Tonight was such a coincidence. I e-mailed a friend whom I knew was spending a lot of time in Asia to let her know that I was going to be in Shanghai this weekend. She replied telling me that she had a better offer: she was going to be in Singapore tonight!

With this !@$)@%)&(& (and I am being polite) class until 10.30pm, we ended up meeting up for dinner at 11pm but hey!

First of all - it is of course very nice too see a familiar face and have the opportunity to spend time with someone that you both respect and genuinely like. Second, it is refreshing to hear news of the real world, the world of dirty realities, hard work, real people, real products, real customers. And real money.

No matter how exciting this year has been - and how important it is to create a safe environemnt for us to learn in - I miss the real world. I like operations, customers, deal making. I like the excitment, the uncertainty. I like the people, the effort, the satisfaction, the frustrations. I like going to work every day with the knowledge that I will do something.
Now, when I work, I miss studying and formal learning - but this friend had a great lesson for me: she had to brush up some of her managerial accounting skills for her job so she decided to apply for a Managerial Accounting certification programme.

My friend was so passionate and enthusiastic about her job that I could have signed up with the company here and then. First of all, the job had everything one could dream of - it sounded so good that I was wondering if it wasn't a school case study.

It is a small and fast growing firm - extremely successful and strategic. Already, it has some of the elements that would appeal to a lot of entrepreneurs not desirous to put up with the huge mess at the very beginning but in search of a spirit of novelty and renewal.
She has a fantastic boss who gives her plenty of latitude. She sets her own objectives and freely discusses priorities. She has people to supervise and the great satisfaction to grow them into fantastic contributors. She enjoys 200% growth level. She likes operations and she does operations. She gets a superb appartment in Penang for her business trips to Malaysia. And she is rewarded by loads of happy customers, both internally and externally, a successful products and the knowledge that what she is producing is actually being used!

I am SO happy for my friend. She is extremely smart and full of energy and I am sure that all this has been instrumental in her success. I am not surprised in the least to hear about her success stories (by the way, she holds an MBA too, but not from INSEAD).
She is good with numbers, fast thinking, organized, motivated, with an acute business sense - and committed to a team to get the job done.
Her true passion for the company and the people that she works for and with is communicative. The industry needs a lot of these people who can really enthuse and inspire.

I am going to be in touch. I need to find out about opportunities over there, this sounds way too good to be true. We also have made plans to meet in Malaysia in a few weeks. I will fly over for a weekend so taht we can do some sightseeing together.

Good luck to you!