Access MBA Guide, the organisers of the Access MBA tours, interviewed me for the 2013 edition of their global publication for the MBA and Executive MBA students

1. Duncan Chapple, London Business School
The MBA is the Best Way to Drive
Business Improvement
Why did you decide to go for an EMBA?
At Ovum, I saw how the effectiveness and profitability of the firm was transformed by a new
management team with strong financial and marketing acumen. Because there are fewer
economies of scale in communications agencies, most are managed by founders who put
clients before business profitability. That's great for clients, but makes it hard to develop pre-
mium services and grow employees.
What were the most important aspects you considered
when choosing an EMBA course?
I didn't make a great start! I got the FT rankings, opened up Excel and made a ratio between
the costs and rankings. But that focused me towards high value schools, which often didn't
have the brand equity needed to attract a large, diverse group of students – or broad corpo-
rate relationships. I shopped around a lot, looking for schools that felt right and had a good
energy. After a long journey, it was obvious that focusing on the costs was sending me in
the wrong direction. The outcome to focus on the long-term career impact, not the rank-
ing, and that showed that the more costly programmes were actually better value for money.
What was the most difficult part in getting the EMBA?
My major MBA projects were the biggest challenge. One supervised by Joseph Stiglitz, a
Nobel prize winner, and the other by Paddy Barwise, a hugely important figure in British
marketing. They were incredible role models, and demanding.
Why did you decide the degree was worth pursuing?
What was your goal and how will it help you achieve
it?
My goal was to drive business improvement, and to increase my value through doing it. The
MBA seems the best way to do that but, to be honest, I underestimated how great the impact
would be. It transformed my attitude towards risks and identifying options.
What was your most valuable experience during the
study?
I was lucky enough to take a term of my part-time MBA as a full time student in the Ivy
League, at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Much of my work is with US firms
and, while every US business school is aware of the outside world, Tuck is a profoundly
American school, which gave me excellent insight into the managerial styles of US business
leaders and – needless to say – an excellent education.
How would you describe the learning environment at
London Business School?
London Business School seems to put three things above all others: group work is central
to the London experience, and I don't know another MBA with such a high amount of it; fit
to the school's goals is crucial in selection, meaning that great candidates who would ben-
efit more from some other school get redirected; values are increasingly central to the school,
giving it a more holistic feel. r
Duncan Chapple is a consultancy direc-
tor at Loudhouse, the marketing wing of
The Octopus Group of communications
agencies. After an MSc in business analy-
sis at City University in London, Duncan
was an industry analyst at Ovum follow-
ing the market for technologies that sup-
ported customer relationship marketing.
Since completing his Executive MBA at
London Business School in 2004, he has
held director-level positions in commu-
nications consultancies serving high tech-
nology solution providers.
EMBA Journal
141