its students, e.g., finance, consultancy. He also keeps up to date with the trends and advancements in graduate job markets across the globe to ensure that his advice remains relevant and valuable to a cosmopolitan student body.
Wednesday 27 September 2023 4pm On Teams

Dr Jose Godinez, Assistant Professor in Management, UMass

Jose Godinez is an assistant professor of management at the Manning School of Business at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. His research centres on strategies of firms operating in locations characterised by unstable institutional environments, especially those that present high corruption levels. He is also interested in understanding how institutional voids affect the development of strategies of firms targeting populations at the bottom of the pyramid within the CSR conversation.

Jose earned a PhD in Management from the University of Edinburgh Business School, an MSc in International Business from the University of Manchester Business School, and a BS in Business Administration from the Johns Hopkins University.
Wednesday 4 October 2023 4pm In person

Rie Schimmell, Entrepreneur

Rie Schimmell (MLitt Marketing 2014) went to Kuala Lumpur to work as a C-level recruiter. But only two weeks after arriving in Malaysia, she almost died from dengue fever. This was a turning point, which led Rie towards working with her passion: food.

In 2016, Rie started her first company, Syltet (meaning 'pickled' in Danish) where she pickled vegetables and sold to over 300 shops in Denmark. It was six years of ups and downs as an entrepreneur until Syltet unfortunately had to close in 2022. In 2023, Rie started two new food related companies and continues her journey within food entrepreneurship.

This MX talk will be about entrepreneurship and Rie's journey with Syltet. How do you go from having a good idea to actually starting your own company? And what are the top ten things that Ria has learned?
Wednesday 25 October 2023 4pm On Teams

Glenn Exton, NatWest Plc

Glenn Exton, Head of Customer Business Analytics at NatWest, is an Honorary Lecturer at the University of St Andrews and thoroughly enjoys contributing to the Master Class series.

For this MX session, Glenn is going to focus on cognitive and generative insights, sharing the path ahead and providing a hands-on opportunity to experience this through business intelligence analytics platform ThoughtSpot.

Glenn and Aman Bhattarai, from ThoughtSpot, will guide students to create contextual insights to gain an understanding how technology can co-exist and compliment human decisioning.
Wednesday 1 November 2023 4pm In person

Dr Stephan Rinck, Customer Success Manager, IBM Deutschland GmbH

2023 started a new era for artificial intelligence (AI). The recent wave of technological innovation is taking various industries by storm and has become the top discussion point for AI – generative AI, made popular by ChatGPT.

The rapidly advancing AI capability is on its way to revolutionising every aspect of an enterprise. The ability to access data has leveled the playing field and brought every enterprise a unique possibility of progress.

Stephan Rinck's MX talk will refer to recent research from IBM's Institute of Business Value (IBV). Stephan will illustrate the presentation with examples from several IBM clients – showing the context and relevancy of AI for enterprises.
Wednesday 8 November 2023 4pm On Teams

Tyler Mitchell, Auditor, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Office of Inspector General

Tyler graduated from the School of Management, University of St Andrews with a Masters in International Business in 2022. Prior to coming to St Andrews, Tyler served in the US Army and worked for the US Government in Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency as an analyst. Currently, he is an auditor for NASA's Office of Inspector General with a concentration on NASA's human exploration efforts. His focus centers on NASA's return to the Moon, known as the Artemis Program, and how NASA can improve the efficiency of its operations while detecting and deterring fraud, waste, and abuse. The Artemis Accords, currently signed by 28 countries, is a sign that this exciting time for space exploration is truly an international effort.

In this session, Tyler will talk about providing oversight of NASA's operations and the benefits and challenges of working in the public sector with private sector and international stakeholders. He will also discuss the international contributions of NASA's return to the Moon and insights into securing a public sector job.