Class of 2018 & 2019

Extraordinary &
Unconventional Talent:
For Asia and Beyond

www.asb.edu.my
CONTENTS

Talent for Asia and Beyond


ASB and the Career Development Office -

Bridging Organizations With World-class Students


Class Profile of 2018 and 2019


Class Profile of 2018


Full-time Employment Profile 

Class Profile of 2019 1

Summer Associate Placement Profile 1

ASB Global Placements 1

Action Learning 1
The Need for Action Learning
An Immersive Approach
Mission Driven Diverse Projects

Company Engagements 2
Talent for Asia and Beyond

The Asia School of Business enrolled its first class of

MBA students in August 2016 and those 45 graduates
entered the job market in the spring of 2018. That first
batch of students completed almost 100 group and
individual Action Learning projects with corporate and
government partners across Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the
Americas. Those inaugural students, now ASB alumni from
the Class of 2018, are engaged in a wide variety of
positions across five continents. Their placement and
salary results were on par with regional peers. Many of our
corporate partners have been repeat customers for Action
Learning project, and some of these companies have
hired our graduates as well.

For the Class of 2019, we experienced great success

with regards to our Summer Associate Program as we
achieved significant year on year improvements with
regards to compensation and placement rates. These
students are now engaged in Action Learning projects across
Southeast Asia, in experiences that will help prepare them
for the next stages of their careers.

Multiple factors have contributed to the success of

our students and graduates. ASB has attracted a highly
diverse and talented student body. We have a significant
international presence in the MBA program, with 70% of
students coming from outside of Malaysia - from over two
dozen countries across six continents. Furthermore, 40% of
enrolled students for the Class of 2018 and 2019 are
female and over one quarter have advanced degrees.

Through our partnership with MIT Sloan and the

committed support of Bank Negara Malaysia, ASB has
been able to provide a rigorous and relevant education
program using the faculty and curriculum of MIT Sloan.
Through their work in multiple countries, our students build
unrivaled cross-cultural and organizational navigation skills
that allow them to make immediate impacts on the job.

ASB owes a great deal of its success to the

collaborations we have with our corporate and
institutional partners. ASB thanks you for embarking on
this journey with us, and we look forward to sharing
more successes. We hope that this booklet will provide a
better understanding of how far ASB has come in the past
3 years and also give a glimpse into its future potential.

Professor Charles Fine

President and Dean, Asia School of Business


ASB AND THE
CAREER DEVELOPMENT OFFICE -
BRIDGING ORGANIZATIONS
WITH WORLD-CLASS STUDENTS

In January 2015, Asia School of Business (ASB), a global premier business school based in Kuala
Lumpur, was established by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), the Central Bank, in collaboration with
MIT Sloan School of Management.

ASB was founded in response to the need for highly qualified, industry-ready visionaries and
entrepreneurs to help organizations in the corporate and public sectors take advantage of the
abundant opportunities that this Asian-century is offering. Our vision is to cultivate talent for Asia and
the emerging world.

Faculty members from both MIT Sloan and ASB deliver the same quality of learning and innovation
as at MIT Sloan, with practical application and hands-on experience across Asia through our unique
Action Learning focused curriculum. A third of our students’ time is spent on-site, working with our host
partners across the region, generating value for both students and host partners.

Our extraordinary and unconventional students from the first two cohorts come from 6 continents, 21
countries and 32 industries and are ready to contribute to the economic strength and development of
emerging markets in Asia and beyond.

On average, ASB students have five years of work experience when they first begin their 20 months’
full-time MBA journey at ASB. Upon graduation, they will bring with them a strong sense of adaptability
and market-readiness that allows them to integrate faster into any working environment and deliver
positive impact.

The Career Development Office (CDO) at ASB plays a pivotal role in bridging organizations with
ASB’s world-class students.

CDO’s mission is to work with employers, students and alumni to build long-term relationships. We
engage with employers to identify their unmet talent needs, while helping students and alumni to
shape and pursue their goals effectively - ensuring that both parties make that ‘connection!’

CDO is pleased to present the successful employment outcomes of ASB’s inaugural Class of 2018 and
the promising summer placement results of the following Class of 2019. We hope this booklet will
provide all employers and partners – past, present, and future – with the information required to gain
better insight into the level of excellence that ASB and its students aspire to achieve on Campus and
beyond. You will also find a detailed account of ASB’s amazing achievements in Action Learning. We
can say without a doubt, that Action Learning is what enables ASB’s students the competitive edge to
be truly unconventional and extraordinary!

If you are interested to make your own connection with our students, please contact us at
cdo@asb.edu.my.


ASB has given me the BEST Action
Learning experience to date. Skills that I’ve
gained include patience, respect, resilience,
project management, listening, and how to
take constructive criticism. I’m continuously
learning about the different contexts in
socio-cultural engagements and efficient
applications of academic tools in real life
business scenarios.

Tawanda Mutsopotsi Washington

MBA Class of 2019
Zimbabwe


 Class Size Total
CLASS PROFILE OF 2018 AND 2019 MBA 18
MBA 19
46
36 82
Asia School of Business MBA Graduates & Candidates

28 5
Gender Cohort Total Average Average
MBA 18 & MBA 19
82 Age Years Work Experience Years

Gender Age Work Experience

Male 60% <26 16% 1 - 2 years 10%

Female 40% 26 - 28 42% 3 - 5 years 49%

29 - 31 24% 6 - 7 years 22%

>31 18% > 7 years 19%

Nationalities Pre-MBA Function Pre-MBA Industry

Malaysia 30% General Management 56% Financial Services 27%
North America 23% Finance/ Accounting 17% Technology 22%
Other Asia 15% Marketing/ Sales 11% Manufacturing 10%
Africa / 13% Engineering 10% Energy 10%
Middle East Legal 5% Transportation 9%
Latin America 9% Consulting 1% Education 5%
Europe 6% Retail 5%
Australia 2% Legal Services 5%
Consumer Goods 2%
Media 2%
Government Services 1%
Primary 1%
Healthcare 1%

CLASS PROFILE OF 2018
Asia School of Business MBA Graduates

Total MBA
Graduates 46 Average
Age 29 Years
Average
Work Experience 6.1 Years

Gender Age Work Experience

Male 63% < 26 13% 1 - 2 years 9%

Female 37% 26 - 28 35% 3 - 5 years 35%

29 - 31 30% 6 - 7 years 26%

> 31 22% > 7 years 30%

Nationalities Pre-MBA Function Pre-MBA Industry

Consulting 2% Consumer Goods 2%
Malaysia 33%
Engineering 13% Education 4%
North America 24%
Energy 9%
Other Asia 15% Finance/ 17%
Accounting Financial Services 26%
Africa/ Middle 11%
Government 2%
East General 54%
Management Healthcare 2%
Europe 7%
Legal 4% Legal Services 2%
Latin America 7% Manufacturing 11%
Australia 4% Marketing/ 9% Media 2%
Sales
Primary 2%
Retail 9%
Technology 20%
Transport 9%

 FULL-TIME EMPLOYMENT PROFILE
Asia School of Business MBA Graduates

Seeking
Employment 30/46
Not Seeking

Sponsored & Returning 63%

Starting Own Business 19%
Continuing Education 12%
Postponing Search 6%

Seeking Employment 65%

Not Seeking 35%

Employment Overview
Timing of
job offers 80% students accepted/received an offer within 90 days post graduation

Range Median Average

Annual base salary

(Malaysia Ringgit) MYR 120,000 - MYR 424,884 MYR 218,532 MYR 248,115

Annual base salary

(PPP - International Dollar) USD 30,000 - USD 250,940 USD 108,476 USD 118,141

Note: 75% of those with job offers disclosed salary information

Employers


Other than just getting the educational and experiential aspects of an MBA, I loved getting
the Malaysian experience.

Being in such a vibrant city with such a diverse group of classmates helped me understand
Malaysian culture and what it means to be in a city, country, and region going through a
period of transformation.

Katherine Robinson
MBA Class of 2018
Consultant, McKinsey & Company
USA


AirAsia has been at the forefront of adopting new digital technologies since our inception.
We are now in our next phase of development where we are expanding beyond air transport
and digitalizing our operations and processes to become more efficient.

We are pleased to collaborate with ASB to grow talents in the region. ASB assists us by
upskilling our existing staff and infusing new talents into our company. The diversity and
dynamism of the ASB graduates give us the complete package - from having a structured
and strategic thinking approach to better negotiation and communication skills - that is
useful in our journey.

We have placed these graduates in various divisions of the company such as in the airline
business, data science and in the digital transformation team fondly known as Digital
Fastrackers.

Aireen Omar
Deputy Group CEO, (Digital, Transformation & Corporate Services)
AirAsia

1
CLASS PROFILE OF 2019
Asia School of Business MBA Candidates

Total MBA
Graduates 36 Average
Age 28 Years
Average
Work Experience 4.2 Years

Gender Age Work Experience

Male 55% < 26 19% 1 - 2 years 11%

Female 45% 26 - 28 50% 3 - 5 years 67%

29 - 31 17% 6 - 7 years 17%

> 31 14% > 7 years 5%

Nationalities Pre-MBA Function Pre-MBA Industry

Malaysia Consulting 0% Consumer Goods 3%

28%
Engineering 6% Education 6%
North America 22%
Energy 11%
Africa/ 17% Finance/ 17%
Middle East Accounting Financial Services 28%
Other Asia 17% Government 0%
General 58%
Management Healthcare 0%
Latin America 11%
Legal 6% Legal Services 8%
Europe 6% Manufacturing 8%
Marketing/ 14% Media 3%
Sales
Primary 0%
Retail 0%
Technology 25%
Transport 8%
1
SUMMER ASSOCIATE PLACEMENT PROFILE
Asia School of Business MBA Candidates

Industries

Consumer Goods 6% Government Services 3%

Education 11% Manufacturing 26%

Energy 3% Media 9%

Financial Services 29% Technology 14%

Range Median Average

Monthly base salary

(Malaysia Ringgit) MYR 4,000 - MYR 19,000 MYR 6,607 MYR 7,014

Employers

previously known as LF Beauty.

1
Working with people from very diverse
cultures, experiences and backgrounds is a
great and expansive learning experience;
it may cause tension as it pushes you out
of your comfort zone, but also instills
more awareness in you to adopt different
approaches to managing stakeholders.

Sherilyn Ooi
MBA Class of 2019
Malaysia

1
I’ve had the opportunity to interact with ASB students both as an invited guest speaker and
as a host for the Summer Associate Program. From these interactions, I found them to be
highly motivated with an ability to think outside the box. They were socially integrated within
the team and immersed into our work culture with ease. With these traits, they were able to
deliver real value to our organization.

Lee Lung-Nien
Chief Executive Officer
Citibank Berhad

1
ASB GLOBAL PLACEMENT

AMERICAS

5
3 4
10

FULL TIME EMPLOYMENT

SUMMER ASSOCIATE PLACEMENT

ACTION LEARNING TEAM PROJECT

EMEA

Action Learning Team Projects

APAC 86
Malaysia  Philippines 
Thailand 1 Cambodia 1
Myanmar 4 Indonesia 
Vietnam  Timor-Leste 1
Note: Projects to Date Grom August 2016 to September 2018

1
 Full-Time
Employment
AMERICAS 3
USA 3

APAC
APAC 18
India 1
Indonesia 1
Malaysia 12
Singapore 2
Vietnam 1
China 1

EMEA 5
Brazil
57
1
Finlad 1
France 1
Mauritius 1
Russia 1

18 86
Summer Associate
Placements
AMERICAS 10
USA 9
Mexico 1

APAC 57
China 2
Indonesia 1
Malaysia 39
Japan 2
Vietnam 3
Hong Kong 5
India 2
Myanmar 1
South Korea 1
Timor-Leste 1

EMEA 4
Germany 1
Spain 2
Nigeria 1
Note: Full-time employment data based on job offers received/accepted within 90 days post-graduation
1
THE MOST INNOVATIVE MBA PROGRAM IN THE WORLD

“If you want to have a truly unusual global MBA experience, the Asia School of
Business is a sure bet. The school, a partnership between MIT Sloan and Bank
Negara Malaysia, the country’s central bank, can rightly claim having the most
innovative MBA program in the world today.”

Poets and Quants, October 2017

The Need for Action Learning

Imagine you are about to undergo surgery when you find out that your doctor has only had theoretical training with
no practical experience operating on a living patient. How confident are you putting your life in this doctor’s hands?
Fortunately, we don’t have to worry about this situation because the medical profession requires an intense and balanced
theoretical and practical education under the supervision of experts. Only through repetition and successful demonstration
of competency are apprentices allowed to graduate, become doctors, and perform in the field.

We must then ask, if the medical education field necessitates the balance of theory and practice to produce doctors, why
is the management education field still relying on theoretical frameworks, case studies and the occasional internship to
produce market-ready graduates? How can a company hire with confidence a management expert that has never seen
a real life situation of negotiation, of managing teams, of dealing with complex problems and limited resources, and of
making hard decisions in complex environments?

At the Asia School of Business (ASB), we believe that there is simply no substitute for practical real-life experience to
complement the intense and rigorous theories learned in class. To this end, we have built our entire curriculum around this
innovative and unconventional methodology called Action Learning, one of the most recognizable assets brought from
MIT Sloan. Action Learning is simply the process of learning by working on real business challenges, in collaboration
with host companies, using tools and frameworks taught in the classroom with the support of mentors, faculty experts,
and industry leaders.

Semester One Semester Two

AUG SEPT OCT NOV DEC JAN FEB MAR APR MAY J

MIT FOUNDATION ACTION LEARNING ACTION LEARNING

ORIENTATION
COURSES ADVISORY ON-SITE

1
 An Immersive Approach

Action Learning at ASB is a core (non-optional) course in each of the five different academic terms of the 20-month ASB
MBA program. By the time our students graduate, they will experience 5 different business challenges with possibly 5
different host companies, in potentially 5 different countries.

Each semester, students rotate between spending time in class learning the latest theoretical tools and frameworks taught
by MIT Sloan and ASB faculty, and on-site (at the host company’s premise located across Asia) working in diverse teams,
supervised by business coaches and our faculty. Then they return to class to reflect and plan for the next on-site. This cycle
is repeated several times each semester allowing the students to focus, course-correct or pivot throughout the project,
dramatically increasing the chances of success. The culmination of this process is the ASB Action Learning Symposium,
where students present to the hosts and faculty their findings and recommendations.

Semester Three Semester Four Semester Five

(Summer)

JUNE JULY AUG SEPT OCT NOV DEC JAN FEB MAR

MIT SLOAN + US SUMMER CAREER AND

ACTION LEARNING
INDUSTRY TREK ASSOCIATE PROFESSIONAL
SYMPOSIUM
PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT


Mission Driven Diverse Projects

Previous Action Learning projects have included, among others, product launches, digital marketing, business model
engineering, supply chain optimization and more, spanning multiple industries such as banking, manufacturing, consumer
products, and e-commerce. In just two years, ASB has partnered with  host companies on 1 projects across 18
countries.

Projects to Date: 'SPN
"VHVTU

UP
4FQUFNCFS


18  1
Hosts Action
Countries
Learning
Projects

PREVIOUS HOSTS


When ASB came about with a focus on the Action Learning agenda, I was initially unsure
of how it could be used across different industries. Now in retrospect, having gone through
the entire process, I have found it be of immense value to me at my current workplace – to
the point that I believe I would not be able to do my job without.

Eizaz Azhar
MBA Class of 2018
General Manager, Special Projects
Halal Industry Development Corporation
Malaysia

2
Stakeholders may have different interests
and priorities. Being able to decipher and
truly understand your stakeholder’s objective
can greatly impact the final deliverables of
the project. To address this salient point, we
were trained to assess the companies from
3 lenses—strategic, political and cultural—
during our first on-site visit.

Joey Lai
MBA Class of 2019
CIMB Sponsored Scholar
Malaysia

2
I think the approach of having 30% of the time spent in Action Learning gives students a
chance to do more field work and come up with more recommendations. When our own
team get stuck in our ways, there is a chance for the students to share their ideas. That’s a
good way for us to benefit from the program.

Chen Tien Yue

Executive Director
Royal Selangor

2
COMPANY ENGAGEMENTS

Companies Sponsorship Action Learning Summer Program Full-time

Accenture

Ace EdVenture

Aerospace Composite Malaysia (Boeing)

Asian Development Bank (ADB)

Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI)

Agak-Agak

AirAsia

Alluma

Ancora - MAJ

Arus

Astro-Tribe

Banco de Mexico

Bangkok Bank

Bank Pembangunan Malaysia Berhad

Berli Jucker Company (BJC - Big C)

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM)

BrandBastion

Carsem

CIMB Bank

Citibank

Co:Collective

Creador

DahMakan.com

Daiwa

2
Companies Sponsorship Action Learning Summer Program Full-time

Del Monte

Digi

DiverseCity

EarthHeir

EasyUni

Employees Provident Fund (EPF)

Hotel Equatorial

Esquel Group

FashionValet

Frost & Sullivan

Futurelab

General Electric (GE)

Giti Tire Pte Ltd

Google

GreenTech

Halal Development Corporation

Hilti India

Hong Leong Islamic

HUBE

IDOM Consulting

IEC

Johnson & Johnson

2
COMPANY ENGAGEMENTS

Companies Sponsorship Action Learning Summer Program Full-time

Kalaari Capital

KBZ Group, Myanmar

Khazanah

Li & Fung Beauty

Lynk Global

MasterCard

Maybank

Maybank Investment

McKinsey

Microsoft

MIT

Morgan Stanley

Moscow School of Management

Skolkovo

Motorola

National Outdoor Leadership School

Nestlé

OCBC Bank

Oriental Patron Financial Group

Procter & Gamble (P&G)

Petronas

Prudential

PwC

QDOS

Royal Selangor

Sanofi Paris


Companies Sponsorship Action Learning Summer Program Full-time

Sapura Energy

Singha

Slope

Smart Axiata

SmartStudy

TBWA

The Collective Intelligence Project (TCIP)

Teknologi Tenaga Perlis Consortium

The Woodshop

Traveloka

UNHCR

Unilever

Unity Homes

Urbn Playground

2
 As a startup, ASB has an
entrepreneurial institutional culture that
embraces innovation and encourages its
students to be intellectually curious and
to challenge the conventional wisdom
of the day. Ultimately, I do believe that
the skills, connections, and experiences
that I take away from ASB will best
prepare me for the rapidly changing
and increasingly interconnected world
of tomorrow.

Gary Liao
MBA Class of 2019
Canada

2
 Connect with us:

Career Development Office

Dong-Wook Lee
dw.lee@asb.edu.my

Aileen Agan
aileen.agan@asb.edu.my

+60-3-9179-4214

Action Learning Team

Sarma Subramanian
sarmaji@asb.edu.my

Jefri Zaini
jefri.zaini@asb.edu.my

www.asb.edu.my
This report is in line with Asia School of Business’s academic calendar from August 2016 – August 2018.

Disclaimer: The information included in this report was provided by both MBA graduates and recruiters and has not been independently verified.
Asia School of Business' Career Development Office gives no guarantee as to its accuracy.
TheASBmba TheASBmba @TheASBmba