The sky’s the limit for Lloyd with an MBA
When Lloyd Sellick wanted something more from his career he quite literally looked to the skies.
At age 24 and newly graduated mechanical engineer, Lloyd turned to the Royal Australian Air Force for his next move and it has been a career that has sustained him for 20 years.
Then, it was on the ground years later at Melbourne Business School where Lloyd embarked on an MBA in the Senior Executive MBA (SEMBA) program, graduating in 2014.
Lloyd, said moving on from the military life was never going to be easy but with two school-age children, he knew there was going to be a time he would need to switch to civilian life and the SEMBA program was the right fit.
Melbourne Business School’s Senior Executive MBA (SEMBA) program specifically addresses the challenges of studying for experienced executives. It comprises 10 x 9-day residential modules over an 18-month period, but requires only five weeks away from work in each of two calendar years.
The SEMBA program is a global experience, with seven modules delivered in Melbourne and three overseas in Asia, Europe and North America.
For Lloyd there were several reasons he chose Melbourne Business School, namely the location, the quality of the faculty and the way the Senior Executive MBA was structured.
“The course content was great,” Lloyd said.
“It really did stimulate me to think about how I was approaching problems that I faced and the content was broad and deep.”
“I had glaring areas of development required, like understanding financial management and accounting. I’d dealt with budgets in the Defence Force and done what I’d consider some bookkeeping, but learning finance and accounting was definitely my steepest learning curve.”
“I was able to apply a lot of the learnings in my Defence job, but the MBA really aided my transition.”
And after many years of deployments for weeks at a time, Lloyd now works primarily from his Melbourne home.
“It’s different for me after working for more than 20 years for large organisations and now I am in this small, agile company that is connected though technology,” he said.
Lloyd said his new role as a Senior Consultant at Relken Engineering, was a fantastic opportunity that has allowed him to leverage all the defence experience he’s gained over the past two decades but also to the chance to experience other industry sectors like mining, utilities and energy.
“The MBA gave me the confidence to transition from the Air Force,” Lloyd said.
He advised any military personnel considering making a change not to undersell themselves or undervalue their experience but that they should be prepared to have to translate that experience to a broader audience.
“There’s a lot that translates from your Defence experience, but doing the MBA opened my eyes, not just to new methodologies and ways of thinking and approaching business problems but it also challenged my thinking in the way I needed to broaden myself.”