Episode 9: Sachin Tipnis- Higher Education: Building and Scaling Asia’s Leading Master Program
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In this conversation, he talks about:
His career and the impact his father’s job had on him.
His journey building The University of Hong Kong MBA program: The importance of getting the product right.
What does he look for when interviewing candidates for the master programs?
Impact of COVID and influence of MOOC, Massive Online Open Courses, on the Higher Education Industry.
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Transcript:
*The transcripts are not 100% accurate.
Pritish: Welcome, Sachin, to The One Percent Project. Tell us about yourself.
Sachin: Thanks, Pritish. Thanks for inviting me. About myself, well, I grew up in India, but in many, many different cities, thanks to my father's job. And that was great because it really taught me how to break the ice, go to new places and still make friends. After that, I specialised in accounting and economics during my undergraduate days. I soon realised that that field was not for me, and moved on to doing something which I had fallen in love with, which is advertising and branding and marketing. And that was really good for me. That gave me a solid training when I worked for a large advertising network company.
After a couple of years, I felt that I wanted to move to a more regional or a more international market. And that's where I thought about coming to Hong Kong to do my MBA. And you might think that in early 2000, or middle of 2000, why would I choose a location like Hong Kong for higher studies? Because it was really not seen as a destination for MBA. Mostly, people went to USA UK. But I have always followed my heart. I've always thought about going to a place where probably I can get the first mover advantage, or let's put it this way, maybe the entry barriers are low, but most importantly, that I am looking at a market where there lies a future, not something which has already happened. I don't like the herd mentality, that everybody just going to USA and UK. I thought in early 2000 that China is going to be the next big thing. And that's why I decided to come to Hong Kong. I was probably the first Indian student to come to Hong Kong to do a MBA.
One thing led to another and I got a great opportunity to work for the HKU business school at the University of Hong Kong, and I thought, “Oh, this is a great opportunity.” I had never thought about entering the education industry. But then I realised that it's similar to what I was doing. It does require a huge amount of marketing, branding, building reputations, building products, reaching out to your target audience. So, it was similar in a way to what I was doing earlier, and I thought, “Let's give it a try. I will be here for a couple of years, get this great experience and then move on.” But it's been 15 years that I'm still enjoying this journey of being in the education sector. It's been a fabulous, absolutely brilliant, stay at the HKU Business School.
Pritish: You mentioned, thanks for your father's job, you had a lot of experience traveling around India. What was the job and what did that teach you?
Sachin: So, my father was in armed forces, he was in the army, and that led to us getting transferred every 2 years to a new city, to a new environment. And for me, that meant that I had to change my school every 2 years, which meant I had to get adapted to a new city, to a new environment, to a group of new people very quickly. I didn't have the luxury of time to think about, “Okay, let me see how the city is,” and everything. And I think that has led to a lot of, I would say, some advantages, which was that I can be very flexible, adaptable and I can easily connect with people.
And another thing is, Pritish, you're from India, you realise that every city, every State in India is a country within a country. And I think that gave me a great exposure to different cultures. And that brought about another very important aspect of what we call cultural sensitivity. And probably that helped me to in my job in Hong Kong, where nearly all of my colleagues were from Hong Kong, later on from Mainland China. I had to deal with students coming from very different parts of the world. And I think that understanding of culture, that ability to connect with people, which I learned, thanks to my father's job was... is very invaluable.
Pritish: You have been instrumental in establishing one of the top MBA programs in Asia within a very short period of time. How did this journey come around at HKU?
Sachin: This has been a fabulous ride so far. So, when I got this opportunity to kind of build our MBA program and, you know, Pritish, I genuinely don't follow very systematic what we call strategy models, or what we call very complicated kind of strategy patterns. I believe in simplicity. So, I believe that get your product right. I think probably that's where my training in advertising and marketing in the corporate sector came handy, where I figured out that you need to get your product right.
So, let me explain to you how I went around building this HKU MBA program. Because we really concentrated on getting the product right. And for doing that, you have to understand the landscape. So, you have to keep it very simple. You have to get the product right, but to do that, you need to understand what the landscape is all about. And who are you targeting? Who would come to Hong Kong at that time? Because again, every couple of years, your product, your target audience, your landscape changes. But we kept it simple at that point of time.
We looked around, and we realised that most of the schools in Asia were basically doing a copy/paste job of the top schools In the US or UK or other parts of the world. So, they were just another business school copying the same model, and probably that worked for them at that point of time. But if we had come up with another product which just looked similar, we could not have been successful. So, that's why we looked at the landscape. And then we realise that the future belongs to Asia. There's a lot of interest in Asia, but a lot of companies, a lot of organisations, a lot of people are not well aware of how to crack Asia. They just copy/paste what's happening in their Western markets to Asia? No, that didn't work. And that was not supposed to work.
So, we decided that, “Hey, our MBA program has to be different. Our product offering has to be different. So, let's concentrate on that, and let's simplify it.” So, we just said, “Okay, let's build a program which is concentrating on how to do business in Asia.” It was pretty much one of the first few programs to pitch this. And that's why our target audience, what came out of this... the product we were trying to put together was somebody who would be very interested in Asia, who would have the motivation and passion for Asia. And we are talking about Asia in middle of 2000, not the current one where everybody is well aware that Asia is the place to be, and Asia is the future. At that time, we... we were trying to project a product, which we believed was going to be the future.
So, we targeted a little bit of our trailblazers, you know, people who were ready to take that little risk of saying, “Hey, let me just not go to the markets which are well-established. But let me go to a business school which is telling me what the future is, and they are putting a product together which is based on that.” So, we kept it as simple as that. And I think that really, really resonated very well with the market.
Within a year or 2, we got tremendous support from our target audience. A lot of organisations wanted to hire students from us because they realised that these students are really getting trained for doing business in this part of the world. And I think then on, we went into the, what we call The Loop. The Loop, what I mean by that is, every few years you look at the product, landscape, target audience, and then making changes, tweaking the product, making it more relevant.
So, we started looking at things and we realised that within Asia, China is going to be the economy to look at. So, that's why we put together a China-immersion program. I mean, you are part of our MBA program. You did MBA with us. And I'm sure you appreciate that 1 month in Beijing, where you got to know really what's happening in China on the ground.
Later on, a couple of years down the line, we realised, “Hey, entrepreneurship, startups is a very important component.” So, again, we introduced something called business lab, a business incubation program. And that gave tremendous training to our students connected to startups being entrepreneurs and so on and so forth. In the future, we are thinking about Greater Bay Area, because Greater Bay Area is next 5, 10 years, that is the next growth engine to say so.
So, again, you can see that at every point of time, we kept it simple. We didn't like come up with some product which probably is extremely innovative or based on some very complicated modeling. No, we just looked at the market, we looked at what was the demand for what is the future for, and then we came up with a product. We reached out to the right target audience in terms of who would be interested in this kind of a product, and then kept kind of putting new things into our MBA program.
I will continue a bit more on this because I would like to also bring up another very important factor, which is that you have to understand that for MBA programs, we have 2 products actually. One is actually the MBA program itself where people are signing in, students are coming in, they're going through that process. But other one are the students themselves, because then, we need to make sure that we are pitching the right talent to the corporate sector. Because that is a very important component of a business school, that we are training leaders for tomorrow, we are training future managers.
And that's why we had to also keep that in mind that, what does the corporate world like? What do they want? And then, accordingly, we also made adjustments in our MBA program to make sure that we launch different aspects from, you know, very one-to-one career services to good engagement with our alumni, and bringing in certain courses which are connected to what again is the future. Like, we introduced the quite early concepts of FinTech into our program, then now everybody's talking about digital transformation, but then we had introduced this sometime back already.
And the most critical part in this whole journey has been people. A lot of people and a lot of organisations talk about the product, market, competitor landscape, coming out with, you know, big strategies. But my experience show that basically, you can put anything and everything together and you can be successful. If the best resource which is available to any company, any organisation is utilised well, and that is, people.
So, end of the day, I really believe that you are betting on people. You're not, you know, betting on some high-level strategies or whatever. It's people who would make that difference. And that's why, you know, I always like this quotation, which is, “To win the marketplace, you must first win the workplace.” I think that I would say kind of concludes my thought on how the journey has been. I have been able to really put together a team. And you are aware of it. Most of the people who are in the current NBA team have more than a decade of experience. They are the people who have ultimately who has made this journey very fruitful and enjoyable.
Pritish: The legacy that HKU brings, in its 100-plus-year-old institution. And you have been pitching and pushing an MBA program, which was sort of a concept 15 years ago. And now, obviously, it's one of the flagship programs that the school has. Legacy of HKU, was that an advantage or a barrier for the development?
Sachin: Yes. Well, legacy organisations, I believe, have certain great advantages. One is the history is behind you. As you rightly said, Hong Kong U, more than 100 years of history. Which means that it's been able to have a very strong reputation in the market, a strong recognition. Because right, it's not something which is built overnight. It's not a fly-by-night operator kind of a scenario. So, that's the big advantage, that the name recognition, the reputation, history, which is very... which kind of projects Hong Kong U in a very, very strong position as such, a great alumni network.
And I think this kind of legacy has to be I would say taken advantage of. Yes, legacy institution also means that they've... that they have a certain system in place and you have to work within the system. But I do believe that the system also allows you to make sure that you take advantages of what I said what the legacy institution brings to the table. But at the same time, I would say the best way to work within a legacy organisation is to create small successes. And once you create small successes, you use that successes, you showcase those success to make certain changes and move forward.
So, for example, in the context of MBA program, I think if we had tried to make huge changes or tried to change the system, it doesn't work. We could have crashed the car, as people say. But we said, “Okay, let's use the advantages of legacy system. But within that, let's try to work on new things. But how do we do that? Let's get some success points.” So, once we started getting more international students, we used that as a... as a point of reference to showcase saying, “We are getting more international students. So, we need to make certain changes.”
As our ranking started going up, a lot of people within our institution noticed that. And I think then, we said, “See, we are going up the ladder. We need to make certain little bit more changes. We need to make tweaks certain things so that we can have even a higher ranking.” And I think that... those kinds of successes, what we were able to bring in, and then we showcased that, helped us to navigate the system.
And my advice to people always is that, a lot of people ask me this question because they know I have been working for a legacy institution as to how still there was a success achieved. My answer is very simple. Yes, don't try to change the system. Because in that, one, you will spend a lot of your energy, a lot of your effort. You’d rather concentrate on navigating the system, bringing certain successes, and then showcasing those successes to make certain changes when people look at it, they also feel for it, they also support you. So, I think this is how, I guess, my journey has been in a legacy institution like Hong Kong U.
Pritish: You have interviewed thousands of potential MBA candidates over the years. What would you look for in a candidate?
Sachin: The most critical thing which I look for is attitude. I give a lot of importance to this, Pritish, because I do believe that some people have... are extremely intelligent. Some people have extremely great knowledge. Some people have great personalities. Some people have done fabulous work experience they have. Some people have great academic records. And it's great, but ultimately, it is your attitude which is going to define whether you would be successful, whether you will enjoy the MBA journey, whether you would be a contributor in the program.
Again, let me quote, a quote. I really like this one. And it says, “Ability is what you're capable of doing, right? Motivation determines what you do, but it's the attitude which determines how well you do.” And that's why i doing the whole interview process or when the whole process of selection, this is something I am always looking for, whether this person has the right attitudes, their... towards their own MBA journey. Not a third person's journey, but towards their own MBA journey.
About... about this of the attitude, I always look for another very important aspect, which is, people put a lot of things on CV in terms of their work experience in their life experiences. One thing I always look for is that, “Is that what they have really done?” And this is an important component, because I think when put something on the CV, it's very important to check that, “How deep have they done that particular thing? In what context have they done that particular thing?” Because ultimately, those words are meaningless if they haven't gone deep into that particular activity. So, this is something which I'm always looking for. So, attitude and then testing out whether they have really done what they put on the CV.
And probably the last thing is whether they have the understanding about the program they've applied for. So, similarly, if you're applying for the... any program in Hong Kong U for which I am taking the interview, how much do you know about that program? Have you thought about whether this program is the right fit for you? And I think that's... these are the probably 3 things I give a lot of importance to. But attitude stands right at the top.
Pritish: That's a very unconventional response, I would say, from... from the school, as well as from an applying student. Because usually, students have been on both sides, and you have been also on the other side. Applying to the MBA program is everybody thinks that it's the score, it’s the CV, the amount of awesome things that you have done that is going to get you through. On the other hand, your expectation is that, even if you may not have a very blazing score, but if you have the right attitude and you do contribute, you can actually come through and be a part of the program.
Sachin: Absolutely. And you... you absolutely got it. And this is an important element. And I think that's how probably we also differentiate our program. That's how, when you look at our HKU community, you will see that people are beyond just that 1 score, or 1... just a GPA or just based on work experience. I think ultimately, it's really about who you are which makes the difference.
Pritish: Got that. We all have to look into what has COVID done to the present market and the situation economically, as well as personally. So, this leads to a question where, was 2008 more challenging, or the COVID situation today is more challenging?
Sachin: Right. This is definitely something we always discuss nowadays. And I've spoken to many people, my colleagues, and we all feel that 2008 was much better. And let me explain to you and why. Because in 2008, yes, the market collapsed, there was a financial crisis, but we could still continue with our life as it is in terms of movement, in terms of travel, in terms of engaging with other people, that never changed in 2008. Yes, the markets were down but then the recovery was based on... on the... on how the companies react to it, how the regulators react to it.
But when you look at today's situation, it's a health emergency, which means it's an epidemic, which means that, as humans, we... it's not just based on what we do, it's the environment, the nature which is playing a bigger role. Which means... and of course that has led to, we cannot travel, we cannot interact the way we used to interact, or in some cases, we can't even have physical classes.
So, all this has disrupted the entire market scenario. That led to another very interesting concept of online education. I mean, ‘til now, online education was seen as not an alternative, it was always seen as something which, you know, certain institutions will do, but it was not mainstream. But now, you can see that conducting meetings, doing work, conducting education is going online. And it seems people have kind of accepted that fact that, “Hey, this can actually add certain value.” So, this has changed the whole marketplace as such.
So, it's definitely much more challenging than what it was in 2008, because a lot of factors were still within our control. But now, a lot of the factors are not within our control. And this brings new challenges and new way of thinking as to what's next for all of us.
Pritish: So, what is the future of education, given we now also have MOOC, Massive Open Online Courses?
Sachin: Right.
Pritish: Which weren't a big thing in 2008, per se, but in 2020, it has obviously taken up in a... in a major way across the world.
Sachin: True. Absolutely. So, I do believe, Pritish, that online, whether it's MOOC, whether it's hybrid teaching, whether it's blended learning, flipped classroom rooms and all these concepts what we're talking about, would definitely would be coming in more mainstream as we move forward in terms of education as such.
Now, would it totally replace certain things? No. I still believe that, once the situation gets normal, people would still would be very, very interested in being in a classroom, being in a community, having that network, having to be physically present to discuss certain things. I do believe that that will still remain a core product to say so.
But in my opinion, let's look at this way. So, imagine there is a big core product in between, but then around this core product, there is a big circle of what we call the outer layer. And I do believe this outer layer will become more and more important. And that outer layer will be all about online virtual education, virtual learning, and courses which you don't have to be physically present.
Let me give an example. Say in an MBA program, we... the diversity is a key. And that's why we do recruit students from all walks of life. So, for certain subjects, when you're talking about say hardcore finance subject or accounting or managerial or business analytics or statistics, a set of people don't come from that background, they have never touched these subjects. And that's where a lot of business school, including us, we do have TA sessions, right, Teaching Assistance. So, just to give them some assistance to say, so we run these kind of TA sessions parallel to the actual lectures. This is one example I'm giving you.
That can be easily moved to on... online. It can be easily moved before you even start the program. So, what we call the pre-MBA session. That could be... what could be a boot camp can be now moved online. And I think this is what the future would be, that it will be kind of a blended education where a certain component will be moved online, but the core product of interaction, of doing case studies and networking, all those will remain in campus.
But having said that, let me also at the same time have... I have certain apprehensions and let me state that. We assume that the learning environment at home for everybody is going to be same. And what I mean by that is that we assume everybody has a top-line... top-of-the-line laptop, everybody has their own space in the... in their house to... to listen and to indulge in online education. The reality is that we forget this may not be the case in a lot of countries. In even the most developed countries, there are always a set of people who may not have access to this.
This is also connected to people saying, “Hey, you know what? Now everything is going to be work from home. Work from home concept is the new concept.” Yeah, sure, definitely. But then we are, again, making a big assumption there that everybody has the space, has the technology, has the environment in their house or in their apartments to indulge in work from home. Many people would love to, but they don't have the right infrastructure. And that's what we need to keep and take into consideration.
Same for education. There is a reason why, you know, there is certain institutions where people come, because then they get that equal platform of equal learning environment. And I think that's very critical point one has to keep in mind. Whether everybody has that equal learning environment. Until that happens, I think probably the way forward is the blended education.
Pritish: What is the hack to be in the higher-education sector for the last 15 years?
Sachin: Yeah, I sometimes don't realise I've been here for 15 years. The hack, very simple you really need to believe that education empowers people. And I really mean this, Pritish. I think you need to have this very core belief in yourself that education can really inspire and it can empower people towards success. And success can be defined very differently for different people. If you can have this core belief (which I absolutely have), then being longer in this industry makes sense.
Now, another aspect of what I really love about my job, and I think if people have this similar thought process as me, they can definitely hack this industry, which is if you look at my position, on one side, I have students, young students, students with lots of experience when it comes to EMBA. And I think there's a great amount of learning for me, constantly new batches coming in. So, with every batch, I'm able to learn something new. This is so invaluable in how many jobs can you have this kind of a platform where you're constantly learning from the next generation and from, of course, the generation which has been very successful, which is the EMBA program? That's one side.
The other side, I have these professors, very knowledgeable professors, they’re subject area experts in their particular area. And I get to interact so much from them. So, at one end, I'm getting these young people, these experienced corporate people who are constantly giving me new learnings. At another end, I have these professors who are also constantly providing me a platform to learn from them... to learn from the experience, learn from the expertise of a particular subject area. So, I think anybody who enjoys this constant learning process, I would say would be able to hack the education industry.
Pritish: Brilliant. Now we get into a quick fire.
Sachin: Okay.
Pritish: And I'm going to ask you one question and you can give me a one-word or a one-sentence response.
Sachin: Sure.
Pritish: What is the one advice you give to students?
Sachin: One advice I give to all students is be a sponge. I repeat, be a sponge. And what I mean by that is that when you're starting your MBA journey, or your master program journey or your EMBA journey, or your even undergraduate journey, you're there to learn. So, be a sponge. Dig everything in. And over a period of time, develop a filtration process where you filter out certain things which may not be relevant to you, or maybe not directly, you know, it concerns you. But take it in first. And that's why I always tell people be a sponge.
Pritish: If not higher education, then...?
Sachin: Ah, if not higher education, then probably my first love, as I said, really advertising. I still love that part. I mean, I still watch all the ads. I still walk around on streets to see how branding is done by different brands. What are they trying to communicate? Who could be their target audience? Could they have communicated this better? Are they looking at the right target audience? So, I love this field of advertising, communication, and branding.
Pritish: The toughest thing about your job?
Sachin: The toughest thing about my job, I would say that meeting expectations of people constantly. Now, you have to understand that a lot of jobs, you actually don't interact with people much. You don't interact with your... your customer, for example, directly. You interact with only a set of people. But in my job, as I explained to you that every year, every year for the taught postgraduate programs, which I'm responsible for, which is the master-level programs, we get nearly 1500 students, okay? So, every year, 1500 new students coming in, and I have to make sure that... and these 1500 people will have different expectations. And it's... it's not easy to make sure that all the expectation or the majority of the expectation of our student community is met. I mean, we really strive hard to do that. But, yeah, that's probably the tough... toughest part.
Pritish: Okay. Thank you very much, Sachin. It was a pleasure having you on the show.
Sachin: Thank you very much, Pritish. Always a pleasure talking with you. Thank you.