Our MBA cohort welcomed Chisola Chitambala to Essex Business School to deliver a guest lecture.
Chisola recently competed on the hit reality TV series The Apprentice where she finished in the top 5. Chisola took us right back to her early student years, navigating her career, right through to getting her MBA and then competing on The Apprentice.
The early part of the journey…
Going right back to her early years, Chisola studied at a grammar school. She was initially working towards becoming a doctor, but after failing her A-levels and realising it wasn't for her, she remembered that when she was in school, she had fire in her belly when it came to business. Chisola went on to study her Business and Finance Diploma and thrived in class. There was such a big shift from studying medicine (the path her parents hoped for her) to excelling in a subject area she had a real interest in. Despite finding the path that filled her with such interest and enthusiasm, there was still that lingering wish to somehow get into medicine, so Chisola applied to study Nursing. Chisola studied Children's Nursing and enjoyed learning the anatomy and physiology, but chronic migraines impacted her career journey significantly.
At this point, Chisola deferred her course, conscious that she was getting further away from her career goals. She continued working part-time at Nando's (which she had been doing since sixth form) but wanted more, so she applied for a position in their head office. Although Chisola failed to secure this position, Nando's saw the potential and drive in her, so they created a managerial position for her. At this stage in her life, she became aware that she'd need to complete her nursing degree or risk losing the two years she'd already completed, which created another junction in her career journey. To avoid wasting the effort and study she’d previously invested in nursing, Chisola went back to complete her degree. But the drive was still there to go back into business. At this point, Chisola proceeded to do her MBA as she wanted to gain that foundation and the skills to start her own business.
Studying for her MBA…
Chisola found the leadership & strategic management elements particularly enjoyable when studying her MBA. The volume of learning and information consumed was immense, and from this, Chisola wanted to be in a role that made use of all these valuable skills the MBA had afforded her. The one module Chisola struggled with during her MBA and didn't seek help for was the Financial Decision Making. Looking back on that time Chisola realised that if she'd gained a better understanding of this module by either going back to her lecturers for help or spoken to her peers then having that basic financial understanding i.e. P&L, revenue, in goings, outgoings this would of helped her significantly when she was running her own business.
After completing her MBA, working from home through the pandemic and Chisola's love of business development, she was prompted with a friend to embark on starting her own business creating a virtual assistant. The friend’s virtual assistant business launched to support start-ups and small business owners to accelerate their growth. What started as a part time role very quickly developed to a full-time role. Word of mouth recommendations brought in more clients and in a short space of time the two friends were at capacity, working around the clock. In addition, at this time, Chisola was still working her NHS job. She very quickly realised she couldn't continue this long term, and as the self-employment virtual assistant business was thriving, Chisola parted ways with her full-time role in the NHS. Their business grew quickly, which wasn't necessarily the best thing for them. One of the main lessons Chisola and her friend learned was to get their processes right and established before you get to the point of growth.
Chisola's advice to the MBA audience was to focus on fully understanding the elements of the MBA that they feel they lack full understanding of as those, in the future, could be the difference between the success and failure of your business.
Chisola and her business partner were then approached by a client who wanted to 'acquihire' their business (when a company acquires another company primarily to gain access to its employees' skills and expertise, rather than for the acquired company's products, services, or other assets) and wanted them to stay on as employees. After much deliberation, they decided to decline the offer as they recognised what they were building was something that they really wanted; they were the owners of this company, the directors! If they gave that away, they'd be back to the situation where they weren't business owners anymore.
The business partners decided this was a good opportunity, but instead of going full steam ahead with their company's marketing, they took a step back. They sought the accounting expertise they needed, invested time and money into training their team. This made the partners realise how important it is in business to be flexible and that it's okay to change the goalposts for your business.
Chisola firmly believes the areas of knowledge she picked up through her MBA in leadership, product management, marketing, and P&L enabled her and allowed her not only to compete in The Apprentice but also to finish in a very respectable position.
When asked if Chisola would do the MBA again, her answer was swift and without question.... absolutely! Because of the amount she learned, the structure it gave her, accelerating her thinking, she perceives her MBA as being the beginning of her career and in her opinion, should be seen as a launchpad to one’s career. The MBA allowed Chisola to practically apply all the theoretical knowledge she'd acquired. For example, the skills that Chisola acquired during her MBA helped her to deal with the fast growth of her company, at the same time, having the confidence and resilience to take her time, take stock and slowdown, which was the best thing to do to ensure the business went in the right direction and was a success.
The Apprentice and the personal brand…
Appearing on The Apprentice was a learning curve in many respects for Chisola.
If in business you have a disagreement with a colleague, when you go home at the end of the day, quite often, that disagreement stays at work, whereas when appearing on The Apprentice and because of the competitive nature of the programme, when contestants went back to the house they were living in together at the end of the working day, many contestants weren't speaking to each other!
Taking part in The Apprentice and the public attention it in turn brought, really made Chisola think about how she really wanted to be seen. From being on the show and 'in the public eye' her social media pages were being viewed more and more, so Chisola and her brother who worked in PR worked on her image, particularly on social media, and how she wanted to be seen. Chisola wanted to make her content relatable but also to answer the questions 'who are you?' and 'what do you stand for?' She combined some business gems but also showing female empowerment and showing her own personality. Chisola talks about her journey on her profile which she feels is an important part of her personal brand. Chisola is a firm believer that authenticity is very important in your personal brand, for example she tries to not rely on AI tools too heavily, for example ChatGPT as it's getting more and more easy to see when someone has produced some written content that's gone through the ChatGPT platform. Being authentic helps to show that you're being true to yourself and who you really are.
Chisola wanted to express that, ultimately, careers and journeys do not have to be linear. Some people do have linear careers, but she understands that careers don't need to be linear to be impactful. Her journey from school to the present day has been far from linear, yet all aspects of her path have shaped her into the person she is today. Every part of that journey has aligned to enable her to be where she is now and to achieve the success she has today.
Chisola's parting advice to our MBA cohort was to not only ensure they lean into all the elements they learn in their MBAs, but also to think about how they can practically apply those tools, knowledge and skills to their businesses or careers. To make sure they make use of the key takeaways from each of the modules that can be applied to the next stage of their lives and understand that studying for the MBA is just the beginning, a stepping stone that will allow them to keep growing, keep learning and keep adapting and getting closer to their ultimate goals.
