Acquiring an MBA at Birmingham Business School has helped David Mellor to achieve several ambitions, not least of which is his involvement in various successful Midland companies.

Originally from outside the region, David, aged 47, is now a Midlander by adoption and very glad to be so.

A graduate of Oxford University, David has worked extensively in industry for 26 years and his graduate management training and early career were with shipping line P&O.

After six years David was appointed a director of a specialist logistics company in the defence engineering sector, handling spares and components for various leading companies. Together with two colleagues, he bought the business, Product Support Ltd, in a private-equity backed MBO and having grown it, it was subsequently acquired by Wincanton plc. David then worked in business development strategy at Wincanton Defence.

He left to undertake an MBA at the University of Birmingham Business School, after which he joined management consultancy One Point Three. David now runs his own consultancy, MDW Projects and is currently non-executive director at remote sensor manufacturer Caption Data Limited, sports technology business Plastic Castle and is an executive director at technology company , Ubiqutek, a Sutton Coldfield firm currently developing a technology that kills weeds without using herbicides.

“The businesses I have become involved in are based in the Midlands and I wanted to give something back to the region,” he said, adding that this was one of the ambitions he has fulfilled helped by the Birmingham Business School MBA. Another is that he wanted greater variety in his business life and the MBA broadened his skill set, gave him greater confidence to move into additional businesses and altogether opened his mind.

“I chose to do my MBA at Birmingham for several reasons,” he said. “By this time I was living in the Midlands and therefore wanted to study locally. Birmingham Business School really appealed because of the excellent academic atmosphere, which reminded me of my days at Oxford, and the delightful ambience of the environment of the university campus.”

“I also found the initial contact with Birmingham Business School was very friendly and welcoming. I enjoyed the breadth of the course and its international dimension, which expanded my horizons.”

David studied full-time for a year and graduated in 2011, a little older than many others.

Paul Lewis
Paul Lewis

Dr Paul Lewis, director of the Full-Time MBA at Birmingham Business School, cites the programme’s various other distinctive features, such as how it enables students to engage with real-world business problems through working with external companies.

For example, students develop leadership practice through working in small groups with early-stage companies which have spun out of University of Birmingham research across multiple disciplines.

Many students undertake summer dissertation projects with well-known companies and have the benefit of an annual Consultancy Skills Week devised and facilitated by industry practitioners.

“We are fortunate to have an extremely experienced and international Business School Advisory Board and alumni in leadership positions of multinational companies who share their valuable time with our students, whether through providing their insights in our Distinguished Leaders Seminar series, facilitating business simulations and case studies, or directly coaching individual students,” said Dr. Lewis.

“The Birmingham MBA also provides a truly international outlook, with students from over 20 nationalities comprising the current full-time cohort, each with significant management experience in their chosen field,” he said.

The average age of students on the 12-month full-time MBA is early 30s, while the executive programme, completed part-time in between two and six years, is flexible for those combining work with periods of study. The MBA is a general management degree, but electives are offered for people to specialise – at Birmingham this embraces international business, global banking and finance and strategy & procurement management.

The Birmingham MBA is triple accredited by AMBA, AACSB and EQUIS and recognised across the world for outstanding learning . It is consistently ranked in both the Financial Times and Which MBA?/Economist Global top 100 MBA programmes.