Richard Storey

I think fondly of my great relationship with the staff and tutors, and the access we had to visit academics and business people through visiting lecturers. Wine and cheese parties were de rigueur, and speakers were invited by the postgraduate study body for the MSc group. On one occasion we invited Enoch Powell and he came!

I built lifelong friendships at City. We had discos on the Thames every now and then and an annual dinner. Before we graduated we formed the Gresham Grasshoppers to be the CUBS alumni, the first ever alumni association of the Business School which went on to hold annual dinners in the City and other social gatherings.

Doing the course involved a daily commute into London… the dress code was far removed from our undergrad days so there I was wearing a shirt and tie sitting on trains alongside city men in bowler hats with rolled up umbrellas!

When I came to Cass I had an economics degree but a job I didn’t like! I was made rapidly more employable and got a job in the paper industry in Kent when I was still doing my thesis.

The management skills I learned became increasingly useful as my career developed. They really came into their own when I reached middle and senior management.

Having an MBA helped me earn respect from my managers and peers as my career developed. In terms of marketing, I became a senior marketer but then was able to switch and establish myself in general management.

In the early years after leaving the Business School, access to the wise counsel of past tutors was really helpful in my early career development. It was great to be able to go back and know you had an open door to talk to them. One person I am still in touch with is one of my tutors! Axel Johne, another marketing lecturer and now Professor Emeritus at Cass, was only a few years older than us so we shared a similar outlook on life. He came to visit us in North Somerset last summer!

Throughout my life, my MBA skills have been like a toolbox which I have carried around with me and opened up from time to time when I’ve been faced with unfamiliar challenges.